May 6, 2025 • 35 mins
Chickens are full of surprises, from their understanding of property boundaries to their unique personalities to their ability to recognize (and name!) the humans around them. Author and longtime chicken enthusiast Sy Montgomery stops by to share some fascinating facts—and hilarious true stories—from her new book, What the Chicken Knows.
Buy Sy’s book: https://symontgomery.com/what-the-chicken-knows/
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
You're listening to part Time Genius, the production of Kaleidoscope
and iHeartRadio. Guess what Will?
Speaker 2 (00:24):
What's that Mango?
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Did you know that a chicken can run as fast
as nine miles per hour? Like if you put them
on a leash, they could be running companions for you
on your next half marathon.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
I did not know that. Despite the number of times
I have put them on leashes and run, I've never
never actually tracked them. So it's a you know, I
do have a couple of chickens that could easily outrun me.
I mean like they're really especially potato chick, our fastest chicken.
Oh she flies.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
Yeah, Well, chicken speed is just one thing I learned
from the wonderful author Si Montgomery's new book, What the
Chicken Knows. There's so much incredible stuff in there, from
how chickens can find the midpoint of a geometric shape
on the ground, like if you put them in a
square or triangle, they can find the exact midpoint. Chickens
go wild when they see red dots, So there was
(01:09):
a point when farmers used to outfit their birds in
tiny rose colored spectacles so that they couldn't see the
red and also chickens can give their owners distinct names.
It is really wild. Anyway, I found this book so fascinating.
I called sy up and asked her when you come
on part Time Genius and talk chickens with me? And
she said yes. She is so lovely, and even though
(01:31):
I don't love chickens, by the end of the conversation,
I wanted to go pet a hen, so let's dive in.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
So it's such a pleasure.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
To have you on Part Time Genius. I'm so thrilled.
I've got to say, I love this book so much,
and I am a huge fan of you know, I
grew up reading James Harriet and like Gerald Darrell and
all these naturalists authors and the sweet way they write.
And I was so charmed by just the first page.
(02:20):
I was just going to read a little bit from
it because it's so funny. You say, just beyond the
narrow space between the grass and the machines, metal undercarriage
movement catches your eye. Scaly reptilian yellow feet, heavily armed
with long pointed claws, and just above the toes, curved
knife sharp spurs are purposefully striding towards you at face level.
(02:45):
It feels just like that scene from Jurassic Park. And
then you go on to talk about how a chicken
or rooster is approaching. And I'm just going to say,
I'm so delighted by this book and thank you so
much for being on this program.
Speaker 3 (02:59):
Wow, you make me feel like a million dollars. But
I suspect you do that with all of your guests.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
So tell me, how is it that you came to
this whole world of writing about animals.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
Well, I think from before I could even talk, these
were kind of my people. When I was real little,
well it's less than two. I was born in Germany
and my parents took me to the zoo and I
broke free of their hands. And when they found me,
I was in the hippopen at the Frankfurt Zoo.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
In the hippopen. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 3 (03:35):
So my mother never got over that, but it bothered me,
and it didn't bother the hippos either. I just felt
comfortable around animals. And when I could finally find you know,
when I found my voice, when I could speak English,
I told my parents about my existential problem. They were
so busy trying to turn me into a little girl.
(03:57):
I had no interest in this I was really a horse,
So my mother went to the pediatrician and he told
her that I would soon get over it, which I
did when I realized I was actually a dog. So
there was nothing to be done except to get me
a dog to teach me how to be a dog.
(04:21):
And so my first friend, my only sister, my most
important mentor before I ever went to school, was a
Scottish terrier named Molly, and I would follow her around.
I was aware, even as a small child, we know
that animals have powers we do not. We know that
(04:43):
they can hear things above and below the threshold of
human hearing, that they smell an entire world that we're
oblivious to. That they can often, you know, run faster
than us, so they can do things like fly. So
I wanted to be part of these superpowers. And I
have spent my life essentially following Molly's lead and trying
(05:08):
to learn the secrets of the animals and learning to
recognize each of them as potential teachers.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
I love the title of this new book, what the
Chicken Knows, And you're actually learning from your chickens, not
just learning about them. So did you have that perspective
from the very beginning of this project, or was it
something that you realized as you were writing.
Speaker 3 (05:31):
When I was living this book, I didn't know i'd
be writing about it because it was taking place in
our barnyard. This was my everyday life, and it was
years later. At first I wrote a book called Birdology,
and my original title for it was birds are Made
of Air, And what it wanted to look at was
(05:51):
what makes a bird a bird? And I wrote about
my chickens in that book, along with chapters on cassowaries,
on hummingbirds and hawks and pigeons and parrots and others,
each examining another aspect of birdiness that makes a bird.
But I realized that chickens need their own book. Now
(06:17):
so many people are getting chickens. A lot of folks
got chickens during the pandemic, and now as egg prices
are rising, people are wanting to have their own chickens
as well. And eggs are wonderful, and I eat eggs.
I only eat eggs from chickens who I personally know
and don't object. But the eggs are the least of it.
(06:40):
The honor of getting to know these chickens as individuals.
The honor of being invited into the chicken universe, almost
as an honorary chicken. That is the real joy point
for me of having these birds around.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
I love that you refer to it as the chicken universe,
and I was gonna mention that because it's such a
joyous perspective of sort of being integrated in their whole world,
and there's so many fascinating facts. But I think part
of what was interesting to me about this book was
you start by mentioning that a lot of people have
(07:18):
the wrong perspective of chickens, that they actually think that
they're dumb creatures, that all they do is sort of
like peck and roam. But you talk about how brilliant
they are, So okay, can you tell me a little
bit about how you started to realize that they were
thinking sort of bigger than just the way we perceive them.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
Well, I think most animals, you can just expect that
they are more complex, more fascinating than anyone expected. I think,
particularly for food animals, people tend to minimize their intelligence,
their emotions, et cetera, to excuse the fact that we
make them our slaves and then eat them. So when
(07:58):
I went into the chicken universe. I went in with
beginner's mind. It was just like here, I am, I'm
open to whatever you're gonna teach me. Well, from the
moment they arrived, they just shocked and thrilled me at
every turn. When my babies first came, I had visited
them as fluffy little chicks at my friend's house, our
(08:20):
friend Fretchen Morn, who gave them to us as a
barn warming present.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
I love that phrase, barn warming. I thought that was
so cute.
Speaker 3 (08:29):
Well, it does warm up the bar, and they're wearing
down coats after all. But when we brought them home,
I worried that, since our chicks were going to free range,
that they'd get lost. And the reason I worried about
this was that as a child, I had gotten lost
in my own backyard. We moved a lot. I got disoriented.
(08:51):
Why should I expect a chicken to be so much
more intelligent than I had been? And you know, the
time I got lost, I think I was in like
sixth grade. The chickens instantly knew where they lived, and
they went out roaming, and at the end of the day,
as it began to get dark, they came right back inside.
(09:15):
I was astonished. And further, how they figured out the
boundaries of our property I do not know. There is
a low stone wall between us and our neighbors, and
on the other side there's a road. I mean, you'd
think maybe they wouldn't want to cross the road, because
why would the chicken cross the road? But this persisted
(09:38):
for years. They would not jump over that low stone wall,
although they would jump over much larger objects elsewhere on
the property and they could fly. What happened next was
we got new neighbors, and there were these two wonderful
little girls, and from the day they first showed up,
they fell in love with our seven hundred and fifty
(09:58):
pound pig we lived ur team and died of his
old age in his sleep, and our border collie and
our flock of hens. And pretty soon the little girls
were over our house every day, and we were over
their house every day. And then the chicken's behavior changed.
Then they annexed their property. They began to use the
(10:23):
neighbor's yard as their own because they figured out that
our two families had essentially become one unit. And they
figured it out before we figured it out.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
I love that, you know, one of the things we
did on part time Guenis a few months ago now
was we did this twenty five greatest Ideas in Science
and things that kind of delighted us, and we found
the study that showed that chickens preferred people with symmetrical faces.
And I've actually never thought about the possibility that chickens
might be able to like think about us or you know,
(10:56):
that they'd be good at recognizing faces, but you know,
both of people, but also of chickens, and I was curious,
you know, why is this such a useful ability to
be able to recognize other chickens?
Speaker 3 (11:10):
Oh well, for a chicken, community is everything. And you've
heard about the pecking order in chickens and it just
sounds like they're meanly pecking each other mindlessly, stupidly, rudely.
But the pecking order is really about order and it's
not so much about pecking. A lot of pecking did
not actually happen with our flock, the ladies. They were
(11:31):
very ladylike and it was largely a feminist utopia until
we do have a few roost But for them, it's
really important to know who's everyone in your group and
who do you get along with every night, each hen
chooses her best friend to roost next to, or her
(11:52):
two best friends. Huh, these kinds of things we can
easily relate to, because for humans this is essential as well,
and I have seen it quoted widely, although I haven't
actually read the study that chickens can recognize one hundred
different faces, and they definitely recognize our faces as well
as the faces of other chickens. And your point about faces,
(12:16):
you know, there's different ways to recognize an individual. There
has been work done showing that they are not just
looking at the general gestalt or the shape or the
clothing or the feathers of their friends. They are specifically
looking at the faces. And the scientists who figured this
out had a blast doing things like putting different colored
(12:38):
feathers on some chickens, and you know, changing their tails
around or making them wear little sweaters. But the minute
you start messing with their face, if you start giving
them a fake comb or you make them wear sunglasses,
just like a person donning a Halloween mask, it becomes
far more difficult to recognize your friend, and I love it.
(13:00):
They also gaze into the faces of their friends and
their enemies and new acquaintances to get to know them.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
All right, We've got so much more chicken talk coming
right up after the short break. Stay tuned, and we're
(13:30):
back with author Si Montgomery. One of the things that
really surprised me was that, you know, chickens are different
from a lot of other birds and definitely from humans,
in that as soon as they hatch, they are very capable.
And I was curious, like, they've got all these instincts.
They can see, they can walk, they can run, Like,
(13:51):
what is the evolutionary reason for this?
Speaker 3 (13:55):
Well, chickens come from the jungle fowl and Asian spa
who nests on the ground. So if you nest in
a tree, you can be like a little hummingbird and
be all naked and helpless and not even open your
eyes for days and just gape your beak and hope
your parents are going to show up and help you.
(14:15):
But if you nest on the ground, predators are going
to come and get you. And that is known as
the precocial strategy. And we've heard of precocious children, you know,
and all ground nesting birds that I know of are precocial.
And it makes quite a lot of sense to be
able to get up and get out of there if
(14:36):
predators are coming your way.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
I also really love the scenes of like all these
little chicks walking through your sweater and playing on your
keys as you're typing, and it was just such a
sweet image.
Speaker 3 (14:51):
Oh my gosh, I loved it so much. But it
was a downside to it. And besides the fact that sometimes,
you know, it would poop in my hair, and that
was that they're fluff. This is when I would order
baby chicks in the mail and they would arrive still
egg shaped and run around. When they grow their feathers,
(15:12):
each feather is encased in a shaft of carroten, which
is the same stuff as our fingernails, and when the
feather would bloom and burst forth, the carroten would essentially
shatter and it filled the office my computer, my books,
my printer, my keyboard, everything with this thick layer of dust.
(15:32):
And eventually my computer choked to death on it, and
my friend came and took it apart and instantly saw
this like thick layer of dust inside. They figured out
exactly what we're wrong, and they were able to fix it.
But it really did make a terrible mess, but.
Speaker 4 (15:48):
It wasn't worth it because I got to be with
them like all my waking hours, and they got to
know me, and very soon their little personalities began to
emerge right away.
Speaker 3 (16:01):
You can tell the ones who are bold, the ones
who are shy, the ones who are fast, the ones
who are slow, and you have this you know relationship
that can go on for you know, five six, seven years.
Some chickens live into their teens. It's very very rare,
but it's a lasting relationship. And knowing someone going back
(16:24):
to their chickhood just really enriches your friendship the same
way as knowing someone from their childhood.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
Talk to me a little bit about ordering chicks, because
I was really fascinated by the idea of looking through
these catalogs, almost the same way a gardener looks through
the gardening catalogs that come through.
Speaker 3 (16:44):
Yeah. Well, the chicken catalogs show you all different kinds
of chickens. Chickens with poofy top knots, and chickens with
fluffy feathers on their feet, and tall, skinny chickens and
some with tails that cascade off the perch down to
the ground twelve feet long, and chickens they call easter
egg chickens who lay eggs. Some of them are green,
(17:06):
some of them are blue, some of the eggs are
kind of rosy pink. There's a chicken for every occasion. Actually,
what I looked for, I mean, some of them are
just so cool to look at, but what I really
was looking for is chickens who would be comfortable and
warm enough in New Hampshire winters so that they would thrive.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
In the back of your book, you've got this gorgeous,
gorgeous series of photos all these ornamental poultry or these
creatures with you call them top hats or it was
just so striking to see the variety of chickens that
you're not even aware of.
Speaker 3 (17:43):
Yeah, they're apparently like pigeons, very plastic species, like dogs too.
That lends itself to all kinds of different forms through breeding.
I was delighted to have my beautiful black sex links
and my heritage breed dominiques who were black and white.
(18:05):
But occasionally the breeder would throw in a free exotic
chick and you didn't know what you might be getting,
but you could be pretty sure it was going to
turn out to be a rooster. And that's the feminist utopia.
At our house was shattered.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
I do want to talk about roosters. I love this
idea of this feminist utopia. But my grandmom in India,
she had this like house that had a lot of
extended family, and so one of my aunts was obsessed
with animals, and so we had all these cows and
dogs and rabbits and you know, like various birds and
things like that. But there were always chickens around, and
(18:45):
the roosters were so aggressive. And I when I saw
in your book in the front part you said you
talked to a friend and she had like a rooster
whisper who basically said, pick up the rooster and almost
cuddle it and that changes its impression of you. That
was really stunning to be So, tell me a little
bit about roosters and why they have this sort of
(19:06):
behavioral trait.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
Well, a lot of roosters get abandoned in the woods
or they turn into soup because of this behavior. Roosters
will do anything to protect their flock, and they're very gentlemanly. Generally,
they will call to their ladies to tell them when
there's something particularly delicious to eat, and they will step
(19:29):
back and let them enjoy. But because you know, all
birds are pretty delicate, they're made of air, their bones
are hollow. A rooster who feels that his flock is
in danger has to take action. And roosters are equipped
with pointy spurs that can actually hurt you if they
(19:50):
feel under threat. And I discover this to my dismay
when we had our minister over one day and was
introducing his new fiance to me and wanted to enchant
her children with our friendly barnyard. While the peg came
bucking and snorting out of his pen and the children
(20:13):
were a little shaken up by them. And then Graham,
my minister says, here's someone more your size, and he
starts to pet some of the heads. And I've always
petted my hands too, And you start like near their neck,
and then you follow the neck down and often the
chicken was squat when you reach the tail. And this
(20:34):
is actually called the sex squat, and it's used to
let a rooster jump on the back of them. So
our rooster just at that moment, looked up across the
barnyard and saw what he perceived as a travesty the minister,
as far as as was trying to have sex with
(20:57):
his head, so he came full across the barnyard and
hit Graham on the legs spurs first and true blood.
So you can imagine that day was not the fun
filled adventure that Graham was hoping for. I ended up
giving both of the children an egg to try to
cheer them up, but then later learn that one of
(21:19):
them broke in the back of the car and stay
they have a whole street permanently.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
It's so funny because previously in the book you write
about like the neighbors who take to all your animals,
and you sort of imagine the same scene's gonna happen
with this minister and his family, and it just does
not work out that way. But in terms of roosters
and the way they communicate, I think there's a bit
(21:46):
in your book about the various sounds that the chickens
make and that they have something like twenty four different
calls and different ways to warn about animals coming from
the air or from the ground, or can you talk
a little bit about that.
Speaker 3 (22:01):
Yes, absolutely, they are communicating very specific information and you
can see this when a rooster calls out that he
has seen a hawk. What do you think happens to
the chickens. Well, they start looking up because he's told
them it's an aerial predator. But if he calls out
(22:24):
because he's seen a fox, they don't look up. He
said fox. Foxes don't fly through the sky, so they'll
look around. He can also indicate whether the animal that
is threatening them is coming quickly or slowly, or is
near or far. He also tells them whether the treat
he's discovered is particularly delicious, because the tempo of his
(22:47):
call will be faster. So animals are communicating all around us,
and only recently have we learned to tune in. And
I love it that this most common bird of all.
There's four chickens for every human on this planet. Even
if you can't tell a robin from a crow, everyone
(23:08):
could recognize a chicken. We take them for granted, but
they are right there before us, and fabulous teachers of
wildness and wonder.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
And you also mentioned that the chickens had come up
with a name for your friends.
Speaker 3 (23:25):
Yes, this is so interesting. My friend Melissa, who has
written a wonderful book called How to Speak Chicken, and
she also had a blog called Tilly's Nest. Tilly was
her lead chicken and it was Tilly who invented a
name for her, And so how did she know it
was a name? Well, first of all, Tilly only said
(23:48):
this around Melissa, never said it when Melissa wasn't around,
never said it to other people. And it sounded kind
of like ba, I mean, it went almost like a
trumpet announcing the arrival of a queen. And she realized
what this sound was. It was her name. And we
(24:10):
know of a number of other animals that invent names
for themselves and for others. We know dolphins have signature whistles,
for example, and we know that dogs recognize their names
and recognize our names. Whether they make up their own
name in dog we don't yet know. But it makes
(24:32):
complete sense to me that in a society in which
everyone's position in the group is important, it makes total
sense that they would have a name for the person
who cares for them.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
And I think you mentioned that even after Tillie had passed,
the chickens continued to use that name for her. Right,
it was this legacy that lived on.
Speaker 3 (24:57):
That'sly taught that name to others in the flock. So
Melissa's nay, or maybe I should call her her name
definitely lives on. And you know this sounds like, oh,
this is like a sweet little anecdote or a just
so story. But I should point out that Melissa's book,
which was a book for young people, won an award
(25:20):
from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, as
did one of mine, and that's how I met her.
So they say, you know, the plural of anecdote is data.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
Oh I love that. We have to take a quick break,
but do not go anywhere. Our conversation with author sim
Montgomery will continue right after this break. Welcome back to
(25:59):
Part time Tenius. I'm talking to Si Montgomery, author of
the new book What the Chicken Knows. So in your book,
you write that humans can actually tell the difference between
when chickens are happy and when they're sad. From the cooks.
Speaker 3 (26:13):
Delighted to hear that, you always hear it said, we
don't know what we don't know, But I think often
we don't know what we do know, and we're getting
information all around us. We're gathering at we're gathering sense
with our noses that we don't consciously necessarily process. And
I think that sometimes we know more about animals intuitively
(26:38):
and instinctually than we do intellectually, and that what happens
is that when we're in school, people jam it down
our throat that we should only pay attention to one species,
the human species, and that everybody else is some kind
of a second class citizen. But that's not true. We're
part of a big family, and I like it that way.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
So I want to talk about Pickles. Can you tell
the audience a little bit about this very special bird
that came into your life.
Speaker 3 (27:12):
Yeah, Pickles. When she arrived from the hatchery, it was
clear there was something a little wrong. She had a
little bump on her head which was like a little
pimple filled with cerebrospinal fluid, her head at all in it, basically,
and she was always a little slower than the others.
(27:33):
I didn't realize at first that one of her problems
was she couldn't peck straight. If you were held up
a handful of delicious treats, she would peck and she'd
get a delicious treat. But if you handed her like
one kernel of corn, she'd peck over here and miss it.
But she did fine, and she wasn't trying to be
(27:53):
the head chicken or anything. Everyone else looked after her,
which was great, but she went off kind of wandered off,
and she came back with this hideous injury. It almost
looked like her head was almost cut off, and I
don't know what happened, but we rush her off to
our veterinarian doctor, Charles Davinny, who is a saint. This
(28:15):
man will turn down no animal in need, and he
later would perform a hysterectomy on one of my chickens,
which is, believe me, not something they teach you in
vet school because there is never a call for a
hys directomy for a laying him. But he was a
genius and he figured out how to close up this
(28:36):
wound and he sent her home with an Elizabethan coller
which he macguyvered out of an X ray film. So
the thing was though about chickens. Even though they can
be very affectionate and they do care for one another,
there's one exception to this rule, and that is if
any chicken is bleeding, the other chickens attack them. And why.
(29:02):
One theory might be that chickens do like meat. I'm
a vegetarian myself, but they like meat and if they
find any It's often signaled by the presence of blood,
and they just want that resource. Another possibility is if
someone in your flock is likely to attract a predator,
(29:25):
maybe you should drive them away. You know, I have
no idea, but it's something very old in chickens. So
we had to remove her from the flock, and she
lived in the bathroom for a while. So anyone who
used our downstairs bathroom was alarmed to find a chicken
sitting with a coffee. It out, that's ray on the sink.
But there she was, and she healed and was fine
(29:47):
and went right back with a flock.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
I love the story of Pickles. That scene of Pickles
in the bathroom and people finding her there was really funny.
But scientists have noticed that chickens t to peck at
any red dot right, And you mentioned in the book
that actually farmers have come up with ways to alter
chickens vision to prevent them from helping.
Speaker 3 (30:13):
This was actually in use in some places until like
the seventies or even eighties. They put a kid you
not sunglasses on them that would filter out that color.
But I think that's a little unwieldy. What we do
or what we did there's a product called stop peck,
(30:34):
and it apparently tastes horrible and you put it on
the wound and the other chickens won't attack. But we
didn't have any stop peck at that time, and we
just kept her inside.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
You know, there's some really funny moments in this book,
and maybe think about how chickens in culture are almost
always associated with comedy, like there's the road crossing jokes
and rubber chickens, Gonzo and Camilla. Do you think it's
fair to say chickens are the fun Oh.
Speaker 3 (31:01):
Gosh, well, people make fun of EMUs, these tall, flightless
birds that I studied. I lived with EMUs in the
outback for six months back in the eighties, and they
do what looks like to us funny things that remind
us of people, but dressed up as chickens, sometimes seem
(31:21):
to be dancing. Sometimes they just seem to be like
all flustered. And this is true of EMUs and of chickens.
I think when we see any animal doing something that
just so reminds you of a person, it makes you laugh.
And part of it is that it's funny, and part
of it is just the delight of seeing our sameness
and our difference encapsulated in one single moment.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
I love the way you end the book, too, when
you talk about how birds are so different from us,
and that they're closer to lizards, or they're closer to alligators,
or they're basically feathered dinosaurs, and yet they're looking for companionship,
that they're looking for comfort from community and these things
(32:05):
that really unite is and I love that sentiment so much.
Speaker 3 (32:09):
I love that so many of us here on Earth
share these emotions and share the ability to remember things,
to think of the future, and you're reminded how adaptive
these things are. And of course humans shouldn't be the
only species to have these things. And I think, particularly
(32:34):
right now, when we just seem so close to destroying
this sweet green planet of ours, that it's so essential
to be reminded that the world is full of other
minds and other souls.
Speaker 1 (32:54):
It really is such a beautiful book, and I think
there's something so delightful of finding wonder in creatures, and
you really do that which great joyous attitude, and I
really appreciated it. So I would definitely recommend What the
Chicken Knows to everyone out there. Thank you so much
(33:14):
for spending time with us. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (33:17):
All the pleasure was mine. Thank you so much for
having me. Thank you for loving animals. Thank you for
reading my book.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
That was so fun.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
I feel like I actually appreciate my chickens even more now,
Man I go.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
And I know what high esteem you already held Potato
chip in so it makes sense. I really found sign
to writing so delightful. And thank you so much to
sih Montgomery, who's written about so many wonderful animals, from
turtles to pigs to octopi. Her latest, What the Chicken Knows,
is available at libraries, indie bookstores, and wherever books are sold.
We'll be back next week with a new episode, but
(33:53):
in the meantime, from Dylan, Gabe, Will, Mary and myself,
thank you so much for listening. Part Time Genius is
a production of Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio. This show is hosted
(34:16):
by Will Pearson and Me Mongas Chatikler and research by
our goodpal Mary Philip Sandy. Today's episode was engineered and
produced by the wonderful Dylan Fagan with support from Tyler Klang.
The show is executive produced for iHeart by Katrina Norvell
and Ali Perry, with social media support from Sasha Gay,
trustee Dara Potts and Viney Shorey. For more podcasts from
(34:40):
Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
You're listening to part Time Genius, the production of Kaleidoscope
and iHeartRadio. Guess what Will?
Speaker 2 (00:24):
What's that Mango?
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Did you know that a chicken can run as fast
as nine miles per hour? Like if you put them
on a leash, they could be running companions for you
on your next half marathon.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
I did not know that. Despite the number of times
I have put them on leashes and run, I've never
never actually tracked them. So it's a you know, I
do have a couple of chickens that could easily outrun me.
I mean like they're really especially potato chick, our fastest chicken.
Oh she flies.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
Yeah, Well, chicken speed is just one thing I learned
from the wonderful author Si Montgomery's new book, What the
Chicken Knows. There's so much incredible stuff in there, from
how chickens can find the midpoint of a geometric shape
on the ground, like if you put them in a
square or triangle, they can find the exact midpoint. Chickens
go wild when they see red dots, So there was
(01:09):
a point when farmers used to outfit their birds in
tiny rose colored spectacles so that they couldn't see the
red and also chickens can give their owners distinct names.
It is really wild. Anyway, I found this book so fascinating.
I called sy up and asked her when you come
on part Time Genius and talk chickens with me? And
she said yes. She is so lovely, and even though
(01:31):
I don't love chickens, by the end of the conversation,
I wanted to go pet a hen, so let's dive in.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
So it's such a pleasure.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
To have you on Part Time Genius. I'm so thrilled.
I've got to say, I love this book so much,
and I am a huge fan of you know, I
grew up reading James Harriet and like Gerald Darrell and
all these naturalists authors and the sweet way they write.
And I was so charmed by just the first page.
(02:20):
I was just going to read a little bit from
it because it's so funny. You say, just beyond the
narrow space between the grass and the machines, metal undercarriage
movement catches your eye. Scaly reptilian yellow feet, heavily armed
with long pointed claws, and just above the toes, curved
knife sharp spurs are purposefully striding towards you at face level.
(02:45):
It feels just like that scene from Jurassic Park. And
then you go on to talk about how a chicken
or rooster is approaching. And I'm just going to say,
I'm so delighted by this book and thank you so
much for being on this program.
Speaker 3 (02:59):
Wow, you make me feel like a million dollars. But
I suspect you do that with all of your guests.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
So tell me, how is it that you came to
this whole world of writing about animals.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
Well, I think from before I could even talk, these
were kind of my people. When I was real little,
well it's less than two. I was born in Germany
and my parents took me to the zoo and I
broke free of their hands. And when they found me,
I was in the hippopen at the Frankfurt Zoo.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
In the hippopen. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 3 (03:35):
So my mother never got over that, but it bothered me,
and it didn't bother the hippos either. I just felt
comfortable around animals. And when I could finally find you know,
when I found my voice, when I could speak English,
I told my parents about my existential problem. They were
so busy trying to turn me into a little girl.
(03:57):
I had no interest in this I was really a horse,
So my mother went to the pediatrician and he told
her that I would soon get over it, which I
did when I realized I was actually a dog. So
there was nothing to be done except to get me
a dog to teach me how to be a dog.
(04:21):
And so my first friend, my only sister, my most
important mentor before I ever went to school, was a
Scottish terrier named Molly, and I would follow her around.
I was aware, even as a small child, we know
that animals have powers we do not. We know that
(04:43):
they can hear things above and below the threshold of
human hearing, that they smell an entire world that we're
oblivious to. That they can often, you know, run faster
than us, so they can do things like fly. So
I wanted to be part of these superpowers. And I
have spent my life essentially following Molly's lead and trying
(05:08):
to learn the secrets of the animals and learning to
recognize each of them as potential teachers.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
I love the title of this new book, what the
Chicken Knows, And you're actually learning from your chickens, not
just learning about them. So did you have that perspective
from the very beginning of this project, or was it
something that you realized as you were writing.
Speaker 3 (05:31):
When I was living this book, I didn't know i'd
be writing about it because it was taking place in
our barnyard. This was my everyday life, and it was
years later. At first I wrote a book called Birdology,
and my original title for it was birds are Made
of Air, And what it wanted to look at was
(05:51):
what makes a bird a bird? And I wrote about
my chickens in that book, along with chapters on cassowaries,
on hummingbirds and hawks and pigeons and parrots and others,
each examining another aspect of birdiness that makes a bird.
But I realized that chickens need their own book. Now
(06:17):
so many people are getting chickens. A lot of folks
got chickens during the pandemic, and now as egg prices
are rising, people are wanting to have their own chickens
as well. And eggs are wonderful, and I eat eggs.
I only eat eggs from chickens who I personally know
and don't object. But the eggs are the least of it.
(06:40):
The honor of getting to know these chickens as individuals.
The honor of being invited into the chicken universe, almost
as an honorary chicken. That is the real joy point
for me of having these birds around.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
I love that you refer to it as the chicken universe,
and I was gonna mention that because it's such a
joyous perspective of sort of being integrated in their whole world,
and there's so many fascinating facts. But I think part
of what was interesting to me about this book was
you start by mentioning that a lot of people have
(07:18):
the wrong perspective of chickens, that they actually think that
they're dumb creatures, that all they do is sort of
like peck and roam. But you talk about how brilliant
they are, So okay, can you tell me a little
bit about how you started to realize that they were
thinking sort of bigger than just the way we perceive them.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
Well, I think most animals, you can just expect that
they are more complex, more fascinating than anyone expected. I think,
particularly for food animals, people tend to minimize their intelligence,
their emotions, et cetera, to excuse the fact that we
make them our slaves and then eat them. So when
(07:58):
I went into the chicken universe. I went in with
beginner's mind. It was just like here, I am, I'm
open to whatever you're gonna teach me. Well, from the
moment they arrived, they just shocked and thrilled me at
every turn. When my babies first came, I had visited
them as fluffy little chicks at my friend's house, our
(08:20):
friend Fretchen Morn, who gave them to us as a
barn warming present.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
I love that phrase, barn warming. I thought that was
so cute.
Speaker 3 (08:29):
Well, it does warm up the bar, and they're wearing
down coats after all. But when we brought them home,
I worried that, since our chicks were going to free range,
that they'd get lost. And the reason I worried about
this was that as a child, I had gotten lost
in my own backyard. We moved a lot. I got disoriented.
(08:51):
Why should I expect a chicken to be so much
more intelligent than I had been? And you know, the
time I got lost, I think I was in like
sixth grade. The chickens instantly knew where they lived, and
they went out roaming, and at the end of the day,
as it began to get dark, they came right back inside.
(09:15):
I was astonished. And further, how they figured out the
boundaries of our property I do not know. There is
a low stone wall between us and our neighbors, and
on the other side there's a road. I mean, you'd
think maybe they wouldn't want to cross the road, because
why would the chicken cross the road? But this persisted
(09:38):
for years. They would not jump over that low stone wall,
although they would jump over much larger objects elsewhere on
the property and they could fly. What happened next was
we got new neighbors, and there were these two wonderful
little girls, and from the day they first showed up,
they fell in love with our seven hundred and fifty
(09:58):
pound pig we lived ur team and died of his
old age in his sleep, and our border collie and
our flock of hens. And pretty soon the little girls
were over our house every day, and we were over
their house every day. And then the chicken's behavior changed.
Then they annexed their property. They began to use the
(10:23):
neighbor's yard as their own because they figured out that
our two families had essentially become one unit. And they
figured it out before we figured it out.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
I love that, you know, one of the things we
did on part time Guenis a few months ago now
was we did this twenty five greatest Ideas in Science
and things that kind of delighted us, and we found
the study that showed that chickens preferred people with symmetrical faces.
And I've actually never thought about the possibility that chickens
might be able to like think about us or you know,
(10:56):
that they'd be good at recognizing faces, but you know,
both of people, but also of chickens, and I was curious,
you know, why is this such a useful ability to
be able to recognize other chickens?
Speaker 3 (11:10):
Oh well, for a chicken, community is everything. And you've
heard about the pecking order in chickens and it just
sounds like they're meanly pecking each other mindlessly, stupidly, rudely.
But the pecking order is really about order and it's
not so much about pecking. A lot of pecking did
not actually happen with our flock, the ladies. They were
(11:31):
very ladylike and it was largely a feminist utopia until
we do have a few roost But for them, it's
really important to know who's everyone in your group and
who do you get along with every night, each hen
chooses her best friend to roost next to, or her
(11:52):
two best friends. Huh, these kinds of things we can
easily relate to, because for humans this is essential as well,
and I have seen it quoted widely, although I haven't
actually read the study that chickens can recognize one hundred
different faces, and they definitely recognize our faces as well
as the faces of other chickens. And your point about faces,
(12:16):
you know, there's different ways to recognize an individual. There
has been work done showing that they are not just
looking at the general gestalt or the shape or the
clothing or the feathers of their friends. They are specifically
looking at the faces. And the scientists who figured this
out had a blast doing things like putting different colored
(12:38):
feathers on some chickens, and you know, changing their tails
around or making them wear little sweaters. But the minute
you start messing with their face, if you start giving
them a fake comb or you make them wear sunglasses,
just like a person donning a Halloween mask, it becomes
far more difficult to recognize your friend, and I love it.
(13:00):
They also gaze into the faces of their friends and
their enemies and new acquaintances to get to know them.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
All right, We've got so much more chicken talk coming
right up after the short break. Stay tuned, and we're
(13:30):
back with author Si Montgomery. One of the things that
really surprised me was that, you know, chickens are different
from a lot of other birds and definitely from humans,
in that as soon as they hatch, they are very capable.
And I was curious, like, they've got all these instincts.
They can see, they can walk, they can run, Like,
(13:51):
what is the evolutionary reason for this?
Speaker 3 (13:55):
Well, chickens come from the jungle fowl and Asian spa
who nests on the ground. So if you nest in
a tree, you can be like a little hummingbird and
be all naked and helpless and not even open your
eyes for days and just gape your beak and hope
your parents are going to show up and help you.
(14:15):
But if you nest on the ground, predators are going
to come and get you. And that is known as
the precocial strategy. And we've heard of precocious children, you know,
and all ground nesting birds that I know of are precocial.
And it makes quite a lot of sense to be
able to get up and get out of there if
(14:36):
predators are coming your way.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
I also really love the scenes of like all these
little chicks walking through your sweater and playing on your
keys as you're typing, and it was just such a
sweet image.
Speaker 3 (14:51):
Oh my gosh, I loved it so much. But it
was a downside to it. And besides the fact that sometimes,
you know, it would poop in my hair, and that
was that they're fluff. This is when I would order
baby chicks in the mail and they would arrive still
egg shaped and run around. When they grow their feathers,
(15:12):
each feather is encased in a shaft of carroten, which
is the same stuff as our fingernails, and when the
feather would bloom and burst forth, the carroten would essentially
shatter and it filled the office my computer, my books,
my printer, my keyboard, everything with this thick layer of dust.
(15:32):
And eventually my computer choked to death on it, and
my friend came and took it apart and instantly saw
this like thick layer of dust inside. They figured out
exactly what we're wrong, and they were able to fix it.
But it really did make a terrible mess, but.
Speaker 4 (15:48):
It wasn't worth it because I got to be with
them like all my waking hours, and they got to
know me, and very soon their little personalities began to
emerge right away.
Speaker 3 (16:01):
You can tell the ones who are bold, the ones
who are shy, the ones who are fast, the ones
who are slow, and you have this you know relationship
that can go on for you know, five six, seven years.
Some chickens live into their teens. It's very very rare,
but it's a lasting relationship. And knowing someone going back
(16:24):
to their chickhood just really enriches your friendship the same
way as knowing someone from their childhood.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
Talk to me a little bit about ordering chicks, because
I was really fascinated by the idea of looking through
these catalogs, almost the same way a gardener looks through
the gardening catalogs that come through.
Speaker 3 (16:44):
Yeah. Well, the chicken catalogs show you all different kinds
of chickens. Chickens with poofy top knots, and chickens with
fluffy feathers on their feet, and tall, skinny chickens and
some with tails that cascade off the perch down to
the ground twelve feet long, and chickens they call easter
egg chickens who lay eggs. Some of them are green,
(17:06):
some of them are blue, some of the eggs are
kind of rosy pink. There's a chicken for every occasion. Actually,
what I looked for, I mean, some of them are
just so cool to look at, but what I really
was looking for is chickens who would be comfortable and
warm enough in New Hampshire winters so that they would thrive.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
In the back of your book, you've got this gorgeous,
gorgeous series of photos all these ornamental poultry or these
creatures with you call them top hats or it was
just so striking to see the variety of chickens that
you're not even aware of.
Speaker 3 (17:43):
Yeah, they're apparently like pigeons, very plastic species, like dogs too.
That lends itself to all kinds of different forms through breeding.
I was delighted to have my beautiful black sex links
and my heritage breed dominiques who were black and white.
(18:05):
But occasionally the breeder would throw in a free exotic
chick and you didn't know what you might be getting,
but you could be pretty sure it was going to
turn out to be a rooster. And that's the feminist utopia.
At our house was shattered.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
I do want to talk about roosters. I love this
idea of this feminist utopia. But my grandmom in India,
she had this like house that had a lot of
extended family, and so one of my aunts was obsessed
with animals, and so we had all these cows and
dogs and rabbits and you know, like various birds and
things like that. But there were always chickens around, and
(18:45):
the roosters were so aggressive. And I when I saw
in your book in the front part you said you
talked to a friend and she had like a rooster
whisper who basically said, pick up the rooster and almost
cuddle it and that changes its impression of you. That
was really stunning to be So, tell me a little
bit about roosters and why they have this sort of
(19:06):
behavioral trait.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
Well, a lot of roosters get abandoned in the woods
or they turn into soup because of this behavior. Roosters
will do anything to protect their flock, and they're very gentlemanly. Generally,
they will call to their ladies to tell them when
there's something particularly delicious to eat, and they will step
(19:29):
back and let them enjoy. But because you know, all
birds are pretty delicate, they're made of air, their bones
are hollow. A rooster who feels that his flock is
in danger has to take action. And roosters are equipped
with pointy spurs that can actually hurt you if they
(19:50):
feel under threat. And I discover this to my dismay
when we had our minister over one day and was
introducing his new fiance to me and wanted to enchant
her children with our friendly barnyard. While the peg came
bucking and snorting out of his pen and the children
(20:13):
were a little shaken up by them. And then Graham,
my minister says, here's someone more your size, and he
starts to pet some of the heads. And I've always
petted my hands too, And you start like near their neck,
and then you follow the neck down and often the
chicken was squat when you reach the tail. And this
(20:34):
is actually called the sex squat, and it's used to
let a rooster jump on the back of them. So
our rooster just at that moment, looked up across the
barnyard and saw what he perceived as a travesty the minister,
as far as as was trying to have sex with
(20:57):
his head, so he came full across the barnyard and
hit Graham on the legs spurs first and true blood.
So you can imagine that day was not the fun
filled adventure that Graham was hoping for. I ended up
giving both of the children an egg to try to
cheer them up, but then later learn that one of
(21:19):
them broke in the back of the car and stay
they have a whole street permanently.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
It's so funny because previously in the book you write
about like the neighbors who take to all your animals,
and you sort of imagine the same scene's gonna happen
with this minister and his family, and it just does
not work out that way. But in terms of roosters
and the way they communicate, I think there's a bit
(21:46):
in your book about the various sounds that the chickens
make and that they have something like twenty four different
calls and different ways to warn about animals coming from
the air or from the ground, or can you talk
a little bit about that.
Speaker 3 (22:01):
Yes, absolutely, they are communicating very specific information and you
can see this when a rooster calls out that he
has seen a hawk. What do you think happens to
the chickens. Well, they start looking up because he's told
them it's an aerial predator. But if he calls out
(22:24):
because he's seen a fox, they don't look up. He
said fox. Foxes don't fly through the sky, so they'll
look around. He can also indicate whether the animal that
is threatening them is coming quickly or slowly, or is
near or far. He also tells them whether the treat
he's discovered is particularly delicious, because the tempo of his
(22:47):
call will be faster. So animals are communicating all around us,
and only recently have we learned to tune in. And
I love it that this most common bird of all.
There's four chickens for every human on this planet. Even
if you can't tell a robin from a crow, everyone
(23:08):
could recognize a chicken. We take them for granted, but
they are right there before us, and fabulous teachers of
wildness and wonder.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
And you also mentioned that the chickens had come up
with a name for your friends.
Speaker 3 (23:25):
Yes, this is so interesting. My friend Melissa, who has
written a wonderful book called How to Speak Chicken, and
she also had a blog called Tilly's Nest. Tilly was
her lead chicken and it was Tilly who invented a
name for her, And so how did she know it
was a name? Well, first of all, Tilly only said
(23:48):
this around Melissa, never said it when Melissa wasn't around,
never said it to other people. And it sounded kind
of like ba, I mean, it went almost like a
trumpet announcing the arrival of a queen. And she realized
what this sound was. It was her name. And we
(24:10):
know of a number of other animals that invent names
for themselves and for others. We know dolphins have signature whistles,
for example, and we know that dogs recognize their names
and recognize our names. Whether they make up their own
name in dog we don't yet know. But it makes
(24:32):
complete sense to me that in a society in which
everyone's position in the group is important, it makes total
sense that they would have a name for the person
who cares for them.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
And I think you mentioned that even after Tillie had passed,
the chickens continued to use that name for her. Right,
it was this legacy that lived on.
Speaker 3 (24:57):
That'sly taught that name to others in the flock. So
Melissa's nay, or maybe I should call her her name
definitely lives on. And you know this sounds like, oh,
this is like a sweet little anecdote or a just
so story. But I should point out that Melissa's book,
which was a book for young people, won an award
(25:20):
from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, as
did one of mine, and that's how I met her.
So they say, you know, the plural of anecdote is data.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
Oh I love that. We have to take a quick break,
but do not go anywhere. Our conversation with author sim
Montgomery will continue right after this break. Welcome back to
(25:59):
Part time Tenius. I'm talking to Si Montgomery, author of
the new book What the Chicken Knows. So in your book,
you write that humans can actually tell the difference between
when chickens are happy and when they're sad. From the cooks.
Speaker 3 (26:13):
Delighted to hear that, you always hear it said, we
don't know what we don't know, But I think often
we don't know what we do know, and we're getting
information all around us. We're gathering at we're gathering sense
with our noses that we don't consciously necessarily process. And
I think that sometimes we know more about animals intuitively
(26:38):
and instinctually than we do intellectually, and that what happens
is that when we're in school, people jam it down
our throat that we should only pay attention to one species,
the human species, and that everybody else is some kind
of a second class citizen. But that's not true. We're
part of a big family, and I like it that way.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
So I want to talk about Pickles. Can you tell
the audience a little bit about this very special bird
that came into your life.
Speaker 3 (27:12):
Yeah, Pickles. When she arrived from the hatchery, it was
clear there was something a little wrong. She had a
little bump on her head which was like a little
pimple filled with cerebrospinal fluid, her head at all in it, basically,
and she was always a little slower than the others.
(27:33):
I didn't realize at first that one of her problems
was she couldn't peck straight. If you were held up
a handful of delicious treats, she would peck and she'd
get a delicious treat. But if you handed her like
one kernel of corn, she'd peck over here and miss it.
But she did fine, and she wasn't trying to be
(27:53):
the head chicken or anything. Everyone else looked after her,
which was great, but she went off kind of wandered off,
and she came back with this hideous injury. It almost
looked like her head was almost cut off, and I
don't know what happened, but we rush her off to
our veterinarian doctor, Charles Davinny, who is a saint. This
(28:15):
man will turn down no animal in need, and he
later would perform a hysterectomy on one of my chickens,
which is, believe me, not something they teach you in
vet school because there is never a call for a
hys directomy for a laying him. But he was a
genius and he figured out how to close up this
(28:36):
wound and he sent her home with an Elizabethan coller
which he macguyvered out of an X ray film. So
the thing was though about chickens. Even though they can
be very affectionate and they do care for one another,
there's one exception to this rule, and that is if
any chicken is bleeding, the other chickens attack them. And why.
(29:02):
One theory might be that chickens do like meat. I'm
a vegetarian myself, but they like meat and if they
find any It's often signaled by the presence of blood,
and they just want that resource. Another possibility is if
someone in your flock is likely to attract a predator,
(29:25):
maybe you should drive them away. You know, I have
no idea, but it's something very old in chickens. So
we had to remove her from the flock, and she
lived in the bathroom for a while. So anyone who
used our downstairs bathroom was alarmed to find a chicken
sitting with a coffee. It out, that's ray on the sink.
But there she was, and she healed and was fine
(29:47):
and went right back with a flock.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
I love the story of Pickles. That scene of Pickles
in the bathroom and people finding her there was really funny.
But scientists have noticed that chickens t to peck at
any red dot right, And you mentioned in the book
that actually farmers have come up with ways to alter
chickens vision to prevent them from helping.
Speaker 3 (30:13):
This was actually in use in some places until like
the seventies or even eighties. They put a kid you
not sunglasses on them that would filter out that color.
But I think that's a little unwieldy. What we do
or what we did there's a product called stop peck,
(30:34):
and it apparently tastes horrible and you put it on
the wound and the other chickens won't attack. But we
didn't have any stop peck at that time, and we
just kept her inside.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
You know, there's some really funny moments in this book,
and maybe think about how chickens in culture are almost
always associated with comedy, like there's the road crossing jokes
and rubber chickens, Gonzo and Camilla. Do you think it's
fair to say chickens are the fun Oh.
Speaker 3 (31:01):
Gosh, well, people make fun of EMUs, these tall, flightless
birds that I studied. I lived with EMUs in the
outback for six months back in the eighties, and they
do what looks like to us funny things that remind
us of people, but dressed up as chickens, sometimes seem
(31:21):
to be dancing. Sometimes they just seem to be like
all flustered. And this is true of EMUs and of chickens.
I think when we see any animal doing something that
just so reminds you of a person, it makes you laugh.
And part of it is that it's funny, and part
of it is just the delight of seeing our sameness
and our difference encapsulated in one single moment.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
I love the way you end the book, too, when
you talk about how birds are so different from us,
and that they're closer to lizards, or they're closer to alligators,
or they're basically feathered dinosaurs, and yet they're looking for companionship,
that they're looking for comfort from community and these things
(32:05):
that really unite is and I love that sentiment so much.
Speaker 3 (32:09):
I love that so many of us here on Earth
share these emotions and share the ability to remember things,
to think of the future, and you're reminded how adaptive
these things are. And of course humans shouldn't be the
only species to have these things. And I think, particularly
(32:34):
right now, when we just seem so close to destroying
this sweet green planet of ours, that it's so essential
to be reminded that the world is full of other
minds and other souls.
Speaker 1 (32:54):
It really is such a beautiful book, and I think
there's something so delightful of finding wonder in creatures, and
you really do that which great joyous attitude, and I
really appreciated it. So I would definitely recommend What the
Chicken Knows to everyone out there. Thank you so much
(33:14):
for spending time with us. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (33:17):
All the pleasure was mine. Thank you so much for
having me. Thank you for loving animals. Thank you for
reading my book.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
That was so fun.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
I feel like I actually appreciate my chickens even more now,
Man I go.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
And I know what high esteem you already held Potato
chip in so it makes sense. I really found sign
to writing so delightful. And thank you so much to
sih Montgomery, who's written about so many wonderful animals, from
turtles to pigs to octopi. Her latest, What the Chicken Knows,
is available at libraries, indie bookstores, and wherever books are sold.
We'll be back next week with a new episode, but
(33:53):
in the meantime, from Dylan, Gabe, Will, Mary and myself,
thank you so much for listening. Part Time Genius is
a production of Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio. This show is hosted
(34:16):
by Will Pearson and Me Mongas Chatikler and research by
our goodpal Mary Philip Sandy. Today's episode was engineered and
produced by the wonderful Dylan Fagan with support from Tyler Klang.
The show is executive produced for iHeart by Katrina Norvell
and Ali Perry, with social media support from Sasha Gay,
trustee Dara Potts and Viney Shorey. For more podcasts from
(34:40):
Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Part-Time Genius News
Hosts And Creators
Will Pearson
Mangesh Hattikudur
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