Chicken Boy: My Life With Hens

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It is also the book for people who already keep hens as there is something to learn on almost every page. Brings to life the joy of keeping hens and enriches one understanding of them in a beautiful and engaging way. As a life-long aviculturist, I laud this book for everything it offers, including the exercise of conscience and strategic engagement with the keeping of poultry. Came away with a much deeper understanding of my hens, what they need and how I can improve their lives for the better. A perfectly balanced memoir, hen keeping guide and art/photo exhibition of the joys and realities of keeping hens.

But the quiet fulfilment of keeping hens became his sanctuary, a tonic for mental and physical health, a connection with his family and the natural world. Arthur Parkinson is an English author, Gardener, photographer, illustrator and farm animal rights campaigner, originally from Nottinghamshire where he still spends much of his time between living also in Gloucestershire. Kudos to the publisher for creating a book that feels special and high quality, with a gorgeous cover design and color scheme that complement Parkinson’s top notch chicken illustrations and photographs, which are included on at least every other page and add so much to the experience of the book. Although it might seem like a book on hen keeping would appeal to only a niche audience, I feel confident that most readers would thoroughly enjoy it. I have neither inclination nor conducive circumstances to raise chickens anytime soon (although I generally enjoy reading about agrarian life and have always been fond of chickens), but Chicken Boy ranks among my favorite reads in recent memory.The whole point of this book is to build a generous, nurturing relationship with the natural world and to rebalance things in favour of a world of we have so long taken from and not given back to.

Most of us want a dog, or a cat, or a pony when we are young - for Arthur Parkinson, it was always hens.He has written several books on gardening most notably The Flower Yard and his first book on chickens is due out at Easter 2022. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others.

This is for more than that, lovely narrative and packed with information that’s given in a warm and friendly way. From the local allotments and his nan's back garden, to Chatsworth and an unlikely friendship with the late Duchess of Devonshire, a famous hen-keeper, Chicken Boy tells the story of the love and satisfaction to be found in caring for living things. Arthur Parkinson is a young British gardening expert who, judging by his six-figure Instagram follower number (which I now count myself amongst), is apparently pretty well known, although he was unfamiliar to me before I encountered Chicken Boy. Additional note that this is the most beautiful and satisfying hardback book I now own, the format and texture and every page so well thought through n produced. Arthur Parkinson is well known for his flamboyant garden designs, and this book includes many of his own drawings and photographs with his ‘girls’, alongside lots of practical hen keeping advice.I really enjoyed this book and can also highly recommend his previous books The Flower Yard and The Pottery Gardener. It is impossible to easily classify the book in terms of genre: part reflection on the joys of keeping hens, part memoir of the substantial role that chickens have played in Parkinson’s life, part guide to hen keeping, part encyclopedia of the beautiful menagerie of chicken breeds.