As the poultry industry moved to high-density confinement, practical, scientifically based books for raising modest numbers of chickens became as rare as hen’s teeth. Poultry books began to segment into weighty tomes for PhD’s and light, well-meaning works that revive all the 19th-century supersitions that our forefathers worked so hard to debunk.

Fortunately, we can find what we need by turning back the clock and putting the best books back into print.

This book, the 9th edition of Poultry Production, is from 1961: old enough that smaller flocks, free range, and do-it-yourself feed and fixtures were still common, but new enough be relevant today, and grounded in modern science. Leslie Card’s descrption of carefully tested methods allows you to move forward with your own flock. Poultry Production contains 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 DegreesF in cold weather and cooling it by more than 15 DegreesF in hot weather).

This kind of detail means there’s a place for Poultry Production on every chicken owner’s shelf.

Leslie E. Card (1883-1968) was Professor of Animal Science at the University of Illinois, Urbana.

Poultry Production is volume 8 of the Norton Creek Classics series. See http: //www.nortoncreekpress.com for these practical, best-of-breed poultry books.