Dr. Cluck's Backyard Chickens Is the Chicken Book We've Been Waiting For

BOOK REVIEW

Peer-reviewed, vet-written, illustrated by a cartoon chicken veterinarian, and genuinely funny. This one belongs on the shelf of anyone who keeps chickens, wants to keep chickens, or just likes reading about chickens.

★★★★★

By Vet Candy Editorial  |  June 2026  |  Book Review · Poultry & Avian Medicine

Dr. Cluck's Backyard Chickens  |  Dr. Maurice Pitesky & Dr. Evan Adler, illustrated by Will Suckow

UC Agriculture and Natural Resources  |  228 pages  |  Paperback $29 · Hardbound $70

Let's be direct: there is no shortage of backyard chicken books. Walk into any farm store or scroll through Amazon and you'll find dozens of them — some good, some not, most landing somewhere in the serviceable middle. So when a new one comes out, the fair question is: does the world actually need this one?

After reading Dr. Cluck's Backyard Chickens, the answer is yes. The world needed this one specifically. It just took ten years and two poultry veterinarians to make it exist.

What Makes This One Different

Dr. Maurice Pitesky is an Associate Professor of Cooperative Extension at the UC Davis Weill School of Veterinary Medicine, where he works on everything from HPAI outbreak modeling to small-flock biosecurity outreach. Dr. Evan Adler is a veterinarian who has kept backyard chickens for over a decade. Together they have over 30 years of combined veterinary research and clinical experience — and they put all of it into a book that Dr. Cluck, the cartoon chicken narrator, opens with a solemn pledge to never use a technical term without explaining it.

With liberty and chicken wings for all.

That's the genius of the thing. This book is peer-reviewed by experts. It has chapter-by-chapter references. It has a full glossary and index. It covers the complete lifecycle of a backyard flock, from choosing breeds and setting up a brooder, through disease recognition, nutrition, biosecurity, holistic remedy evaluation (the good, the useless, and the actively harmful), butchering, and compassionate end-of-life decisions. There is nothing superficial about the science.

And it has a cartoon chicken wearing glasses and a lab coat on the cover.

The commitment to making this book fun without making it less rigorous is the editorial achievement here. Pitesky has spent years giving talks to backyard chicken enthusiasts and integrating humor with science, that experience is visible on every page. The book reads the way a great extension presentation feels: like someone who genuinely knows their subject is also genuinely enjoying themselves.

Who It's For — and the Answer Might Surprise You

The authors designed this book for a wide audience, and it delivers on that ambition. A 4-H kid can read it. A first-time backyard keeper navigating their first sick hen can use it as a reference. A veterinary student rotating through a mixed practice clinic or studying for NAVLE will find it useful. A lifelong enthusiast who thinks they already know everything will find at least a dozen things they didn't.

And yes, the authors specifically note it was also written for people who don't have chickens but love "sophisticated dad humor about backyard chickens." That is a real sentence in the real description of a real book, and somehow it perfectly captures the experience of reading it.

The format helps. This is structured as what Pitesky calls the world's first Backyard Chicken Coffee Table Book, meaning you can read it cover to cover, use it as a reference when a problem comes up, or simply open it to a random page and find something interesting. The illustrations and navigational icons make the latter surprisingly satisfying.

The Veterinary Angle: Why This Matters Right Now

For veterinary practitioners, this book is worth knowing about for a reason beyond its entertainment value: your backyard chicken clients are going to start showing up with it.

The backyard poultry population has grown substantially over the past several years, and with HPAI continuing to pressure both commercial and backyard flocks, biosecurity guidance for small flock owners has never been more clinically relevant. Dr. Cluck's Backyard Chickens takes this seriously. The FLAWSS framework — Feed, Light, Air, Water, Space, and Sanitation, gives keepers a memorable daily health checklist that maps directly onto the biosecurity principles veterinarians are recommending. The Salmonella and avian influenza sections are practical, evidence-based, and written for a general reader without sacrificing accuracy.

If you see backyard chicken patients, even occasionally, having a copy in your waiting room is a genuine client service. And understanding what's in it gives you common language with the clients who bring their own copy.

One Line That Says It All

“Chickens are fun and taking care of them and reading about them also should be fun. While there are lots of backyard chicken books, this book is unique in that it is written by vets, peer-reviewed by experts and entertaining for all.”

That is Pitesky describing his own book, and it is completely accurate. The remarkable thing is that it took this long for someone to do it. The backyard poultry space has needed a resource that was simultaneously rigorous enough to trust and enjoyable enough to actually read. This is it.

The Verdict

Dr. Cluck's Backyard Chickens is the rare book that does exactly what it sets out to do and is more enjoyable for it. It is comprehensive without being overwhelming, scientifically grounded without being inaccessible, and funny without sacrificing credibility. It is the kind of book that gets passed around, recommended to friends, and left on coffee tables where visitors pick it up and don't put it down.

If you keep chickens, want to keep chickens, work with clients who keep chickens, or simply want to understand what the fastest-growing segment of the companion animal world is actually dealing with — this is your book.

Five stars. No reservations. From beak to tail, it delivers.

Get the Book

Dr. Cluck's Backyard Chickens · Paperback $29 · Hardbound $70

Order at anrpublications.org →

Also available on Amazon →

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