City Chicks: Keeping Micro-flocks of Chickens as Garden Helpers, Compost Makers, Bio-reyclers, and Local Food Producers
From Oakland, California, to Madison, Wisconsin, to Brooklyn, New York, the backyard buzz is all about urban chicken keeping, and mainstream publications, such as the New York Times and the New Yorker, have chronicled the trend’s growth, especially among members of the local food movement. Foreman, who has authored several urban agriculture and chicken-themed titles, offers a full compendium of everything a novice city chicken farmer needs to start and maintain a coop. Included among the dense but conversational chapters is information on chicken breeding and health, incubation and hatching, becoming a “chicken whisperer,” legal issues, and starting your own profitable “eggribusiness.” Everyone interested in the subject will find something useful here. Experienced chicken keepers will want to add to their own storehouses of knowledge with the vast resource lists, while complete beginners will appreciate the basic advice, such as photos that demonstrate how to hold a chicken. The audience for this may be small right now, but the flock of city-dwelling chicken enthusiasts is growing by the minute, and libraries should be ready to meet the demand. --Gillian Engberg