Speaker 1: You're listening to part Time Genius, the production of Kaleidoscope
Speaker 1: and iHeartRadio. Guess what Will?
Speaker 2: What's that Mango?
Speaker 1: Did you know that a chicken can run as fast
Speaker 1: as nine miles per hour? Like if you put them
Speaker 1: on a leash, they could be running companions for you
Speaker 1: on your next half marathon.
Speaker 2: I did not know that. Despite the number of times
Speaker 2: I have put them on leashes and run, I've never
Speaker 2: never actually tracked them. So it's a you know, I
Speaker 2: do have a couple of chickens that could easily outrun me.
Speaker 2: I mean like they're really especially potato chick, our fastest chicken.
Speaker 2: Oh she flies.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, chicken speed is just one thing I learned
Speaker 1: from the wonderful author Si Montgomery's new book, What the
Speaker 1: Chicken Knows. There's so much incredible stuff in there, from
Speaker 1: how chickens can find the midpoint of a geometric shape
Speaker 1: on the ground, like if you put them in a
Speaker 1: square or triangle, they can find the exact midpoint. Chickens
Speaker 1: go wild when they see red dots, So there was
Speaker 1: a point when farmers used to outfit their birds in
Speaker 1: tiny rose colored spectacles so that they couldn't see the
Speaker 1: red and also chickens can give their owners distinct names.
Speaker 1: It is really wild. Anyway, I found this book so fascinating.
Speaker 1: I called sy up and asked her when you come
Speaker 1: on part Time Genius and talk chickens with me? And
Speaker 1: she said yes. She is so lovely, and even though
Speaker 1: I don't love chickens, by the end of the conversation,
Speaker 1: I wanted to go pet a hen, so let's dive in.
Speaker 2: So it's such a pleasure.
Speaker 1: To have you on Part Time Genius. I'm so thrilled.
Speaker 1: I've got to say, I love this book so much,
Speaker 1: and I am a huge fan of you know, I
Speaker 1: grew up reading James Harriet and like Gerald Darrell and
Speaker 1: all these naturalists authors and the sweet way they write.
Speaker 1: And I was so charmed by just the first page.
Speaker 1: I was just going to read a little bit from
Speaker 1: it because it's so funny. You say, just beyond the
Speaker 1: narrow space between the grass and the machines, metal undercarriage
Speaker 1: movement catches your eye. Scaly reptilian yellow feet, heavily armed
Speaker 1: with long pointed claws, and just above the toes, curved
Speaker 1: knife sharp spurs are purposefully striding towards you at face level.
Speaker 1: It feels just like that scene from Jurassic Park. And
Speaker 1: then you go on to talk about how a chicken
Speaker 1: or rooster is approaching. And I'm just going to say,
Speaker 1: I'm so delighted by this book and thank you so
Speaker 1: much for being on this program.
Speaker 3: Wow, you make me feel like a million dollars. But
Speaker 3: I suspect you do that with all of your guests.
Speaker 1: So tell me, how is it that you came to
Speaker 1: this whole world of writing about animals.
Speaker 3: Well, I think from before I could even talk, these
Speaker 3: were kind of my people. When I was real little,
Speaker 3: well it's less than two. I was born in Germany
Speaker 3: and my parents took me to the zoo and I
Speaker 3: broke free of their hands. And when they found me,
Speaker 3: I was in the hippopen at the Frankfurt Zoo.
Speaker 1: In the hippopen. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 3: So my mother never got over that, but it bothered me,
Speaker 3: and it didn't bother the hippos either. I just felt
Speaker 3: comfortable around animals. And when I could finally find you know,
Speaker 3: when I found my voice, when I could speak English,
Speaker 3: I told my parents about my existential problem. They were
Speaker 3: so busy trying to turn me into a little girl.
Speaker 3: I had no interest in this I was really a horse,
Speaker 3: So my mother went to the pediatrician and he told
Speaker 3: her that I would soon get over it, which I
Speaker 3: did when I realized I was actually a dog. So
Speaker 3: there was nothing to be done except to get me
Speaker 3: a dog to teach me how to be a dog.
Speaker 3: And so my first friend, my only sister, my most
Speaker 3: important mentor before I ever went to school, was a
Speaker 3: Scottish terrier named Molly, and I would follow her around.
Speaker 3: I was aware, even as a small child, we know
Speaker 3: that animals have powers we do not. We know that
Speaker 3: they can hear things above and below the threshold of
Speaker 3: human hearing, that they smell an entire world that we're
Speaker 3: oblivious to. That they can often, you know, run faster
Speaker 3: than us, so they can do things like fly. So
Speaker 3: I wanted to be part of these superpowers. And I
Speaker 3: have spent my life essentially following Molly's lead and trying
Speaker 3: to learn the secrets of the animals and learning to
Speaker 3: recognize each of them as potential teachers.
Speaker 1: I love the title of this new book, what the
Speaker 1: Chicken Knows, And you're actually learning from your chickens, not
Speaker 1: just learning about them. So did you have that perspective
Speaker 1: from the very beginning of this project, or was it
Speaker 1: something that you realized as you were writing.
Speaker 3: When I was living this book, I didn't know i'd
Speaker 3: be writing about it because it was taking place in
Speaker 3: our barnyard. This was my everyday life, and it was
Speaker 3: years later. At first I wrote a book called Birdology,
Speaker 3: and my original title for it was birds are Made
Speaker 3: of Air, And what it wanted to look at was
Speaker 3: what makes a bird a bird? And I wrote about
Speaker 3: my chickens in that book, along with chapters on cassowaries,
Speaker 3: on hummingbirds and hawks and pigeons and parrots and others,
Speaker 3: each examining another aspect of birdiness that makes a bird.
Speaker 3: But I realized that chickens need their own book. Now
Speaker 3: so many people are getting chickens. A lot of folks
Speaker 3: got chickens during the pandemic, and now as egg prices
Speaker 3: are rising, people are wanting to have their own chickens
Speaker 3: as well. And eggs are wonderful, and I eat eggs.
Speaker 3: I only eat eggs from chickens who I personally know
Speaker 3: and don't object. But the eggs are the least of it.
Speaker 3: The honor of getting to know these chickens as individuals.
Speaker 3: The honor of being invited into the chicken universe, almost
Speaker 3: as an honorary chicken. That is the real joy point
Speaker 3: for me of having these birds around.
Speaker 1: I love that you refer to it as the chicken universe,
Speaker 1: and I was gonna mention that because it's such a
Speaker 1: joyous perspective of sort of being integrated in their whole world,
Speaker 1: and there's so many fascinating facts. But I think part
Speaker 1: of what was interesting to me about this book was
Speaker 1: you start by mentioning that a lot of people have
Speaker 1: the wrong perspective of chickens, that they actually think that
Speaker 1: they're dumb creatures, that all they do is sort of
Speaker 1: like peck and roam. But you talk about how brilliant
Speaker 1: they are, So okay, can you tell me a little
Speaker 1: bit about how you started to realize that they were
Speaker 1: thinking sort of bigger than just the way we perceive them.
Speaker 3: Well, I think most animals, you can just expect that
Speaker 3: they are more complex, more fascinating than anyone expected. I think,
Speaker 3: particularly for food animals, people tend to minimize their intelligence,
Speaker 3: their emotions, et cetera, to excuse the fact that we
Speaker 3: make them our slaves and then eat them. So when
Speaker 3: I went into the chicken universe. I went in with
Speaker 3: beginner's mind. It was just like here, I am, I'm
Speaker 3: open to whatever you're gonna teach me. Well, from the
Speaker 3: moment they arrived, they just shocked and thrilled me at
Speaker 3: every turn. When my babies first came, I had visited
Speaker 3: them as fluffy little chicks at my friend's house, our
Speaker 3: friend Fretchen Morn, who gave them to us as a
Speaker 3: barn warming present.
Speaker 1: I love that phrase, barn warming. I thought that was
Speaker 1: so cute.
Speaker 3: Well, it does warm up the bar, and they're wearing
Speaker 3: down coats after all. But when we brought them home,
Speaker 3: I worried that, since our chicks were going to free range,
Speaker 3: that they'd get lost. And the reason I worried about
Speaker 3: this was that as a child, I had gotten lost
Speaker 3: in my own backyard. We moved a lot. I got disoriented.
Speaker 3: Why should I expect a chicken to be so much
Speaker 3: more intelligent than I had been? And you know, the
Speaker 3: time I got lost, I think I was in like
Speaker 3: sixth grade. The chickens instantly knew where they lived, and
Speaker 3: they went out roaming, and at the end of the day,
Speaker 3: as it began to get dark, they came right back inside.
Speaker 3: I was astonished. And further, how they figured out the
Speaker 3: boundaries of our property I do not know. There is
Speaker 3: a low stone wall between us and our neighbors, and
Speaker 3: on the other side there's a road. I mean, you'd
Speaker 3: think maybe they wouldn't want to cross the road, because
Speaker 3: why would the chicken cross the road? But this persisted
Speaker 3: for years. They would not jump over that low stone wall,
Speaker 3: although they would jump over much larger objects elsewhere on
Speaker 3: the property and they could fly. What happened next was
Speaker 3: we got new neighbors, and there were these two wonderful
Speaker 3: little girls, and from the day they first showed up,
Speaker 3: they fell in love with our seven hundred and fifty
Speaker 3: pound pig we lived ur team and died of his
Speaker 3: old age in his sleep, and our border collie and
Speaker 3: our flock of hens. And pretty soon the little girls
Speaker 3: were over our house every day, and we were over
Speaker 3: their house every day. And then the chicken's behavior changed.
Speaker 3: Then they annexed their property. They began to use the
Speaker 3: neighbor's yard as their own because they figured out that
Speaker 3: our two families had essentially become one unit. And they
Speaker 3: figured it out before we figured it out.
Speaker 1: I love that, you know, one of the things we
Speaker 1: did on part time Guenis a few months ago now
Speaker 1: was we did this twenty five greatest Ideas in Science
Speaker 1: and things that kind of delighted us, and we found
Speaker 1: the study that showed that chickens preferred people with symmetrical faces.
Speaker 1: And I've actually never thought about the possibility that chickens
Speaker 1: might be able to like think about us or you know,
Speaker 1: that they'd be good at recognizing faces, but you know,
Speaker 1: both of people, but also of chickens, and I was curious,
Speaker 1: you know, why is this such a useful ability to
Speaker 1: be able to recognize other chickens?
Speaker 3: Oh well, for a chicken, community is everything. And you've
Speaker 3: heard about the pecking order in chickens and it just
Speaker 3: sounds like they're meanly pecking each other mindlessly, stupidly, rudely.
Speaker 3: But the pecking order is really about order and it's
Speaker 3: not so much about pecking. A lot of pecking did
Speaker 3: not actually happen with our flock, the ladies. They were
Speaker 3: very ladylike and it was largely a feminist utopia until
Speaker 3: we do have a few roost But for them, it's
Speaker 3: really important to know who's everyone in your group and
Speaker 3: who do you get along with every night, each hen
Speaker 3: chooses her best friend to roost next to, or her
Speaker 3: two best friends. Huh, these kinds of things we can
Speaker 3: easily relate to, because for humans this is essential as well,
Speaker 3: and I have seen it quoted widely, although I haven't
Speaker 3: actually read the study that chickens can recognize one hundred
Speaker 3: different faces, and they definitely recognize our faces as well
Speaker 3: as the faces of other chickens. And your point about faces,
Speaker 3: you know, there's different ways to recognize an individual. There
Speaker 3: has been work done showing that they are not just
Speaker 3: looking at the general gestalt or the shape or the
Speaker 3: clothing or the feathers of their friends. They are specifically
Speaker 3: looking at the faces. And the scientists who figured this
Speaker 3: out had a blast doing things like putting different colored
Speaker 3: feathers on some chickens, and you know, changing their tails
Speaker 3: around or making them wear little sweaters. But the minute
Speaker 3: you start messing with their face, if you start giving
Speaker 3: them a fake comb or you make them wear sunglasses,
Speaker 3: just like a person donning a Halloween mask, it becomes
Speaker 3: far more difficult to recognize your friend, and I love it.
Speaker 3: They also gaze into the faces of their friends and
Speaker 3: their enemies and new acquaintances to get to know them.
Speaker 1: All right, We've got so much more chicken talk coming
Speaker 1: right up after the short break. Stay tuned, and we're
Speaker 1: back with author Si Montgomery. One of the things that
Speaker 1: really surprised me was that, you know, chickens are different
Speaker 1: from a lot of other birds and definitely from humans,
Speaker 1: in that as soon as they hatch, they are very capable.
Speaker 1: And I was curious, like, they've got all these instincts.
Speaker 1: They can see, they can walk, they can run, Like,
Speaker 1: what is the evolutionary reason for this?
Speaker 3: Well, chickens come from the jungle fowl and Asian spa
Speaker 3: who nests on the ground. So if you nest in
Speaker 3: a tree, you can be like a little hummingbird and
Speaker 3: be all naked and helpless and not even open your
Speaker 3: eyes for days and just gape your beak and hope
Speaker 3: your parents are going to show up and help you.
Speaker 3: But if you nest on the ground, predators are going
Speaker 3: to come and get you. And that is known as
Speaker 3: the precocial strategy. And we've heard of precocious children, you know,
Speaker 3: and all ground nesting birds that I know of are precocial.
Speaker 3: And it makes quite a lot of sense to be
Speaker 3: able to get up and get out of there if
Speaker 3: predators are coming your way.
Speaker 1: I also really love the scenes of like all these
Speaker 1: little chicks walking through your sweater and playing on your
Speaker 1: keys as you're typing, and it was just such a
Speaker 1: sweet image.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, I loved it so much. But it
Speaker 3: was a downside to it. And besides the fact that sometimes,
Speaker 3: you know, it would poop in my hair, and that
Speaker 3: was that they're fluff. This is when I would order
Speaker 3: baby chicks in the mail and they would arrive still
Speaker 3: egg shaped and run around. When they grow their feathers,
Speaker 3: each feather is encased in a shaft of carroten, which
Speaker 3: is the same stuff as our fingernails, and when the
Speaker 3: feather would bloom and burst forth, the carroten would essentially
Speaker 3: shatter and it filled the office my computer, my books,
Speaker 3: my printer, my keyboard, everything with this thick layer of dust.
Speaker 3: And eventually my computer choked to death on it, and
Speaker 3: my friend came and took it apart and instantly saw
Speaker 3: this like thick layer of dust inside. They figured out
Speaker 3: exactly what we're wrong, and they were able to fix it.
Speaker 3: But it really did make a terrible mess, but.
Speaker 4: It wasn't worth it because I got to be with
Speaker 4: them like all my waking hours, and they got to
Speaker 4: know me, and very soon their little personalities began to
Speaker 4: emerge right away.
Speaker 3: You can tell the ones who are bold, the ones
Speaker 3: who are shy, the ones who are fast, the ones
Speaker 3: who are slow, and you have this you know relationship
Speaker 3: that can go on for you know, five six, seven years.
Speaker 3: Some chickens live into their teens. It's very very rare,
Speaker 3: but it's a lasting relationship. And knowing someone going back
Speaker 3: to their chickhood just really enriches your friendship the same
Speaker 3: way as knowing someone from their childhood.
Speaker 1: Talk to me a little bit about ordering chicks, because
Speaker 1: I was really fascinated by the idea of looking through
Speaker 1: these catalogs, almost the same way a gardener looks through
Speaker 1: the gardening catalogs that come through.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, the chicken catalogs show you all different kinds
Speaker 3: of chickens. Chickens with poofy top knots, and chickens with
Speaker 3: fluffy feathers on their feet, and tall, skinny chickens and
Speaker 3: some with tails that cascade off the perch down to
Speaker 3: the ground twelve feet long, and chickens they call easter
Speaker 3: egg chickens who lay eggs. Some of them are green,
Speaker 3: some of them are blue, some of the eggs are
Speaker 3: kind of rosy pink. There's a chicken for every occasion. Actually,
Speaker 3: what I looked for, I mean, some of them are
Speaker 3: just so cool to look at, but what I really
Speaker 3: was looking for is chickens who would be comfortable and
Speaker 3: warm enough in New Hampshire winters so that they would thrive.
Speaker 1: In the back of your book, you've got this gorgeous,
Speaker 1: gorgeous series of photos all these ornamental poultry or these
Speaker 1: creatures with you call them top hats or it was
Speaker 1: just so striking to see the variety of chickens that
Speaker 1: you're not even aware of.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're apparently like pigeons, very plastic species, like dogs too.
Speaker 3: That lends itself to all kinds of different forms through breeding.
Speaker 3: I was delighted to have my beautiful black sex links
Speaker 3: and my heritage breed dominiques who were black and white.
Speaker 3: But occasionally the breeder would throw in a free exotic
Speaker 3: chick and you didn't know what you might be getting,
Speaker 3: but you could be pretty sure it was going to
Speaker 3: turn out to be a rooster. And that's the feminist utopia.
Speaker 3: At our house was shattered.
Speaker 1: I do want to talk about roosters. I love this
Speaker 1: idea of this feminist utopia. But my grandmom in India,
Speaker 1: she had this like house that had a lot of
Speaker 1: extended family, and so one of my aunts was obsessed
Speaker 1: with animals, and so we had all these cows and
Speaker 1: dogs and rabbits and you know, like various birds and
Speaker 1: things like that. But there were always chickens around, and
Speaker 1: the roosters were so aggressive. And I when I saw
Speaker 1: in your book in the front part you said you
Speaker 1: talked to a friend and she had like a rooster
Speaker 1: whisper who basically said, pick up the rooster and almost
Speaker 1: cuddle it and that changes its impression of you. That
Speaker 1: was really stunning to be So, tell me a little
Speaker 1: bit about roosters and why they have this sort of
Speaker 1: behavioral trait.
Speaker 3: Well, a lot of roosters get abandoned in the woods
Speaker 3: or they turn into soup because of this behavior. Roosters
Speaker 3: will do anything to protect their flock, and they're very gentlemanly. Generally,
Speaker 3: they will call to their ladies to tell them when
Speaker 3: there's something particularly delicious to eat, and they will step
Speaker 3: back and let them enjoy. But because you know, all
Speaker 3: birds are pretty delicate, they're made of air, their bones
Speaker 3: are hollow. A rooster who feels that his flock is
Speaker 3: in danger has to take action. And roosters are equipped
Speaker 3: with pointy spurs that can actually hurt you if they
Speaker 3: feel under threat. And I discover this to my dismay
Speaker 3: when we had our minister over one day and was
Speaker 3: introducing his new fiance to me and wanted to enchant
Speaker 3: her children with our friendly barnyard. While the peg came
Speaker 3: bucking and snorting out of his pen and the children
Speaker 3: were a little shaken up by them. And then Graham,
Speaker 3: my minister says, here's someone more your size, and he
Speaker 3: starts to pet some of the heads. And I've always
Speaker 3: petted my hands too, And you start like near their neck,
Speaker 3: and then you follow the neck down and often the
Speaker 3: chicken was squat when you reach the tail. And this
Speaker 3: is actually called the sex squat, and it's used to
Speaker 3: let a rooster jump on the back of them. So
Speaker 3: our rooster just at that moment, looked up across the
Speaker 3: barnyard and saw what he perceived as a travesty the minister,
Speaker 3: as far as as was trying to have sex with
Speaker 3: his head, so he came full across the barnyard and
Speaker 3: hit Graham on the legs spurs first and true blood.
Speaker 3: So you can imagine that day was not the fun
Speaker 3: filled adventure that Graham was hoping for. I ended up
Speaker 3: giving both of the children an egg to try to
Speaker 3: cheer them up, but then later learn that one of
Speaker 3: them broke in the back of the car and stay
Speaker 3: they have a whole street permanently.
Speaker 1: It's so funny because previously in the book you write
Speaker 1: about like the neighbors who take to all your animals,
Speaker 1: and you sort of imagine the same scene's gonna happen
Speaker 1: with this minister and his family, and it just does
Speaker 1: not work out that way. But in terms of roosters
Speaker 1: and the way they communicate, I think there's a bit
Speaker 1: in your book about the various sounds that the chickens
Speaker 1: make and that they have something like twenty four different
Speaker 1: calls and different ways to warn about animals coming from
Speaker 1: the air or from the ground, or can you talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about that.
Speaker 3: Yes, absolutely, they are communicating very specific information and you
Speaker 3: can see this when a rooster calls out that he
Speaker 3: has seen a hawk. What do you think happens to
Speaker 3: the chickens. Well, they start looking up because he's told
Speaker 3: them it's an aerial predator. But if he calls out
Speaker 3: because he's seen a fox, they don't look up. He
Speaker 3: said fox. Foxes don't fly through the sky, so they'll
Speaker 3: look around. He can also indicate whether the animal that
Speaker 3: is threatening them is coming quickly or slowly, or is
Speaker 3: near or far. He also tells them whether the treat
Speaker 3: he's discovered is particularly delicious, because the tempo of his
Speaker 3: call will be faster. So animals are communicating all around us,
Speaker 3: and only recently have we learned to tune in. And
Speaker 3: I love it that this most common bird of all.
Speaker 3: There's four chickens for every human on this planet. Even
Speaker 3: if you can't tell a robin from a crow, everyone
Speaker 3: could recognize a chicken. We take them for granted, but
Speaker 3: they are right there before us, and fabulous teachers of
Speaker 3: wildness and wonder.
Speaker 1: And you also mentioned that the chickens had come up
Speaker 1: with a name for your friends.
Speaker 3: Yes, this is so interesting. My friend Melissa, who has
Speaker 3: written a wonderful book called How to Speak Chicken, and
Speaker 3: she also had a blog called Tilly's Nest. Tilly was
Speaker 3: her lead chicken and it was Tilly who invented a
Speaker 3: name for her, And so how did she know it
Speaker 3: was a name? Well, first of all, Tilly only said
Speaker 3: this around Melissa, never said it when Melissa wasn't around,
Speaker 3: never said it to other people. And it sounded kind
Speaker 3: of like ba, I mean, it went almost like a
Speaker 3: trumpet announcing the arrival of a queen. And she realized
Speaker 3: what this sound was. It was her name. And we
Speaker 3: know of a number of other animals that invent names
Speaker 3: for themselves and for others. We know dolphins have signature whistles,
Speaker 3: for example, and we know that dogs recognize their names
Speaker 3: and recognize our names. Whether they make up their own
Speaker 3: name in dog we don't yet know. But it makes
Speaker 3: complete sense to me that in a society in which
Speaker 3: everyone's position in the group is important, it makes total
Speaker 3: sense that they would have a name for the person
Speaker 3: who cares for them.
Speaker 1: And I think you mentioned that even after Tillie had passed,
Speaker 1: the chickens continued to use that name for her. Right,
Speaker 1: it was this legacy that lived on.
Speaker 3: That'sly taught that name to others in the flock. So
Speaker 3: Melissa's nay, or maybe I should call her her name
Speaker 3: definitely lives on. And you know this sounds like, oh,
Speaker 3: this is like a sweet little anecdote or a just
Speaker 3: so story. But I should point out that Melissa's book,
Speaker 3: which was a book for young people, won an award
Speaker 3: from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, as
Speaker 3: did one of mine, and that's how I met her.
Speaker 3: So they say, you know, the plural of anecdote is data.
Speaker 1: Oh I love that. We have to take a quick break,
Speaker 1: but do not go anywhere. Our conversation with author sim
Speaker 1: Montgomery will continue right after this break. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: Part time Tenius. I'm talking to Si Montgomery, author of
Speaker 1: the new book What the Chicken Knows. So in your book,
Speaker 1: you write that humans can actually tell the difference between
Speaker 1: when chickens are happy and when they're sad. From the cooks.
Speaker 3: Delighted to hear that, you always hear it said, we
Speaker 3: don't know what we don't know, But I think often
Speaker 3: we don't know what we do know, and we're getting
Speaker 3: information all around us. We're gathering at we're gathering sense
Speaker 3: with our noses that we don't consciously necessarily process. And
Speaker 3: I think that sometimes we know more about animals intuitively
Speaker 3: and instinctually than we do intellectually, and that what happens
Speaker 3: is that when we're in school, people jam it down
Speaker 3: our throat that we should only pay attention to one species,
Speaker 3: the human species, and that everybody else is some kind
Speaker 3: of a second class citizen. But that's not true. We're
Speaker 3: part of a big family, and I like it that way.
Speaker 1: So I want to talk about Pickles. Can you tell
Speaker 1: the audience a little bit about this very special bird
Speaker 1: that came into your life.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Pickles. When she arrived from the hatchery, it was
Speaker 3: clear there was something a little wrong. She had a
Speaker 3: little bump on her head which was like a little
Speaker 3: pimple filled with cerebrospinal fluid, her head at all in it, basically,
Speaker 3: and she was always a little slower than the others.
Speaker 3: I didn't realize at first that one of her problems
Speaker 3: was she couldn't peck straight. If you were held up
Speaker 3: a handful of delicious treats, she would peck and she'd
Speaker 3: get a delicious treat. But if you handed her like
Speaker 3: one kernel of corn, she'd peck over here and miss it.
Speaker 3: But she did fine, and she wasn't trying to be
Speaker 3: the head chicken or anything. Everyone else looked after her,
Speaker 3: which was great, but she went off kind of wandered off,
Speaker 3: and she came back with this hideous injury. It almost
Speaker 3: looked like her head was almost cut off, and I
Speaker 3: don't know what happened, but we rush her off to
Speaker 3: our veterinarian doctor, Charles Davinny, who is a saint. This
Speaker 3: man will turn down no animal in need, and he
Speaker 3: later would perform a hysterectomy on one of my chickens,
Speaker 3: which is, believe me, not something they teach you in
Speaker 3: vet school because there is never a call for a
Speaker 3: hys directomy for a laying him. But he was a
Speaker 3: genius and he figured out how to close up this
Speaker 3: wound and he sent her home with an Elizabethan coller
Speaker 3: which he macguyvered out of an X ray film. So
Speaker 3: the thing was though about chickens. Even though they can
Speaker 3: be very affectionate and they do care for one another,
Speaker 3: there's one exception to this rule, and that is if
Speaker 3: any chicken is bleeding, the other chickens attack them. And why.
Speaker 3: One theory might be that chickens do like meat. I'm
Speaker 3: a vegetarian myself, but they like meat and if they
Speaker 3: find any It's often signaled by the presence of blood,
Speaker 3: and they just want that resource. Another possibility is if
Speaker 3: someone in your flock is likely to attract a predator,
Speaker 3: maybe you should drive them away. You know, I have
Speaker 3: no idea, but it's something very old in chickens. So
Speaker 3: we had to remove her from the flock, and she
Speaker 3: lived in the bathroom for a while. So anyone who
Speaker 3: used our downstairs bathroom was alarmed to find a chicken
Speaker 3: sitting with a coffee. It out, that's ray on the sink.
Speaker 3: But there she was, and she healed and was fine
Speaker 3: and went right back with a flock.
Speaker 1: I love the story of Pickles. That scene of Pickles
Speaker 1: in the bathroom and people finding her there was really funny.
Speaker 1: But scientists have noticed that chickens t to peck at
Speaker 1: any red dot right, And you mentioned in the book
Speaker 1: that actually farmers have come up with ways to alter
Speaker 1: chickens vision to prevent them from helping.
Speaker 3: This was actually in use in some places until like
Speaker 3: the seventies or even eighties. They put a kid you
Speaker 3: not sunglasses on them that would filter out that color.
Speaker 3: But I think that's a little unwieldy. What we do
Speaker 3: or what we did there's a product called stop peck,
Speaker 3: and it apparently tastes horrible and you put it on
Speaker 3: the wound and the other chickens won't attack. But we
Speaker 3: didn't have any stop peck at that time, and we
Speaker 3: just kept her inside.
Speaker 1: You know, there's some really funny moments in this book,
Speaker 1: and maybe think about how chickens in culture are almost
Speaker 1: always associated with comedy, like there's the road crossing jokes
Speaker 1: and rubber chickens, Gonzo and Camilla. Do you think it's
Speaker 1: fair to say chickens are the fun Oh.
Speaker 3: Gosh, well, people make fun of EMUs, these tall, flightless
Speaker 3: birds that I studied. I lived with EMUs in the
Speaker 3: outback for six months back in the eighties, and they
Speaker 3: do what looks like to us funny things that remind
Speaker 3: us of people, but dressed up as chickens, sometimes seem
Speaker 3: to be dancing. Sometimes they just seem to be like
Speaker 3: all flustered. And this is true of EMUs and of chickens.
Speaker 3: I think when we see any animal doing something that
Speaker 3: just so reminds you of a person, it makes you laugh.
Speaker 3: And part of it is that it's funny, and part
Speaker 3: of it is just the delight of seeing our sameness
Speaker 3: and our difference encapsulated in one single moment.
Speaker 1: I love the way you end the book, too, when
Speaker 1: you talk about how birds are so different from us,
Speaker 1: and that they're closer to lizards, or they're closer to alligators,
Speaker 1: or they're basically feathered dinosaurs, and yet they're looking for companionship,
Speaker 1: that they're looking for comfort from community and these things
Speaker 1: that really unite is and I love that sentiment so much.
Speaker 3: I love that so many of us here on Earth
Speaker 3: share these emotions and share the ability to remember things,
Speaker 3: to think of the future, and you're reminded how adaptive
Speaker 3: these things are. And of course humans shouldn't be the
Speaker 3: only species to have these things. And I think, particularly
Speaker 3: right now, when we just seem so close to destroying
Speaker 3: this sweet green planet of ours, that it's so essential
Speaker 3: to be reminded that the world is full of other
Speaker 3: minds and other souls.
Speaker 1: It really is such a beautiful book, and I think
Speaker 1: there's something so delightful of finding wonder in creatures, and
Speaker 1: you really do that which great joyous attitude, and I
Speaker 1: really appreciated it. So I would definitely recommend What the
Speaker 1: Chicken Knows to everyone out there. Thank you so much
Speaker 1: for spending time with us. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 3: All the pleasure was mine. Thank you so much for
Speaker 3: having me. Thank you for loving animals. Thank you for
Speaker 3: reading my book.
Speaker 1: That was so fun.
Speaker 2: I feel like I actually appreciate my chickens even more now,
Speaker 2: Man I go.
Speaker 1: And I know what high esteem you already held Potato
Speaker 1: chip in so it makes sense. I really found sign
Speaker 1: to writing so delightful. And thank you so much to
Speaker 1: sih Montgomery, who's written about so many wonderful animals, from
Speaker 1: turtles to pigs to octopi. Her latest, What the Chicken Knows,
Speaker 1: is available at libraries, indie bookstores, and wherever books are sold.
Speaker 1: We'll be back next week with a new episode, but
Speaker 1: in the meantime, from Dylan, Gabe, Will, Mary and myself,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for listening. Part Time Genius is
Speaker 1: a production of Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio. This show is hosted
Speaker 1: by Will Pearson and Me Mongas Chatikler and research by
Speaker 1: our goodpal Mary Philip Sandy. Today's episode was engineered and
Speaker 1: produced by the wonderful Dylan Fagan with support from Tyler Klang.
Speaker 1: The show is executive produced for iHeart by Katrina Norvell
Speaker 1: and Ali Perry, with social media support from Sasha Gay,
Speaker 1: trustee Dara Potts and Viney Shorey. For more podcasts from
Speaker 1: Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.