Chicken Boy: My Life With Hens

Product Information

Arthur Parkinson is the author of The Pottery Gardener and The Flower Yard , and the co-host, with Sarah Raven, of the popular Grow, Cook, Eat, Arrange podcast.

Join Arthur Parkinson as he shares his journey of raising chickens and finding joy in his feathery companions. 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.Illustrated with Arthur’s own characterful watercolours and photographs of his ‘girls’, and laden with practical hen-keeping tips, gardening advice and introductions to common, rare and pure breeds, Chicken Boy is a one-of-a-kind memoir of a life in nature. Brings to life the joy of keeping hens and enriches one understanding of them in a beautiful and engaging way.

A perfectly balanced memoir, hen keeping guide and art/photo exhibition of the joys and realities of keeping hens. 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. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. 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. Arthur Parkinson is the author of The Pottery Gardener and The Flower Yard, and the co-host, with Sarah Raven, of the popular Grow, Cook, Eat, Arrange podcast.His writing and photography are regularly featured in the Daily Telegraph , and have appeared in The Times , Country Life and Country Living , among other magazines and newspapers; he has also featured in BBC Two's Gardeners' World .

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. 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. It also made me realise that I am not in a position to get chickens and that to get them would be entirely for my own pleasure and that is not the point. Came away with a much deeper understanding of my hens, what they need and how I can improve their lives for the better. Parkinson is charming and knowledgeable, passionate about chickens and the way of life he has chosen and he is very generous in the way he shares it with the reader.I have found my tribe' Most of us want a dog, or a cat, or a pony when we are young - for Arthur Parkinson, it was always hens. 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.