The Mini Encyclopaedia on Chicken Breeds & Care is an extremely informative, and illustrated guide to keeping chickens. The popularity of pet chickens is increasing all the time, as they're being discovered as simple to keep pets. They make great companions and provide a free supply of fresh eggs. The author of the encyclopaedia is an expert on chickens, and intent on helping those who are newcomers to chicken ownership, to ensure that as much knowledge as possible is provided, so that the correct level of care can be given.
My 13 year old daughter has wanted this book for sometime and of course as a book lover I also had to have my turn. It has a lot of great information about chickens especially if your just getting started not a book someone with a lot of experience raising chickens would find as helpful as the information is more beginner based I feel. It is mostly the types of breeds and pictures of them. If your looking for that this is the book and that is what my daughter was after as it was the perfect gift for a beginner chick lover.
About one quarter basic advice on chicken rearing and the rest is on breeds - which I skipped. The relevant first quarter includes stuff on hatching eggs and breeding hens etc, again of no interest to us. But the couple of dozen general pages were quite useful and since this was borrowed from the library at no cost I can safely say it was worth every penny. For a novice hen-keeper, however, I wouldn't shell out for this (pardon the pun).
Very informative. Even though I've read a ton on chicken books I still learned something, like about chicken lice! One thing he did say that annoyed me was about how many chicken breeds have looked the same for hundreds of years, but then he didn't give any examples of what he meant. I guess he didn't have to, but since he mentioned it, an example would've been nice.
This is a great little book to get one started with chickens. It gives the basics of care, housing, feeding, breeding and showing and introduces the breeds. The information is well done and accurate.
I rate this book 4 and a half stars, because it was easy to read and very basic, and great for people getting into chickens, I highly recommend this book because it is very detailed, for example it taught me that pekins are one of the most if not the most loved breed of the bantams.
Light on details, but throughly interesting. This is clearly aimed at those who wish to breed and show a few strains. Not much practical advice for choosing laying stock.