Constructing a Library of Chicken Information- recommendations needed

Bantimna

Songster
10 Years
Sep 29, 2009
5,089
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South Africa
I'm trying to build up a wealth of information on chickens.
So far I have:
Raising Chickens for Dummies by Rob Ludlow (Nifty) and Kimberly Willis (gardeninggrannie)
Storey's Guide to Chicken Breeds by Carol Ekarius
What other books are essential to have? My idea to do this is because I want to educate the local children in my neighbourhood about chicken hygiene, raising chickens, taking care of them, holding them and so..... I'm thinking of investing in Gail Damerow's Guide to Chicken Diseases, is it really worth getting a book like this?

Note: My local Library doesn't hold any book/s conserning chickens at all.
 
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Good to know a fellow BYCer is working on something too!
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Gail Damerow's Guide to Chicken Diseases

Not sure about that one, but Storey's Chicken Health Handbook is great. I wouldn't just sit down and read through it, though, or you'll never want to even get started, LOL. It's a bit overwhelming, to say the least, but when you have symptoms you need to assess, it's really great.​
 
I have Gail Demerow's Guide to Chicken Diseases. When I first went through it I was totally overwhelmed and wondered if I should even have chickens. Every little sneeze or funny looking poop had me digging in her book to find out which disease they had, talk about being paranoid, sheesh! I then found this site and all is well, no diseases....just normal chicken stuff that they do. Since you're going to educate children about chickens, I'd keep it simple for them on a broad range of subjects. I think it would be easier for them to absorb the information. Just my thoughts. I think it's an outstanding undertaking you're doing and I hope it goes well for you.
 
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I hear what ya say. So far I've got 2 children my age wanting to help with making a brooder, cleaning/preparing a coop etc...
I'll take a look at Storey's Chicken Health Handbook, would it be best to just give them a brief over view of health? Or maybe just be quite until a chicken has symptoms of sickness?
 
Couple three items, not on the beaten path, that come in handy and are free:

U.S.G.S. Field Manual of Wildlife Disease (birds) detailed and, as they used to say, profusely illustrated: http://www.nwhc.usgs.gov/publications/field_manual/

Anatomy
of the domestic fowl: Benjamin Franklyn Kaupp (his other books are handy as well) if you need to know which muscle is causing ticks in the hen's left `cheek', or you need to make your own chloroform or ether for surgery, this is your guy: http://books.google.com/books?q=anatomy+of+the+domestic+fowl+Benamin+Franklyn+Kaupp

Avian
Medicine: Principles and Applications (primary focus is on companion birds, but chapter on Gallinaceous species and an excellent formulary). As the author, Harrison, has been `redesigning' his `web presence' and selling hardcovers of the text on Amazon, I don't know how much longer the book will be available for free download: http://www.avianmedicine.net/ampa.html

If
you don't have adobe PDF viewer installed, lucky you. You can download a substitute that isn't such a resource hog and isn't going to be calling home: http://www.docu-track.com/
 
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