The Joy of Keeping Chickens: The Ultimate Guide to Raising Poultry for Fun or Profit

by Jennifer Megyesi, Geoff Hansen (Photographer)

Finally backyard farmers who want to keep a few hens for eggs have a bible that's attractive enough to leave out on the coffee table, and inexpensive enough to purchase on a whim. This comprehensive guide, written in charming prose from the perspective of an organic farmer, will appeal to readers who are interested in raising chickens, or simply want the best knowledge about how to cook them. With this in mind, farmer and animal expert Jennifer Megyesi discusses all the basic details of raising the birds—general biology, health, food, choosing breeds, and so on—and she cuts through the smoke to identify what terms like "organic," "free-range," and so on really mean for poultry farmers and consumers.

No chicken book would be complete without information on how to show chickens for prizes, and this is no different, but The Joy of Keeping Chickens also stresses the importance of self-sustainability and organic living, and the satisfaction of keeping heirloom breeds. Readers will appreciate the comprehensive nature of this readable, informative guide, and Megyesi's enthusiasm about keeping chickens. Coupled with Geoff Hansen's gorgeous full-color photographs, this text makes for an instant classic in the category.

Genres: Nonfiction, Agriculture, Animals, Gardening, Reference

272 pages, Paperback

First published February 25, 2009

Reviews

[Leslie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Subtitle is "the Ultimate Guide to Raising Poultry for Fun or Profit", but the book fails to come close to the Ultimate Guide claim, and completely omits any number crunching guide essential to a goal of Profit, or even knowing your costs. There is no useful information about pastured poultry management, and just a nod toward preparing tour own feed in lieu of commercial feed. But there's lots of guidance toward fun, appreciation of the chooks, and especially, some very good egg recipes. This book has as straightforward (and comforting) a set of instructions on how to kill and eviscerate a meat bird as I have read anywhere.

[Dayna · Rating 3 out of 5]

My opinion of The Joy of Keeping Chickens is the same as my opinion of Jennifer Megyesi's Root Cellar book ... it has beautiful photographs, her writing is engaging, and I like the quotes at the beginning of each chapter. But it is not an "ultimate guide." If I get serious about raising chickens, I'll be looking at other guides in addition to this book. But this book will give you the general idea, as in I learned enough to know that I will never be butchering my own chickens. If I ever get to raise chickens it will probably be just for eggs.

[KA · Rating 2 out of 5]

Lots of gorgeous photos, good stories, but not as practicaly helpful as Living with Chickens. Sometimes downright confusing.

[Patty · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book. It is well rounded and covers enough about multiple topics to give a good starting point for those who want to keep or get more involved with chickens.

[Joanna · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m new at raising chickens—we had some when I was in high school but I wasn’t really into them—but now we’ve got some again and this time these birds are mine. I picked them out. I saved the two special needs chicks (one died; the other has miraculously almost fixed her gimpy leg). And I have taken care of them, spent time with them, and documented every second of their few months of life with me.

But I know next to nothing about chickens. My mom knows a bit more than me, but we’re still pretty new at this.

So when I picked up this book I was starting from nothing. Is this the best book on chickens? I don’t know. Does it contain all knowledge on raising birds? I don’t know.

What I do know is that it is well-written, an actual enjoyable read for a book that is teaching you something and relaying knowledge. I also know that I have marked nearly a third of the pages as reference spots, places I know I’ll come back to again and again as I learn to rear my own babies and collect their eggs. For example, we’re in the process of building a coop from scratch with scrap materials and with, again, not too much foreknowledge of how to do that, and I noted several key factors for a coop that we’ll need to make sure we include as we continue construction.

TLDR; I don’t know if this is the best book on chickens there is but it’s a damn good one and I’m glad to have it on my shelf.

[Shannan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cute book on the care of keeping chicken - moreso the farmhouse chick, not the suburban backyard chicken. Good information on care. What I liked most is that this book has personal stories interlaced with the care information. That makes the book read more like a story rather than a nonfiction book. However, not interesting enough to keep me reading through the entire book.

[Erica · Rating 5 out of 5]

Only had time to do a deep skim of this book before it was due back to the library, but it looks to be a top-notch guide, well organized, with beautiful pictures.
Many chicken books I've read not offer recipes for using eggs and chicken. I can't really wrap my head around this, because I would guess that people that want to raise chickens know WHY and HOW they're going to use eggs and meat! I think it might be because there's a growing market for chicken books for people that aren't actually keeping chickens, only dreaming about it...but really, do they even need recipes at the back?!

[Anna Catherman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pros:
*Fun
*Pretty
*Very readable
*Offers most of the basic information a backyard chicken keeper needs to know

Cons:
*Doesn't go into much detail
*Title is a bit misleading, it's not the ultimate guide for either fun or profit, although it definitely leans towards the "fun" side

[Carol · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m not sure this would be the book I’d go to if I was serious about a chicken business, but for a beginner wanting to learn how to start a small flock, it’s full of helpful information. Enough so that I will likely buy a copy for reference.

[Anita · Rating 4 out of 5]

Full of information but sometimes I felt like it breezes over some topics without enough detail.

[Marjorie W · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thought that there’d be more guidance/suggestions on how to create markets for eggs/chickens.
Good book for basic care.

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

I skipped all of the personal anecdotes and just read the content I needed. Very helpful and did enjoy the voice of the writer.

[Trish · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of helpful information about chickens.

[Evans · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think "The Ultimate Guide" is a bit of a stretch, but it's a great primer for people new to chickens. A nice collection of solid foundational information.

[Furbjr · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a wonderful book about keeping chickens. It is a little less helpful if you are not living in northern New England (as I live in Utah), but the photographs, and the intimate stories of raising, caring for, and eventually eating chickens was thoughtfully put together. I think that if it were not for the wonderful narrative provided by Megyesi, and the vivid photographs provided by Hansen, I would have enjoyed the book far less.

I bought this book to help me learn how to take care of the chicks that I bought a couple of weeks before Easter. While this book did not help me avert catastrophe (one of my chickens was attacked by a chihuahua and later died, one of my chickens is now a teenage runaway living in a van down by the river) it did provide a general idea of what I need to do (and what I need to stop doing) in order to be successful in raising a small flock of laying hens.

Megyesi often says that she was repeatedly warned not to name her chickens. Yet she refers often to hers by name. She might name them all, but I doubt it, as she has stated that she has at least one hundred of them. I only have eight. I have named them all. All of them have girl names, including our lone rooster, Martha. We've now hyphenated that to Martha-Stew, as that is what he will become, because really, he is a total a**hole.

I've used a lot of the techniques and pointers given by the author in this book. It doesn't seem to be terribly well organized for a reference book, but it was a really fun book to read, and the images are stunning. Well worth the time. Also, having spent quite a bit of time in the Upper Connecticut River Valley, where the author lives, I can really relate to what she says. I really liked this book.

[Ami · Rating 3 out of 5]

Due to my spouse's illness, I spent my New Year's Eve reading this book and playing Farmville on my facebook account (don't judge, it's the closest I can get to a real farm for a few more months). The gorgeous photography in this book made me want to love it. Alas, I did not.

The information was a little to glib and too shallow for my needs. I feel that is pushed too deeply for the casual reader, focusing briefly on technicalities rather than why one should raise chickens, yet it did not push deep enough for a serious want-to-be farmer such as myself. The subtitle hails this book as an "Ultimate Guide." After reading "Storey's Guide to Raising Chickens," I found this to be a serious exaggeration.

[Janet · Rating 5 out of 5]

Other books discuss the reason people get chickens - for eggs - and how to obtain chickens - mainly from hatcheries, but this author discusses raising chickens for meat or show and hatching them from eggs at home, either with a hen or incubator. Her appendices provide a list of additional resources for further education. Although I didn't read the chapters on showing chickens or raising them for meat, these chapters make this book the most thorough out of all the books I have read on raising chickens.

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

Maybe a decent “general info” starters guide to backyard chickens, but certainly NOT the “chicken Bible” that publishers claim it to be. Poorly edited and only decently written, a lot of information is missing. From incorrect words, to graphs with half the info missing, to whole sections left out (example: the writer talking about the living conditions of chickens through various stages of their lives, but the description stops at week 3), it leaves a lot to be desired by true beginners. This $15 dollar book is probably worth roughly half what I paid for it.

[Theophilus (Theo) · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fun read (and yes, it's all about chickens). I learned there are other pets than dogs and cats and the like. I don't think I'll run out and buy a couple of chickens, but now I know where to get some easy to follow instructions and sound advice on how to look for and take care of a personal living instant breakfast machine. Or baking ingredient dispenser. It could have had more pictures of the different breeds of chickens for my taste (pun intended).

[Allison · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a book with advice and info on keeping chickens (duh). It included many stories and pictures from the author's chicken keeping friends also. It was an enjoyable and informative read. I really liked the chart showing each breed of chicken and it's temperament, broodiness, productiveness, egg color, hardiness, etc. It did cover both egg laying chickens and meat birds. I WANT SOME CHICKENS NOW!

[Wendy Hall · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book for information on how this city/suburb girl can raise chickens now that she is in the country (and has thirteen chickens now). It was definitely informative and the beautiful photos and the narratives throughout the book made it an enjoyable read as well. Made me excited that we had made the choice to raise chickens and it was good to read now that we have them (about 7 weeks old), as I have a framework for understanding what I read.

[Jennifer]

I am really enjoying this. I got it with some others to look up again some tips for the chickens, particularly about a new coop and introducing new to old. But once I had solved those problems, I decided to go ahead and read the whole thing. I mostly skimmed the parts about meat birds, since we aren't doing that. I found some of the egg stuff interesting, like about how long they can be stored, as well as recipes, like for pickling eggs.

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is such a great resource!! I love the excitement and enjoyment the author expresses for her chickens throughout the book. The book definitely help guide me as to which hens are best for my egg laying needs and climate. It also details alot of the needs of chickens ie. feed, housing, space requirements.

[Jacqueline J · Rating 3 out of 5]

Okay book about chickens. USA based book. No big section with pics of all the breeds but rather there was a breed chart with the pertinent info. Talks about coops of course but no actual plans or layouts. Includes recipes. Includes info on meat chickens in addition to layers. Includes recipes.

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a great guide to chickens no matter what you want them for: egg laying, meat, or show animals. If I can ever get the narrow-minded jerks on the county board of supervisors where I live to change the ordiances I will be getting some chickens and definitely buying this book as a resource.

[Abby · Rating 4 out of 5]

Clear, well-written guide to rearing backyard chickens, whether for eggs, meat, or both. Best book I've read so far on chickens. She's also a skillful writer, and the book is filled with charming and occasionally helpful personal anecdotes. Recommended to those venturing into backyard chicken rearing.

[Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the more helpful books I've read for people just starting out with chickens. You'll have to consult another source if you really want to get in depth, but this book provides a basic overview of just about everything you need.

[Lee Ann · Rating 3 out of 5]

While this book has some good information, it's the basics at best. If you are looking for a guide to help you start raising chickens, I've found Storey's to be the most comprehensive "how to" for chicken newbies.

[B Zimp · Rating 2 out of 5]

An informative book on raising chickens. I didn't find much new information, but I liked the pictures and stories. The history section was interesting - Egyptians used ovens to incubate up to 90,000 eggs at a time and hatched ~20,000,000 chicks a year!

[bookreader · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really enjoyed this book, written well, funny little chicken keeping stories mixed in with the how to knowledge and a few beautiful photos. If I were to become an author l, this is what I would wish to write.