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What the Chicken Knows: A New Appreciation of the World's Most Familiar Bird

by Sy Montgomery

A closer look at the familiar chicken

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AlbakiReads Editorial

A closer look at the familiar chicken

Drawing on Sy Montgomery’s experience keeping a backyard flock, the book considers chickens as individual animals with distinct temperaments and social relationships. Personal observations are paired with information about their abilities: the description highlights recognition, memory, anticipation, and a varied system of calls. That combination shifts attention from the chicken as a familiar farm animal to the behaviors and connections that shape life within a flock. The subject is grounded in one keeper’s long-running observations while opening onto broader questions about what people notice—or overlook—in animals they see every day.

Good fit for readers who enjoy

  • Readers interested in animal behavior and bird life.
  • Readers who enjoy nature writing that combines personal observation with science.
  • Readers curious about human relationships with familiar domesticated animals.

Themes

Chicken behavior and communicationIndividuality and social relationships in animalsHuman perspectives on familiar wildlife

Based on publisher information and book metadata.

Book overview

INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLER

A charming and eye-opening exploration of the special relationship between humans and chickens from Sy Montgomery, "one of our finest chroniclers of the natural world" (The New York Times).

For more than two decades, Sy Montgomery--whose The Soul of an Octopus was a National Book Award finalist--has kept a flock of chickens in her backyard. Each chicken has an individual personality (outgoing or shy, loud or quiet, reckless or cautious) and connects with Sy in her own way.

In this short, delightful book, Sy takes us inside the flock and reveals all the things that make chickens such remarkable creatures: only hours after leaving the egg, they are able to walk, run, and peck; relationships are important to them and the average chicken can recognize more than one hundred other chickens; they remember the past and anticipate the future; and they communicate specific information through at least twenty-four distinct calls. Visitors to her home are astonished by all this, but for Sy what's more astonishing is how little most people know about chickens, especially considering there are about twenty percent more chickens on earth than people.

With a winning combination of personal narrative and science, What the Chicken Knows is exactly the kind of book that has made Sy Montgomery such a beloved and popular author.
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