Storey's Illustrated Guide to Poultry Breeds: Chickens, Ducks, Geese, Turkeys, Emus, Guinea Fowl, Ostriches, Partridges, Peafowl, Pheasants, Quails, Swans Paperback – May 30, 2007

It's about time that a nice & complete book like this on 99.9% of poultry breeds (that even I can afford!) has came out. As an avid chicken lady I used to long for a complete guide with color photos on Chicken and Duck breeds. Finally, Carol Ekarius has gave the "poultry addicted" a book dedicated to the characteristics of each poultry breed.This book has really nice real photos (not drawings!) of all the included breeds. Also included by the photo's are details of the breeds' personality, the various color combinations, standards of the breed, place and history of orgin, conservation status and any special qualities that the featured breed might have. In most cases the males AND females of each breed are pictured. Other pluses the author includes are: Natural Chicken history, a wonderful glossary of 'poultry jargon', color photos of the various feather patterns- along with a worded definitions. Last but, not least Ms. Ekarius included a very well researched Resource index. If you buy this book (which I suggest) you will find 278 pages printed on nice glossy, flexible paper stock. This isn't the usual small black & white Storey's guide book!The only reason I didn't give this book 5 stars is because quite a few photos of the chicken breeds were only represented by the bantam versions of the breed. I just feel that being the history of the breeds was being represented the standard size chickens should've been used. Nevertheless, I really enjoyed this book and I would recommend it to anyone!Carol Ekarius besides being a wonderful writer is also donating a portion of her proceeds from this book to the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy!

I love these's books. Alot of good information, great pictures. Written so you can understand them!

What a bargain this big, beautiful book is is! Nice photos and one or two page descriptions of just about all the common US standard bred chickens, plus ducks and geese. Great for the person considering a new breed.This book can help you determine which breeds are:-gentle/docile versus aggressive-calm or "flighty"-quiet or noisy-cold-hardy or cold-intolerant-good layers or poor layers-brown, white, or tinted egg layers-largest and smallest-easy keepers or in need of special husbandry-plain or fancy-looking!I've spent hours reading and re-reading this book. :) If you are new to chickens (or ducks or geese) this is a handy and beautiful book which can help you avoid making a mistake that could sour you on chickens. Don't end up with an aggressive flighty bird if you are looking for a cuddly family pet-- check out this book and another great one (which has slightly different kinds of information) entitled "Choosing and Keeping Chickens".

The title says it all. I wanted a book of chicken breeds, so I could see how the hens of various breeds looked. Unfortunately, the books I bought before this had awesome photos of roosters or just the heads of roosters or roosters with blurry hens in the background. This book does a good job of giving some information about the breeds and having pictures of both hens and roosters. It has a good selection of chicken breeds although I wish it had a few more.I also enjoyed looking at the other poultry breeds in the book. While I don't feel the need to go buy a turkey, duck, or emu I was glad to be able to read about them.This book was a great addition to my library and I highly recommend it.

I bought this book mostly to look at the chickens but it does also include various ducks, gees, emus (!), peafowl, swans and more. I intended this as a supplement to other chicken (etc) resources as it gives some really great studio shots of the breeds that many other books don't even have photos of. I also very much enjoyed the section on colors and feather patterns. In this regard the book really shines.My only (small) quibble with the book had to do with layout issues. The chicken breeds were divided between layers and meat breeds and I have to admit a little confusion as to how the so-called dual purpose breeds ended up in whichever section. The division made me flip the pages back and forth a bit more to find my favorites. Also, each breed was allotted one to two pages for photos (the 'studio shot' plus more in some cases to delineate colors or other features) as well as a brief write-up. Unfortunately, again this is a SMALL quibble, but for some breeds that had 1.5 or 2 pages this involved either spilling over to the next breeds page or (gasp!) actually turning a page. In a style book like this it seems like it would have been more visually appealing to have all the information in one spot--either do one page or two (so no breed has to share) and if it is 2 pages, then keep it so the pages are even/odd (ie can be seen at once).Also, though this is mostly a picture book, there was breed information included (yay!) but the one thing I would have liked to see added in this case is anticipated egg production. Especially as some of the dual purpose birds ended up in the meat section, it would be nice to know (for example) the Delaware is actually a pretty darn good egg producer and can lay relatively well in the winter.Like I said, these are just small quibbles as overall the photography was splendid and having so many breeds in one non-electronic resource to look at is excellent. I would love to see a little tweaking to the layout and then see the book published as a hardcover/coffee table type book. Chickens are getting so popular as backyard pets/animals that I have a feeling that type of book would do very well.Highly Recommended!JTG

This is my new number color photo reference poultry book of all time! I am only investing in books I know I can count on. Also books that I can keep at hand in hard copy as a reference library. If your new to poultry or chickens not sure what type or breed this a good place to start.