Veteran poultry specialist, Dr. Scott Gillingham, has written the definitive guide for the first seven days of a chick’s life. With an easy-to-read format and an abundance of photos and graphics, Raising Amazing Chicks is the first and last reference book a small farmer will need when looking to improve chick health and growth.
Poultry columnist Amy Hogue highly recommends Scott Gillingham’s book on raising chicks.
Gillingham spent his career working with large-scale poultry operations around the world, but wrote Raising Amazing Chicks specifically for the small farmer, with the goal of condensing his experience into a readable format to which small farmers can relate.
In Raising Amazing Chicks, Gillingham explained that over his 30-plus years working in the poultry industry he learned that the first seven days of chick growth are the most impactful, and can directly affect poultry growth and health. “A healthy start means healthy lives and healthy lives means healthy food,” Gillingham wrote in the book.
Raising Amazing Chicks addresses everything a small farmer needs to consider when growing chicks into healthy chickens, including brooding management, housing requirements, assessing chick health and Gillingham’s trademarked ‘Laws of FLAWS.’ The acronym FLAWS refers to Food, Lighting, Air, Water and Space, and is used by Gillingham to draw attention to the most critical areas to look at when raising chicks.
Written from the perspective of a veterinarian with a wealth of experience in the poultry industry, Gillingham addresses management situations that can affect a bird’s growth, as well as common diseases and other factors that can affect weight and bird health. Photos that visually explain what to look for in diagnosing common chick issues, like stringy navel, red hocks, and pasty vent makes it that much easier to diagnose a problem and get control of it before it gets out of hand. Detailed instructions and worksheets for record-keeping are also included, because as Gillingham noted, “you can’t manage what you don’t measure.”
For the small farmer looking for more specific information about bird health and management than can’t be found in other resources, keeping a copy of Raising Amazing Chicks on-hand will be like having a specialist and veterinarian on call, 24-hours a day.
- Amy Hogue