Why am I passionate about this?

I’m an American environmental historian with specialties in food and horticulture. I mostly write on alcohol, wine, garden history, and orchids, but I’ve also kept a small flock of backyard chickens since early 2020. In my preparation for my brood, I read every single chicken history and chicken-keeping book available. Here’s the best of the best.


I contributed to

The Routledge History of American Foodways

By Michael D. Wise (editor), Jennifer Jensen Wallach (editor),

Book cover of The Routledge History of American Foodways

What is my book about?

The Routledge History of American Foodways provides an important overview of the main themes in the history of American food…

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The books I picked & why

Book cover of Why Did the Chicken Cross the World?: The Epic Saga of the Bird That Powers Civilization

Erica Hannickel Why did I love this book?

Why Did the Chicken Cross the World? might be the worst title of all time, but it is a wonderfully surprising and fascinating book. There are tasty nuggets here for everyone (sorry/not sorry for the pun). Did you know that Mexicans eat more eggs per capita than any other people in the world? Or how many different slang terms and metaphors there are for chickens through time? (“Biology can’t explain why our favored slang word for the male organ refers to a bird that lacks one.” Ha!) Or that in the mid-nineteenth century, Britain and America were absolutely obsessed with raising exotic “fancy” chickens? And that pound for pound, chicken releases only one-tenth the greenhouse gases of red meat such as hamburgers? Read up on the world’s favorite bird and laugh while you’re at it with Lawler’s book.

By Andrew Lawler,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Why Did the Chicken Cross the World? as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Queen Victoria was obsessed with it. Socrates' last words were about it. Charles Darwin and Louis Pasteur made their scientific breakthroughs using it. Hailed as a messenger of the gods, powerful sex symbol, gambling aid, all-purpose medicine and handy research tool, the humble chicken has been also cast as the epitome of evil, and the star of the world's most famous joke. Beginning with the recent discovery, that the chicken's unlikely ancestor is the T. Rex, How the Chicken Crossed the World tracks the chicken from its original domestication in the jungles of Southeast Asia some 10,000 years ago to…


Book cover of Tastes Like Chicken: A History of America's Favorite Bird

Erica Hannickel Why did I love this book?

Tastes Like Chicken is a seriously excellent book on the history and culture of chickens in America since its earliest days! The book is fun and well-crafted for a wide audience because it covers so much about the chicken industry, as well as the history, uses, and symbolism of chicken, as well as a wider range of foods in the United States.

By Emelyn Rude,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Tastes Like Chicken as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

How did chicken achieve the culinary ubiquity it enjoys today? It's hard to imagine, but there was a point in history, not terribly long ago, that individual people each consumed less than ten pounds of chicken per year. Today, those numbers are strikingly different: we consumer nearly twenty-five times as much chicken as our great-grandparents did.

Collectively, Americans devour 73.1 million pounds of chicken in a day, close to 8.6 billion birds per year. How did chicken rise from near-invisibility to being in seemingly "every pot," as per Herbert Hoover's famous promise?

Emelyn Rude explores this fascinating phenomenon in Tastes…


Book cover of The Chicken Health Handbook: A Complete Guide to Maximizing Flock Health and Dealing with Disease

Erica Hannickel Why did I love this book?

My god, a book about keeping chickens and chicken heath that's actually based on science and experience! (Sorry, there are sooooo many terrible blogs and books and posts out there by people who care just cutting and pasting from other crappy blogs and books.) This is the very best source for everything health-wise on chickens. Check here for the real scoop on adding vinegar to chicken water (why and at what dose), what's up with garlic (neutralize the order of chicken poop, and I promise it won’t flavor your eggs), diatomaceous earth, and thousands of other chicken topics and ailments. As a new chicken keeper, I felt a lot safer keeping my backyard chickens healthy, and diagnosing their issues, with this book on my shelf.

By Gail Damerow,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Chicken Health Handbook as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Gail Damerow is the foremost authority on chickens in the United States, and her classic reference The Chicken Health Handbook (originally published in 1994) is now completely revised with up-to-the minute information and full-colour photography and illustrations. This essential guide thoroughly addresses every aspect of chicken health, including good nutrition; bacterial, viral, and fungal diseases; parasites and worms; reproductive issues; immune health; metabolic dysfunctions; and much more, with detailed solutions for any health problem your chickens encounter. This new second edition emphasizes natural and preventive approaches and covers issues specific to raising chickens in the city.


Book cover of The Chicken Chick's Guide to Backyard Chickens: Simple Steps for Healthy, Happy Hens

Erica Hannickel Why did I love this book?

This is a good, thorough book on chicken keeping that contains quite a bit of information other chicken books lack. I like Mormino's no-nonsense approach: she offers strong words against using all the “woo-woo” herbs, vitamins, and supplements that are hocked on so many other websites. I think she's right in her assessment: people are more open to the woo-woo stuff because (like me) there are so many first-time backyard chicken owners who didn't grow up with chickens AND there's no vet service that takes chickens seriously in my area. So we feel like we're going it alone and want all the help we can get. Mormino emphasizes what's basic and what's proven, and has other good tips besides.

By Kathy Shae Mormino,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Chicken Chick's Guide to Backyard Chickens as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The Chicken Chick's Guide to Backyard Chickens covers all aspects of keeping pet chickens in a beautifully illustrated, no-nonsense format. Kathy addresses everything needed to keep chickens simply, including coops, chick care, breed selection, chicken health, and beyond!

Internationally known as The Chicken Chick, Kathy Shea Mormino brings an informative style and fresh perspective on raising backyard chickens to millions of fans around the world. An attorney by profession, Kathy is the founder and one-woman creative force behind her wildly popular and award-winning Facebook page and blog, The-Chicken-Chick.com.

Now her practical, down-to-earth approach to chicken-keeping is available in book form.…


Book cover of How to Speak Chicken: Why Your Chickens Do What They Do & Say What They Say

Erica Hannickel Why did I love this book?

There are an estimated 50 billion chickens to the world’s 7 billion humans, and chickens are the closest living relative to Tyrannosaurus rex, so why wouldn’t you want to learn their language? This is a fun, fast book to read in anticipation of getting your first little flock. The central lesson in the book is that you should spend time with your chickens--watching them, but also listening to them. The book teaches what their core vocalizations mean, therefore also helping you in caring for their needs. I couldn’t wait to have a "chicken name" assigned to me by my laying ladies!

By Melissa Caughey,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked How to Speak Chicken as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Best-selling author Melissa Caughey knows that backyard chickens are like any favorite pet — fun to spend time with and fascinating to observe. Her hours among the flock have resulted in this quirky, irresistible guide packed with firsthand insights into how chickens communicate and interact, use their senses to understand the world around them, and establish pecking order and roles within the flock. Combining her up-close observations with scientific findings and interviews with other chicken enthusiasts, Caughey answers unexpected questions such as Do chickens have names for each other? How do their eyes work? and How do chickens learn?

Foreword…


Explore my book 😀

The Routledge History of American Foodways

By Michael D. Wise (editor), Jennifer Jensen Wallach (editor),

Book cover of The Routledge History of American Foodways

What is my book about?

The Routledge History of American Foodways provides an important overview of the main themes in the history of American food from the pre-colonial era to the present day. The book incorporates the latest food studies research and explores major advances that have taken place in the past few decades.

The volume has four parts. The first part explores significant developments in US food history in five time periods. The second part examines the key ingredients in the American diet throughout time. The third part focuses on how these ingredients have been transformed into foods identified with the American diet, and how Americans have produced and presented these foods over the last four centuries. The final section explores how food practices are a means of embodying ideas about identity, showing how food choices, preferences, and stereotypes have been used to create and maintain ideas of difference.

Book cover of Why Did the Chicken Cross the World?: The Epic Saga of the Bird That Powers Civilization
Book cover of Tastes Like Chicken: A History of America's Favorite Bird
Book cover of The Chicken Health Handbook: A Complete Guide to Maximizing Flock Health and Dealing with Disease

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Fall 2028. Mickey Cooper, an elderly homeless man, receives an incredible proposition from a rogue pharmaceutical company: “Be our secret guinea pig for our new drug and we’ll pay you life-changing money, which you’ll be able to enjoy because if (cough) when the treatment works, two months from now your body will be youthened to twenty-three years old.”

When his treatment proves more difficult than expected and corporate espionage turns deadly, Mickey finds himself flanked by internal corruption and powerful external enemies, including Chinese operatives desperate to reverse their country’s aging demographics and amoral U.S. government officials who fear the…


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Interested in chickens, birds, and health?

Chickens 37 books
Birds 178 books
Health 121 books