Are you longing to own chickens? The City of Vancouver allows residents with a permit to have four hens - but no roosters. Clark, Cowlitz, Klickitat and Skamania Counties each have county regulations, which you can access through their websites. Goldendale allows chickens with a permit, but not roosters, and Stevenson’s code is similar - a permit for the coop, and no roosters.
Spring is the best time to obtain chicks, and we always have a run on chicken books at the library. Must be some kind of fowl weather trend… Here are some titles related to building coops and poultry care:
- Let’s All Keep Chickens: The Down-to-Earth Guide to Natural Practices for Healthier Birds in a Happier World by Dalia Monterroso (2023)
- The Homesteader’s Natural Chicken Keeping Handbook: Raising a Healthy Flock from Start to Finish by Amy K. Fewell (2019)
- Backyard Chickens: Beyond the Basics by Pam Freeman (2017)
- Chicken DIY: 20 Fun-to-Build Projects for Happy, Healthy Chickens by Daniel Johnson (2017)
- How to Build Chicken Coops: Everything You Need to Know by Samantha Johnson (2017)
Eggscellent! Moving right along…
Champions of chickens would argue that chickens have not gotten the attention and respect they deserve. Not so, my poultry paladins: several books exploring chicken’s personalities have been published recently, and I’m not just snapping my beak here:
- How to Read a Chicken’s Mind: Understand How Chickens Learn, Perceive People, Express Emotions, and Pass Down Knowledge by Melissa Caughey (2025)
- What the Chicken Knows: A New Appreciation of the World’s Most Familiar Bird by Sy Montgomery (2024)
- How to Speak Chicken: Why your Chickens Do What They Do and Say What They Say by Melissa Caughey (2017)
Did you know the most popular book about chickens was written right here in Washington? Betty MacDonald penned The Egg and I (1945) about her experience as a young married woman starting a poultry farm near Port Townsend, WA. The book was made into a movie with Claudette Colbert and Fred MacMurray. Check out both at the library - we also have a book club kit for this classic!
Ah, but you want to involve the whole family in this egg-stravaganza, right? Here are two really funny books about chickens for older kids:
- Unusual Chickens for the Exceptional Poultry Farmer by Kelly Jones (2015)
- Are You Ready to Hatch an Unusual Chicken? By Kelly Jones (2018)
And some picture books for the younger set:
- Interrupting Chicken series by David Ezra Stein
- Chicken Break!: A Counting Book by Cate Berry (2019)
Scratch around this list; you’re sure to find something to nibble on!
New at the Library
Fiction
- Going Home by Tom Lamont
- Grave Danger by James Grippando
- The Granddaughter: A Novel by Bernhard Schlink
Nonfiction
- The House of My Mother: A Daughter’s Quest for Freedom by Shari Franke
- Beyond Anxiety: Curiosity, Creativity, and Finding Your Life’s True Purpose by Martha Nibley Beck
- How We Heal: A Journey Toward Truth, Racial Healing, and Community Transformation from the Inside Out by La June Montgomery Tabron
Children
- Seven Little Ducklings by Annette Cate
- Bullet Trains by Meg Greve (Starting Out series)
- Radiant by Vaunda Micheaux Nelson
