The Inter-Pandemic Backyard Chicken Book

When renowned veterinary epidemiologist, prize-winning science writer and retired professor David Waltner-Toews received seven chickens for his 70th birthday, and named them after dead female relatives, he had no idea of what awaited him. This memoir of his first year, by turns hilarious and witty and thoughtful, will take you on a wild ride that considers the ecology of urban predators, the mechanics of chicken-walking and egg-laying, the genetics, economics, and politics of Anthropocene chickens, virgin birth and the queerness of Jesus, community building and chicken-coop building, the nature of time, the blastedness of winter, Easter eggs and East bunnies, how chickens are related to all the animals in the Chinese zodiac, and what backyard chickens are really for.