The Back Yard Flock by, Mike Strecker
All of the forums are great but not nearly as handy as the book. That's just my opinion. I love the forums too. You can find the same information in a monthly publication too but not as handy as holding a to the point book in your hands. The diseases are classified by catagory as well in the book, catagories like ....Airborne diseases.....intestinal diseases....etc. Thats usefull because if you can take 1 quick look at a bird and tell by the way he is standing that he has an intestinal disease. Many of that type infections or diseases are taken care of by 1 or 2 medicines. Soon you will learn which medicines you should always have on hand so you will be prepaired to stop an outbreak dead in it's tracks without have to wait for identification then paying a huge amount for express shipping. There is not a lot of time wasted reading in this small paperback. It's direct and to the point and tells you how to identify each particular disease and which medicines will get rid of the problem and how much of a particular medicine to use and how to use it. You'll also learn that sulfa drugs are great to get rid of some diseases but if you run it in your birds water to long it is a deadly poision and causes liver failure!
I'm certainly not saying not to rely on the forum ....I'm here to. It's just been my experience that, this 1 book has been more helpful to me than all the forums. I don't sell books, hey I don't even like to read! That's why I used this book. Their is very little time wasted reading and it's easy to understand. I'm a very poor reader and read really slow but I can digest this book in 1 or 2 evenings reading. Then I still have it to refer back to and can quickly identify a disease by myself and never leave the chicken yard. You will soon be able to just walk thru your chicken yard and identify 90% of your dieseases with your eyes and ears, so keep them open and pay attention. Occasionally you will need to smell the beak for a fowl odor. I would have to refer back to the book to tell you which medicines you should keep on hand in addition to 2 or 3 different types of wormers. But less than 6 medicines will treat 90% of all your common outbreaks. Pay express shipping a few times and you'll find it's cheaperto keep a few medicines on hand. This is all just my opinion and experience learned the hard way.