Sometimes you need something straightforward, no-nonsense and down to earth. That’s exactly what you get with Keeping Poultry and Rabbits on Scraps
To keep them in optimum laying condition, your chickens need to get a large part of their daily nutrition from dedicated poultry feed – most often layers pellets or mash. Supplementing this with kitchen offcuts greatly enhances the quality of your eggs, giving you richer yolks and tastier cakes. This books switches that around, though, explaining how to massively cut your food bill by upping the scrap quantity without depriving your flock of its essential nutrients.
From a practical standpoint, it’s excellent. It isn’t sentimental (who could afford that during the war?), explaining how to identify and deal with chickens that aren’t producing an adequate supply of eggs in return for their food, and how to raise your own flock, either from eggs or from very young chicks.
It’s as relevant today as it was when it was first written, and massively under-sells itself with that title. We only knew how wide-ranging it was because we found a copy in a shop and had a flick through, or else we might have thought it was literally about managing your hens’ feed. In reality it covers housing, illness, injuries, how to humanely kill your birds and so on.
All of this is done without frill or fuss, explaining all you need to know in a slim 97 pages, with the rest of the book given over to keeping rabbits.
For the first time chicken keeper it’s essential reading, along with Henkeeping by Jane Eastoe (click the link for review).
Price £6.99 (£4.45 from Amazon
Authors Claude Goodchild and Alan Thompson
ISBN 0141038624
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