Just outside of downtown Minneapolis, follow the sounds of crowing and clucking and you will find Mary Britton Clouse’s Chicken Run Rescue. Over the years, Mary and her husband have given hundreds of homeless birds a safe place to rest until they can be adopted by caring families. Each chicken has a story to share, and the debut author Christine Heppermann (who adopted her own chicken) has crafted a spare, moving, and at times humorous text that will open young readers’ eyes and also inspire to help all creatures great and small. Come along and find out why lovable chickens are actually, according to Mary, “the ones who need friends the most.”

In 2009, the New Yorker declared chickens the "it bird" and heralded "the return of the backyard chicken." This honor occurred as, a host of American cities were changing their laws to allow chickens in residents’ backyards. Philip Levy, a sometime chicken keeper himself, mixes cultural history with husbandry to chronicle the weird and wonderful story of Americans’ urban chickens. From the streets of Brooklyn to council chambers in Albany to the beat of Key West’s Chicken Nuisance Patrol, yard birds are an important and growing part of American city life. Part history, part travelogue, and part reportage, Yard Birds takes the reader on a tour-de-force journey across America, past and present, to profile its urban chickens housed in luxury coops or dying at yearly rituals. What emerges is a compelling picture of city chickens that can both serve as hipster status symbols and guarantee that the families keeping them have at least something to eat. Levy’s smart and entertaining investigation of the contemporary urban chicken craze reveals that poultry flocks were historically an integral part of America’s urban spaces; chickens have simply returned home now, some to very fancy roosts.

No matter how small your lot is, you can keep chickens and enjoy fresh eggs every morning. Barbara Kilarski shares her passion for poultry as she fills this guide with tips and techniques for successfully raising chickens in small spaces. Spotlighting the self-sufficient pleasures of tending your own flock, Kilarski offers detailed information on everything from choosing breeds that thrive in tight quarters and building coops to providing medical care for sick animals. You’ll have fun as you keep happy and productive chickens.

Hobby Farms Chickens: Tending a Small-Scale Flock for Pleasure and Profit is geared toward the hobby farmer looking to begin his or her own flock of chickens on a small farm or even backyard. Author Sue Weaver, who keeps various exotic breeds and countless barnies on her farm, is an expert on all things livestock and an avowed chicken fanatic. This photo-filled guide begins with "Chickens 101" and details the physiology of chickens, members of the Phasianidea family, providing beginning hobby farmers with a basic education in the chicken's unique physical makeup (from wings and feathers to beaks and digestive tracts), behavior, mating, and its unexpected high intelligence. The author offers advice on choosing the right types of chickens to get started: meat, egg, or dual purpose, or maybe even "just for pets." The book is an excellent resource for selecting which breed of chicken is best for the hobby farmer, based on the birds' traits, such as aggression, personality, noise factor, tolerance for heat, confinement, cold, etc. Chickens also provides information on selecting or building a suitable chicken coop for the hobby farmer's brood, outlining the basic requirements (lighting, ventilation, flooring, waterers, insulation, safety, and so forth). A detailed chapter on feeding chickens offers essential guidance on nutrition, commercial feeds, supplements, and water requirements. For the chicken hobby farmer looking to start with a clutch of baby chicks (from his own hen or an outside source), the author provides excellent info on incubators and hatching as well as all of the accommodations and preparation required for hens in the nest box. A chapter on selling eggs and broilers provides timetables, requirements, and dos and don'ts to get a hobby farmer's business off on the right foot. All chicken keepers will find the chapter on health of particular value, with expert advice on preventing common problems and dealing various maladies and diseases. Much detailed information about all of the topics in the book is encapsulated in sidebars. A glossary of over 125 terms plus a detailed resource section of chicken and poultry associations, books, and websites complete the volume. Fully indexed.

"The Urban Hen" is the perfect companion for the city poultry keeper and shows you how to maintain a happy, healthy garden or backyard flock in towns and cities. Paul Peacock shows you how to: find the best poultry for the small garden and house them properly, feed your birds, tune in to their daily needs and enjoy your own eggs; avoid annoying the neighbours by showing that it is possible to keep poultry without attracting unwelcome pests; recognise healthy happy birds and learn their daily routine; recognise poorly hens; treat them or get help; and, incubate and care for fertilised eggs and raise chicks.

Readers will flock to this book Raising chickens is a growing trend hitting urban and suburban areas, as well as the country. The Complete Idiot's Guide® to Raising Chickens covers every aspect of raising chickens, whether one lives in the country, suburb, or city. People wanting their own supply of organic, additive-free, free-range eggs want to know how to keep their chickens healthy and egg producing. • How to choose what to start with-chicks, pullets, or hens • How best to feed and water • Coverage of the most popular breeds • Everything about eggs, including how to sell them