Do book editors not proof this stuff?!

[CityGirlintheCountry]

You will all be interested to know that according to "The Ultimate Urban Homesteading" book, roosters are only fertile in March and April. Mmmmmhmmmm. If that's true my hens have some 'splainin' to do. There do seem to be a BUNCH of little tiny chickens running around right now.

I must say that since I read that one sentence I now hesitate to believe anything else in the book.

 

[redhen]

 

[SallyF]

When my kids were little, they wanted gerbils. Being a dutiful mom, I checked a couple of pet books about gerbils. One said that gerbils were hard to breed. The other said that gerbils would reproduce until the cage reached a certain population density, then stop. We proved both of those books wrong. We went from two gerbils to forty gerbils in a matter of weeks, and i was giving them away to pet stores and telling them not to tell me what they did with them after I walked out the door. I don't believe anything I read after that.

 

[cafarmgirl]

Quote:

Two to 40....

Sorry, I'm sure it wasn't funny at the time! Same thing happened to us with hamsters! We didn't quite get to 40 though. Bought my son one hamster. Hmmm, one morning there 9 hamsters. She'd been prego. And darn, those little things start trying to breed like almost immediately! Took all but the mother back to the original pet store and no more hamsters for us!

And that about roosters only fertile in March and April??!!

Good grief, you'd think if a person is going to write a book they'd at least do a tiny bit of research! Unbelieveable! Sure seems like there'd be a chicken shortage if their breeding was so limited!

 

[CityGirlintheCountry]

Sally- that is hysterical! Bet that was a shock! Where did you put 40 hamsters?! Holy cow!

I confess that I had to go reread that sentence a couple of times. It was so unbelievably wrong that I am shocked it made it through the editorial process. Wow. Just wow. Now I want to comb through the book and see how many other fallacies I can find.

 

[mulewagon]

I've noticed that even with the very reputable, well-researched books - my chickens haven't read them!

 

[lauralou]

Makes me want to write a book on nuclear physics... I'm qualified, right?

 

[theoldchick]

I'd fire the fact-checker.

 

[lauralou]

And I want to know who's been sneaking into your coop at night and artificially inseminating your hens. That's really creepy...

 

[mhwc56]

i'm pretty sure that the proof reading is only for misspelled words and the like not actual information supplied in the book.