Chickens: The Essential Guide to Choosing and Keeping Happy, Healthy Hens by Suzie Baldwin

by Suzie Baldwin, Becca Thorne (Illustrator), Cristian Barnett (Photographer)

Keeping chickens is fun, relaxing, and low maintenance, plus you have the added benefit of your own known source of fresh eggs. In Chickens, poultry breeders Graham Page and Suzie Baldwin offer a practical guide to everything the beginner needs to know, from whether to buy chicks or hens, what varieties to chose, how to tell if you're buying a healthy chicken and how to ensure it stays that way, to how many chickens you should keep, and what kind of coop to buy. They also answer all the questions commonly posed by first-time owners, from whether chickens ever fly away and how quickly they will start laying, to how to prevent them being attacked by foxes and what to do when they become unwell.

Genres: Reference, Nonfiction, Animals

Paperback

First published March 22, 2012

Reviews

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a comprehensive, useful and sensitively written guide to keeping chickens in domestic and small-holding situations that shows the author's passion for these animals as well as her extensive knowledge and experience. Baldwin covers everything from whether chickens are right for you and getting starting to collecting eggs, keeping your chickens happy and what to do as they reach the end of their lives, including the inevitable dispatching. She even goes through some of the hundreds of available chicken breeds and their general characteristics and suitability for different needs and wants.

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's a good basic guide to keeping chickens, easy to read with a lot of info written in an accessible style.

I just wish more photos were tagged with the breed and more photos accompanied the breeds chapter. There were lots of artsy chicken photos, which was nice, but I would have loved to see them more relevant to the text.

I also didn't realize that this was written in the UK until about part-way through, I think that ought to be a little more clear.

[BM · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great book. Best one I have found on the subject. Well laid out and very informative. I've met Suzie Baldwin at her new Hollywater Hens smallholding in Hampshire (http://hollywaterhens.co.uk) and her genuine enthusiasm really does shine through in this book as well as it does in person. The book covers everything and more that I needed to know as a beginner to keeping chickens. I'm sure I will be referring back to it as I become more experienced.

[Alan Fricker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cluck cluck

[4C · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have been reading a chicken book called Chickens and so far I think it is high quality and very well written. This book explains how to keep chickens and what breeds to start with first it also tells stories of people that have gotten into chickens by keeping and learning about breeds.
I personally think this book is great and have learned quite a bit just by reading the first few pages.
I give this book a rating of 4.5/5 at this moment in time.