I've been fighting my local zoning board for several years to be allowed to raise chickens on my property and finally I've won the right to have six chickens. Hooray! Only problem is now I have to learn how to raise chickens. That's where Gail Damerow's The Chicken Encyclopedia comes in.

For someone who can't read a How-to book on chickens because they don't know the lingo, this is the book you want to have right next to you when you read those other books. I guarantee you will turn to it again and again.

The Chicken Encyclopedia is truly an encyclopedia with A-Z entries about everything chicken. You'll find information on chicken breeds, chicken anatomy, chicken diseases and methods of raising chickens. The best thing about this book isn't the multitude of entries. It is the splendid full color photographs. Even if you've never seen a chicken in person you'll be able to pick out a Buff Orpington from a Rhode Island Red!

This is definitely one of the best chicken books I've read so far, and I've read a lot of them. I plan to keep The Chicken Encyclopedia handy when my feathered friends finally take up residence in their coop on my little homestead and maybe I'll even have it with me when I go chicken shopping in the hatchery catalogs to make sure I get exactly the kind of chicken I'm looking for. 
 
Reviewed By Shawn Marie Mann
© January 2012