Chick Days: An Absolute Beginner's Guide to Raising Chickens from Hatching to Laying

I highly recommend this book. It taught me most things I know about hens.

This book started Starburst and my chicken keeping career. We had seen the book on the shelf, read it, and were instantly hooked.
I enjoy the writing style, design, funny stories, details, and it’s a great guide for those getting started.

This is the best chicken book I have ever read! I researched chickens for three years+ before getting mine, and of all of the articles and books I've read this one takes the cake. Some people (not to point fingers) are complaining that they did't learn from the book, but keep in mind that this book is supposed to be simple. It's supposed to give people the basics. I learned almost everything I needed to know from this book, with no junk. It was nice how straight forward the book was. The first time I read it I skipped the reflections from the author and in doing that I learned the basics of chicken keeping without any excess information I didn't need. After a few specific questions to my friends I was all set! If you want chickens buy this book!

I love this book! I read it in two days and it was just wonderful! She even made a diary about her chicks growing up! Wonderful book! If you are a chicken raising beginner get this book!

Like I said above under pros, this book has a lot of helpful ideas and pictures. I knew just what to do when I raised my chicks while referring to this book.It doesn't talk much about illnesses, pecking order, and injures like I'd have wanted, but otherwise, it's a great book!

I got this book for Christmas and love it! When we got chicks I would read along with the book and compare our situations. I also used the book as a reference for helping my younger sisters with 4-H projects.

This is a great book to have on hand as a reference guide, especially for children and 1st time chick raisers. Though a quick and easy 'read', its really the ready- reference aspect that makes this book an asset to a young library. Daily then weekly development and chick needs are broken into easy to find chapters, making it fun for kids to follow along and look ahead with their own chick's growth. But the format also makes it simple to look up info for the specific age frame you need help with

Pesky kid at the brooder jabbering off questions while youre cleaning? Go look it up kid!
What temp is the brooder supposed to be this week? Simply open the chapter for 'Week 3' and start skimming for temp info. Chapters are short 2-3 page deals, with simple paragraphs making it fun and not intimidating for a child to search through. Great easy information, and a great opportunity to work on those research skills with your kids! And from a real book, not an online source!

The book is full of chicken humor for us adults and is an informative reference book for all ages. Especially if new to chickens or in a rush and need to look up a specific brooder fact. Not even a conclusive Chicken101, it wont serve an already knowledgable chicken addict. But its a great book to inspire excitement in newbies and young chicken fans. Great book to buy Before you get chicks, lots of early info thats helpful for those first days of a chickie's life.

The very best feature of the book is the photography of the flock of 3 as they grow from 2 days old to laying hens. Even more fun if youre raising one of the flock; an Easter Egger, Buff Orphington, and a Rhode Island Red. The week by week pictures and brief updates from their newbie owner are fun and enjoyable to follow along with. Great to see actual modern, clear pics of how they set up their heat lamp, fashioned a tiny roost from twigs, ect. The story and photography of that first time chicken family could have made for its own book. And a great one at that!

I was wanting to get chicks, but knew none of the finer points of raising them. Now I do!

This book has a somewhat confusing format, in that it is both a sort of memoir of new chicken owners together with advice and information from someone with years of chicken keeping experience. It can be less than entirely clear which passages are the musings of newbies and which are supposedly sage advice. So for example, you come across a passage in which the (newbie) authors think that their chicken wiping its beak on the ground is strange and unusual behavior. There is an appendix with a useful breed chart, although it breaks broody up into a yes/no category, while others might argue it should be more of a continuous scale. I found the book most useful when I bought chicks and forgot to ask how old they were. Looking at the photos in the book, which is organized chronologically through the first 6 months from hatch, helped confirm my suspicions that my new chicks were about 2 weeks old. All in all, if I could only have one (or even 2 or 5) books about chickens, I would not choose this one.

This is just an ordinary book in my opinion. I have lots of chicken books and this one kind of disappointed in the since of new information and it has a lot of word for word information found on BYC and all basic chicken books. While they took the time to picture their birds growing up I still didn't get a thrill out of reading it, like I do with my other books. I did like all the pictures and the subtitles though. I give it a half rating of 3 due to my lack of entertainment from it. It has little cartoon chickens and a list that's found in most if not all chicken books about different chicken breeds and their abilities. This is my copy: and a preview for you.

Beautiful pictures!
The author is sweet and hilarious.
I loved reading this book, such an easy quick read. And it's packed with all the information that you need to know when you suddenly find yourself driving home from the feed store with a couple of chicks in a box- Ha!!
Let the fun addiction begin.

I loved this book! The author has a wonderful sense of humor. It was a very easy book to read and it broke down everything a beginner to chickens would need to know. The pictures are beautiful as well. Highly, highly recommend.