The Illustrated Guide to Ducks and Geese and Other Domestic Fowl: How To Choose Them - How To Keep Them - Hardcover

Celia Lewis

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1408152649 ISBN 13: 9781408152645

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2012

Synopsis

With just a little land and available water, you can raise a variety of domestic fowl, from friendly ducks and characterful geese to guineafowl, dainty quail, placid turkeys or even peafowl. Illustrated with the author's charming watercolour paintings, this book is packed with practical tips on keeping domestic fowl and selecting the right breed for your circumstances. Covering 65 domestic breeds of ducks, geese, guineafowl, quail, turkeys and peafowl, the book gives an insight into the individual personalities and attributes of each kind of bird. The breed profiles are written in engaging text and include the history and place of origin, colour combinations, differences between male and female birds, the appearance of hatchlings and the numbers of eggs to expect. As well as selecting an appropriate breed, you need to consider your neighbours, the kinds of bird you can and should keep, whether you want them for eggs or as pets, and whether you want to breed them. The book offers helpful advice on all these issues and also on housing, the provision of water, feeding and the noise and impact your birds will have, as well as preventing and treating common ailments. Whether you are starting out as a smallholder, are interested in raising a few ducks or geese in a suburban or rural setting, or are simply a devotee of domestic fowl there is plenty to captivate you in this book.

About this title

About the Author:

Celia Lewis started her art career studying life and portrait charcoal drawing with Signorina Simi in Florence. She is now a member of a dynamic art group and several art societies in Surrey where she lives. She has taken part in group, private and national exhibitions and has won several prizes including the 2005 Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolour medal and Royal Watercolour Society Winsor & Newton Prize 2009. Living in the country Celia is lucky enough to be able to keep hens and turkeys in her garden and, along with nearby cows and sheep, this is where she finds her inspiration. Although she works mainly in watercolour, Celia has also branched out into acrylics, drypoint prints and linocuts. Celia is the author and illustrator of the other two titles in this series, The Illustrated Guide to Chickens and The Illustrated Guide to Pigs, and a co-author of Keeping Chickens and Choosing and Raising Chickens.

From Booklist:

An author-artist of guides to domestic animals (The Illustrated Guide to Chickens, 2011; The Illustrated Guide to Pigs, 2011) focuses this time on the non-chicken domestic fowl. Ducks and geese fill the majority of the book, with the remainder covering guineafowl, peafowl, quail, and turkeys. Opening with short discourses on feathers, Lewis then moves to the heart of the book, introducing and describing the birds themselves. Each section starts with the basics of housing, feeding, and breeding, then follows up with breed accounts and short descriptions, including practical advice and tables delineating weights, egg colors, number of eggs per year, and plumage colors. The real charm of the book and what makes it excellent for a library collection are Lewis’ beautiful, highly expressive watercolor illustrations. She captures not only the details of each bird but also its essential gestalt (or gizz, to use a birdwatcher’s term), making readers ready to add some ducks or geese to their backyards. --Nancy Bent

About this edition

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 1408152649
• ISBN 13: 9781408152645
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 160