Customer Reviews
Basic information for beginners but some stuffing and vague about important detail in parts - By: T. Lockyer, 09 Aug 2008 
A standard work often providedin starter kits & it covers the basicsin a simple easy to read fashion. Katie Thear is an experienced keeper & she includes some useful tips she's picked up from her own experiences. However I find the subject poorly researched & the information rather sketchyin places & lackingin consistency. It's rather like she has written it just from her own knowledge & experiences only. Some areas she dwells onin uneccessary detail for beginners needs while others which need a more detailed explaination are just skimmed over. There's also some uneccessary padding with brief chapters on showing & breeding which aren't of much interest to beginners & don't contain enough detail to enable anyone to get involved anyway. She has written a book on incubation so I suspect if you want to expand your hobby to breeding you can read that. The chapter on breeds is probably more comprehensive than beginners need & covers far more breeds than is really neccessary. If you are going to cover breeds their suitability for beginners should be at least be discussed but it reads a bit like a indiscriminating ragbag list of breeds she has come across with each breed being describedin an inconsistent manner. It only gives a passing coverage to raising birds for the table & really is aimed at keeping layers. The index is just attrocius making it useless as a quick reference. Having said all this it does contain some sound advice for beginners from an experienced keeper though it falls well short of a decent reference book.
Good info but few colour pics - By: TPFringe, 17 Jul 2008 This book has a fair amount of good information but disapointingly it has mostly black & white pictures - which seems very old fashioned these days. It has a large section on purebreeds which I think could've been reducedin order to make way for more of the useful information on care and/or health.
Heritage breeds not mentioned - By: E.M.O, 23 May 2008 This book is okay & gives a good amount of information. However, it would have been good to mention that there are so-called heritage chickenin most countries. These chicken breeds are endangered & many countries have special programs of conserving them. It is, of course, nice to have dozens of fancy chicken breeds to choose from but it would be a good thing to remind people that own, national, culturally & historically important heritage breeds should always be the priority. Also, those are the chicken breeds that are most accustomed to local climate. For example,in Scandinavian area, there are many breeds that survivein harsh conditions & like to go out evenin the snow. It is of course understandable that a small book cannot review all the breedsin the world. However, just a small note of the existence of heritage breeds would encourage people to search for more information on the topic. Other than that the book is okay & I really like the general tone of promoting self-sufficient lifestyle.
Great starter book - By: Spry Crisp & Dry, 17 Oct 2007 
Very helpful book if you're thinking of keeping chooksin your back garden, all basic information you'll need, I found though that a lot of space was given over to the different breeds which could have been used for more details on looking after chickens, but would recommend it to anyone.
A great book & British too! - By: Dendera, 24 Aug 2007 
There are a lot of great books out there for beginners, but most of them are American, so the resources pages are not helpful to those of us starting outin the UK.
This book is published by Broad Leys, who are a small independent British publishers specialisingin books for smallholders, homesteaders, poultry keepers & organic gardeners.
Exactly what I was looking for!
