All About Chickens

Starting With Chickens
by Katie Thear

This book was immensly helpful to me when I was just starting to learn about how to keep chickens. It covers all the basics, in a simple and easy to use way. The author, Katie Thear, writes monthly for Country Smallholding magazine, where she helps readers with their poultry-related questions.

Most useful for it's information on various breeds, as opposed to the relatively limited information on keeping them.

The New Complete Book of Self Sufficiency
John Seymour

A good hop, skip and a jump through different areas of being self-sufficient. However, there is only about a double-page spread on chickens themselves. John Seymour was a very respected writer on the subject of self-sufficiency up until his death in 2004 at the age of 90.

Hen and the Art of Chicken Maintenance
Martin Gurdon

A light-hearted look at one man's experiences of keeping a few pet chickens in suburbia. Very funny, although you won't find much factual information in here.

Still Life With Chickens
Catherine Goldhammer

Much like Hen and the Art of Chicken Maintenance, this is the story of how Goldhammer got divorced, got chickens, and moved herself, her daughter and her chickens from a wealthy area of town to an eccentric town by the sea. There are quite a few things in here that ring very true with me, such as "more than other animals, in my experience, there is always something. Something is wrong with the coop, the roost is too low, the ventilation inadequate. You run out of bedding. You run out of food. You run out of grit, or scratch (grain) or sunflower seeds. They need more protein, they need more calcium, they need more grass. They get dirty, or they get worms, or mites, or fungus. Their toes fall off. Their beaks fall off. Their feet fall off. Their combs fall off" So true . . . And I also kind of get a mention in the acknowledgements when she says "To Wes in Texas and the masters of Backyard Chickens who got us through".

Storey's Guide to Raising Chickens
Gail Damerow

A very good book on almost everything you need to know about raising chickens. Highly recommended.

The Chicken Health Handbook
Gail Damerow

If you only have one book on chicken diseases, it has to be this one. Excellent diagnostic charts will tell you what your chicken most likely has, and then gives you enough information on that disease to treat it. Excellent.

Extraordinary Chickens
Stephen Green-Armitage

A nice coffee-table book with lots of nice pictures of pretty chickens, with particular focus on those with large crests and feathered feet etc. No information on actually keeping them though.

Keeping Pet Chickens
Johannes Paul

Written by one of the founders of the eglu company, and this book seeks to promote the eglu as the best coop on the market (it most certainly is not). I had a look at it in the bookshop and frankly, I found it patronising. The text was fairly large and there wasn't much infomation. About the best thing in this book is the pretty photographs. Probably useful for those without a clue, but if you've read all the information on this website you don't need this book.