If you’re thinking about keeping some hens in your backyard,
read this book. Whether you’re looking to reduce your food bill, or if you’re
just trying to avoid hormone-pumped eggs, it’ll be worth the money and the
effort. This book gives practical and easy-to-follow advice on how to buy
chicks and raise them to lay big brown eggs (or become roast chicken if you
prefer.)
Harvey Ussery starts out with basic reasons for keeping
chickens, the first one being health. There’s a picture of a commercial egg
business, with thousands of chickens in rows of cages, nothing to do all day
but lay eggs. These chickens never leave their cages, and if you’re wondering
why they don’t get sick, the answer is they do! They get pumped full of
antibiotics to ward off disease, but that means you end up with an overdose
every time you eat eggs and chicken. With all the antibiotics in those
chickens, there’s probably an unknown bacteria out there that’s immune to the
drugs. We could be in trouble.
With the health issue aside, Ussery guides the reader
through building the chicken coop, selecting the chicks, caring for them when
they first arrive, and keeping them happy at all times. He describes chicken
rearing as no harder than keeping any other pet, but far more rewarding. It’s
wonderful to hear that more Americans are being encouraged to keep chickens and
grow their own food. You’ll have plenty of eggs all year round, not to mention
lots of fertilizer too.
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