Free-Range Chicken Gardens: How to Create a Beautiful, Chicken-Friendly Yard

Through personal experience and in-depth interviews with other backyard chicken farmers, Bloom, an award-winning garden designer, takes you from her early chicken-raising days, which she recalls as about “as easy as herding cats,” to the ultimate goal of maintaining a fit flock that will contrast and co-exist with a backyard garden. She gives tips about keeping the backyard from becoming a barnyard; selecting from a diverse palette of poultry from Rhode Island Reds to Easter Eggers; growing the plants that will benefit from hens and beautify a lawn; keeping “a simple chicken emergency kit”; regulating coop temperatures; and keeping predators away. Noise reduction ideas will also help keep neighbors’ potential annoyance at bay. The presentation is enhanced by detailed charts—how many square feet of yard for how many chickens, the chicken lifecycle, feedings from egg to chick to pullet to hen—for help in creating a chicken-inclusive environment in a variety of settings. Bloom offers a comprehensive guide from mating to medicine that will particularly help beginners, and vivid color photography by Kate Baldwin helps Bloom make a persuasive case. (Feb. 14)