by Leslie E. Card Norton Creek Press, ISBN 1938099028. 414 pages.<\/em><\/p>\n
A must-have book for the serious poultrykeeper.<\/p>\n
Practical, scientifically based books for raising moderate numbers of chickens are as rare as hen’s teeth. Most new books are aimed at either factory farmers or backyarders, with little for the serious small-scale farmer or fancier. Fortunately, we can find what we need by turning back the clock. This book, the 9th edition of Poultry Production, is from 1961: old enough that smaller chicken flocks were still common, but new enough that all the basic scientific principles had been discovered. For example, earlier books did not discuss nutrients like methionine and vitamin B-12, since they hadn’t been isolated yet.<\/p>\n
Leslie Card’s application of carefully tested methods allows you to move forward with your own flock.<\/p>\n
Poultry Production contains many graphs, tables, and other aids to understanding (for example, a graph showing how a concrete floor affects the air temperature at floor level, warming it by more than 5 \u00b0F in cold weather and cooling it by more than 15 \u00b0F in hot weather). This kind of detail means there’s a place for Poultry Production on every chicken owner’s shelf.<\/p>\n
Poultry Production is both a practical reference book and a college textbook, giving a solid foundation in both practice and theory. It has been used as a textbook by at least 177 American and 8 foreign colleges and universities.<\/p>\n