4 out of 5 stars
I would like to thank Storey Publishing for providing me with a free electronic ARC of this book, via Netgalley, in exchange for an open and honest review.
Hello everyone, I’m back! Well, I hope to be back and to be back I need to start with my backlog… so I do apologise if this review is a little sketchy in places as I read ‘How to speak chicken’ back in September/October and since then my electronic copy has expired. So I just need to try and work from memory about it all.
Firstly, I found it a highly enjoyable read. I am a chook lady, I had chickens as a child, convinced my husband a few years ago to let us get chickens for our kids… and currently have ten. Three Isa Brown, three Australorps, three French Wheaten Marans and a Wyandotte. The last four listed were newly acquired while reading this book. Possible coincidence? 😉
And we do indeed love talking to them and know they talk back in different tones and voices and we use different chicken noises and motions depending on which chicken we are addressing. So, yeah, perhaps I am one of those “crazy chicken ladies”… and Proud!
So it was a delight to read Ms Caughey’s book. A lady after my own heart with similar loves and understandings of our feather babies.
Yes there are other “how to raise” chicken books out there. I’ve even read, reviewed and enjoyed a couple. But what puts ‘How to speak Chicken’ apart from them is the lyrical, loving tone used by its author. This isn’t see looking after chooks from a “its a pet that gives us eggs and poops a lot” point of view. It is from the same point of view I see chickens “its one of my little girlies who clucks and carries on, needs cuddles, friends, toys… and lays eggs and poops a lot”. So… it is a book on looking after chickens to your best ability, but told from the view point of someone who sees them as more than just some dumb bird. As a chicken being a dumb bird is as accurate a description as me being a twenty something skinny supermodel. Yeah, not that accurate. 😉
The basic chicken care is all there, but just in a lovely whimsical manner that I really did love.
For the technical side of things – the formatting, layout and pictures were of the usual exceptional standard I have come to expect from Storey Publishing.
Would I recommend this book to others?
Yes I would… but they would have to be quirky souls like myself able to cope with a DIY book on raising chickens that comes in a whimsical manner. Some people might need a more serious book than this, but they would be missing out. 😉
Would I buy this book for myself?
Maybe… Yes I loved it, and yes I own chickens… but did I really learn a LOT of stuff I didn’t already know? Not really. It would all come down to missing reading it and wanting to own it again and then seeing if I could buy a copy here in Australia. I really did enjoy reading my electronic version, but feel it would be much nicer to have in paper. It’s just one of those things… sitting out on the banana lounge in the middle of the lawn, stack of books and herd of chickens. Perfect book for a reading day like that.
Until next time,
Janis.
Janis's Journal 