Chicken DIY: 20 Fun-To-Build Projects for Happy and Healthy Chickens by Daniel Johnson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I have had chickens for over six years now. I have had hawks eat them. I have had chickens run off and hatch their own brood of chickens, twice. I have had a skunk get into the coop. What I am trying to say is that while I may not be the most experienced person with backyard chickens, I do know what is what with them.
I thought, when reading this book it would be all, been there, done that, have the t-shirt sort of thing, but it was not. I thought I was going to argue with the author when I saw that one of the projects was a chicken sweater, but I quickly got off my high-horse when I saw that she wasn’t going to put it on the chicken longer than to take a picture, because, chickens don’t need sweaters. I thought all the projects would be things that I had done before, but they were not.
Very cool book, with very clean instructions on how to make things for yoru chickens that you didn’t even know you needed to make. Not only that, but reciepies in the last chapter, for when you have buckets of eggs and you can’t eat them fast enough. (There are times when, in the height of the summer I have as many as 9 dozen boxes of eggs.).
There are some cool, unusual projects in here, amongst them, the wading pool (because in the summer chickens need to get their feet cool), the grazing box (because chickens will eat every bit of green to the ground, and this is a way to solve the situation) and a chicken swing.
Some things aren’t really necessary if you have good hens, such a chicken brooder (as the hens are really good at keeping their babies warm), but hey, it is good to know how to make them.
So, this book would be recommended for both people just starting out and people who have had chickens for years, because, you never know what you might learn.
I love a book that teaches me something I didn’t know before.
Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.