Sy Montgomery - WHAT THE CHICKEN KNOWS

[00:10] Cindy: This is Cindy Burnett. Welcome to my award-winning podcast, Thoughts from a Page, a member of the Evergreen Podcasts Network. On this show I chat with authors whose books I have enjoyed about their new releases and others in the book world about the books that they have loved. With so many books coming out weekly, it can be hard to decide what to read, so I find the best ones and share them with you. Do you love to be in the know about upcoming books? Kelly Hooker of @kellyhook.readsbooks and I do too. We couldn't find a comprehensive list of titles all in one place, so we made one ourselves and now we're sharing it with you. Our third Literary Lookbook is a list of a whopping 584 titles releasing from January to May 2025, curated for our communities. The link to buy it is in my show notes. Today I am chatting with Sy Montgomery about What the Chicken Knows. I'm a huge animal lover, though I will say upfront, I knew very little about chickens and have not interacted much with them. I've heard wonderful things about Sy's books and I was really interested to dive into this one, see why she chose chickens, and learn more about them. I now am a huge fan. I learned a ton from this book and I know you will too. Sy is a naturalist documentary scriptwriter and author of 31 acclaimed books of nonfiction for adults and children. The recipient of numerous honors including Lifetime Achievement Awards from the Humane Society and the New England Booksellers Association. She lives in New Hampshire with her husband, writer Howard Mansfield, and a border collie. I hope you enjoy our conversation. Welcome Sy, how are you today?

[01:45] Sy: I am delighted to be talking with you.

[01:47] Cindy: I feel the same way. I loved What the Chicken Knows, and I can't wait to chat all about it.

[01:52] Sy: I'm so glad to hear that I can talk chickens all day.

[01:56] Cindy: I bet you can after I read the book. Well, will you give me a quick synopsis of What the Chicken Knows for those that haven't read it yet?

[02:02] Sy: It tells what I've learned about chickens after living with them on our land for over 20 years and then getting to know other people's flocks as well as my own. And the thing that most astonishes me is that after all of these years I am still learning and I am freshly filled with awe by these common birds everyone thinks they know.

[02:27] Cindy: How did you decide to write about chickens? Obviously you've had a relationship with them for quite some time and you've written other books about other animals and other birds. How did you turn to chickens?

[02:37] Sy: Well, it's an homage to individuals who I've known and loved through the years, and they really are the most unappreciated creatures on this earth. I know them to be emotional, social, intelligent individuals. But many people incorrectly think that chickens are stupid, which is completely false, cruel, and dirty, both just as crazy as the idea that they're stupid. I think, you know, it doesn't do them any good that you can sometimes cut a chicken's head off and it will continue to run around. That doesn't give you a whole lot of gravitas if your kind is known for this particular talent, but there's a perfectly good reason for that, and it does not reflect on their intelligence. I think that we are so mistaken about chickens because most of us meet them when they are not at their best, which is when they are lying dead and cooked on your plate. And that is never the best place to get to know somebody.

[03:42] Cindy: Well, I also think if they are cooked and dead on your plate, you're not really wanting to think about how intelligent and social and all of that they are because you're trying to eat them. So I think that may contribute to why humans also try to put characteristics on them that don't really work.

[03:59] Sy: Yes, I think that's right. But as we know, there's a very easy and healthy solution to that problem.

[04:05] Cindy: So when you sit down to write a book about chickens or turtles or hummingbirds, how do you decide to structure it? Is it something that you just begin writing? Do you think a lot about it ahead of time and think, okay, I want to tell these stories in these places. How does that work?

[04:19] Sy: I usually try to think of the beginning and the end and sort of the end. First you think, how do I want to end up at the end of this journey with my readers? You know, where do I. Where do I want to take them? And the beginning, of course, you're trying to think like, what is the most intriguing and enticing way I can get the reader to come with me along this path? How can I make them feel like they're eager to take my hand and come with me on this on this journey?

[04:52] Cindy: That makes sense. And so then you draft the ending. You start with the beginning, and then you just begin to fill in.

[04:58] Sy: Yeah, I don't actually draft the ending's language, but I know the emotional place that I want to take the reader on this journey. I know how I want them to feel, even if I don't have the words for it quite yet. But I find it's really helpful to know where you're going when you're starting out on that path, even if the path is going to be circuitous and you're going to stop and kiss the chickens along the way.

[05:27] Cindy: I'm so glad you brought that up, because that is one of my questions for you. First, I was going to ask you what facts you find the most interesting, and you've mentioned a few. But then I was going to comment that that was the part that is the most interesting to me, that somebody recommends you pick up a chicken and hold it and kiss it versus running away from it. I thought that was fascinating.

[05:47] Sy: Yeah, this was amazing. And this was after we had lived with our flock for over 20 years, and in fact, we no longer had chickens on our property anymore. Our last chicken, the last one who managed to escape predator attack, had I had taken her to live with another flock in a better barn and set up where she would be safe and where she would be happy. And it was after that had happened that I met a new neighbor, fairly new neighbor, who was running a rooster rescue just across the street in caddy-corner a little ways down. And people dump off their roosters all the time because roosters, they're very brave, and their whole raison d'etre is to take care of their flock. And in this endeavor, sometimes they might feel that they have to attack people. And I've had this happen. In fact, I have had my own rooster attack our minister in a terribly ignominious moment. And I didn't really know what to do about it, but I do now. My friend and neighbor, Ashley Nagley, says that what you should do with an attacking rooster is completely counterintuitive. And that is pick him up and cuddle him and carry him with you around as you do your chores. And you will end up, she promises, with a sweet and gentle and gentlemanly rooster. And I've seen the results. Her roosters are the most lovely companions you could ever hope for. And these are all roosters that people got rid of because they were too aggressive or they annoyed them or, you know, they just didn't like their crowing. But a lot of times these were aggressive roosters, and she's turned them into birds that her children routinely love to handle and cuddle, birds who come and keep her husband company while he works on the car and pay close attention to what he's doing, almost as if their plan is to go fix their own car, like next week. There are roosters that she has who love the family so much and who are so smart that they've figured out how to operate the doorknob, to open the door and come into the home, mount the stairs, and at the top of the stairs, crow every morning. Some of her roosters are so sweet and so loving that they routinely bring her gifts, often shiny little things, often pieces of stuff that surround the yard, but this rooster carefully deposits them at her feet, and it is clearly meant as a gift. And when I say clearly, this is the case, because roosters will do this for the ladies in their flock. They will call the ladies in their flock when they discover something particularly delicious, and then after they point it out, they will stand aside as their flock gets to dine on the treat before they even take a bite.

[08:43] Cindy: That's so sweet. And it just seems so counterintuitive if you have this rooster running at you, getting ready to attack you, to try to then be like, here, I'm going to pick you up.

[08:52] Sy: Yeah. It kind of makes you wonder about our whole penal system and maybe how it might be reorganized according to the principles of rooster rescue.

[09:00] Cindy: That's a very good point. And. And the other thing that you mentioned is that people will frequently buy eggs to hatch them, thinking they're all going to be hens. And of course, they're not all hens. And so that's another reason that people are dropping off roosters. Correct?

[09:12] Sy: This is true. And after the pandemic came and went, many people had chickens and roosters that they no longer felt like caring for. And believe it or not, a lot of times folks just dump these animals in the woods, which is appalling. This was another reason that I really wanted this book to come out now, because people need to reconsider that these are animals with thoughts and feelings and memories and emotions, and they deserve better than that.

[09:42] Cindy: Absolutely. So I told you my favorite part about chickens. What are some of the facts that you were surprised to learn or that you totally enjoy about chickens?

[09:51] Sy: Well, it was about day one of my journeys in the chicken universe when I was absolutely gobsmacked by their spatial reasoning abilities. And my friend Gretchen told me that, you know, if I got my first flock, which she gave to me, this flock was a bunch of teenage birds that she had raised in a different town in her trailer there. And when we brought them to the barn, I wondered, well, I want them to free range, but why won't they just wander off and disappear? She says, they'll know. They'll know where they are. Just keep them there for 24 hours, and then you can let them out and they'll go back in at night. Well, I couldn't believe it, because as a child, I'd actually gotten lost in our own backyard. And it wasn't that big a backyard. It was like, you know, your typical quarter acre lot in the suburbs. Well, these chickens, even though they were just teenagers, it was absolutely true. They instantly intuited the boundaries of our property. They did not, at that time, even jump over the low stone wall that separated our land from our neighbors. They knew what our land was, and they knew how to find their way back to the barn. So day one, I was gobsmacked with their intelligence. But what I did not know until later was how important their social lives are to them. Chickens can recognize, and this has been determined in the laboratory, at least 100 different faces. And they remember those faces. And this shows us how important relationships are to chickens. It makes sense because they are flock animals. But I became an honorary member of the flock, so they included me and my husband and eventually the neighbors next door in the flock. And in this way, we were able to travel together in the chicken universe and begin to appreciate what makes these intelligent birds tick and what matters to them in their lives.

[11:51] Cindy: I thought the whole boundary thing was fascinating in your book, the fact that they stayed on your property until eventually they felt they had a reason to go over the fence and they wanted to visit your neighbors that had moved in.

[12:03] Sy: Yes. This was astonishing. They realized before my husband and I realized that our house and our neighbor's house had become one big unit. This was when these great two little girls and their mom moved in next door. And the chickens had been living with me for a while. We had a neighbor at that time, a nice man who, you know, we greeted and we helped each other when we needed help, but we didn't, you know, we weren't constantly over his house or he wasn't constantly over our house. Then he moved away, and the house sat vacant. And it was amazing to me that even when the house was vacant, the chickens did not annex their property. Cause surely it was full of delicious bugs and worms and stuff. But they never went over that property line until the little girls moved back in. And they and their mom were constant visitors in our yard. They were in love with our pig, Christopher Hogwood, who grew to £750 and was a great big Buddha master. They were always over playing with our border collie, tossing the frisbee. They came to our house to bake cookies. We went to their house to have meals. And somehow the chickens before us realized our two families had become one. And that was when they essentially annexed our neighbor's property and started jumping over that low stone wall and spending time over there.

[13:30] Cindy: I found that to be absolutely astonishing.

[13:33] Sy: Yeah, that's their social intelligence. You know, for the longest time, even humans thought that intelligence was all about, you know, math and English scores. But now we know there's all different kinds of intelligence, and chickens excel at this. Even the pecking order that we tend to think of as being more about pecking than order is really about social relationships. And we value our friends and family, and we think this is a good thing. We think this is a thing that shows how smart and good we are. Well, chickens excel at this, and we should respect and admire them for excelling in social intelligence. They are brilliant at this. They're better than we are.

[14:17] Cindy: Well, I enjoyed scrolling through the photos in the book. How did you decide which ones to include?

[14:22] Sy: Well, the photographer is a dear friend of mine, Tia Strombeck, who's an amazing bird photographer. We've worked together on other books, including one on California condors. And, my God, the portraits that she created of these giant vultures made them look positively glamorous, which they are. But as far as the chicken photos, we wanted to show people just how beautiful and individual these birds can be. Again, you know, when. When they're just part of your soup, you don't really appreciate them so much. But when you see the forms that these birds can take, you know, some have poofy top knots, and some have fancy feathers on their feet, and they look like, you know, a kid running around in their dad's bedroom slippers. Some are amazing colors. Some even lay colored eggs. Green eggs, in fact, although not with ham. And I think that Tia beautifully captures, you know, the majesty of these birds. And we wanted to show folks a variety of breeds that they are. And we also include photographs of some of the people in the book, including Ashley holding one of her sweet and gentlemanly roosters.

[15:39] Cindy: Proof that it actually happens.

[15:41] Sy: Yes, absolutely. And, man, you should see the spurs. And you do see the spurs on some of these animals. They're positively scary. And you think, first, like, ooh, I don't want to hit by. Get hit by those spurs. But then you also realize, well, look what good husbands these roosters make to their hens and how well armed they are to drive off attackers. Ashley has seen some of her roosters chase foxes into the woods who are running for their lives away from these roosters. Who are so brave and so strong that they can take on almost anything. And when they can't, they'll fight to the death to protect their ladies.

[16:24] Cindy: Sai, I have to say, I just love listening to you talk about the chickens. Your love for them and your admiration for them shines through in everything you're saying.

[16:33] Sy: Well, that's my hope that people will feel that way after going on this book journey with me.

[16:39] Cindy: Well, what do you hope readers take away from the book?

[16:41] Sy: I hope readers are filled with admiration and sympathy and awe in the face of these often unappreciated birds.

[16:52] Cindy: Well, I think they definitely will. And they'll learn a lot that they didn't know, which is one of the things you talk about at the beginning, how little we know about chickens.

[17:00] Sy: That's my hope as well.

[17:01] Cindy: Well, what surprised you the most when you were writing this book?

[17:04] Sy: Well, when I was living the book, I mean, I lived it long before I wrote it and didn't know I would be writing about chickens. But as I was living it, I was constantly surprised by the intelligence and flexibility of these birds, for example, and how continually, you know, year after year, there would be these new revelations. One of the revelations after I'd had chickens living with me for many years was when we had a new tenant move in and she had her own flock. And this was when I discovered that flocks have their own culture. It kind of makes sense because, you know, the flock is the basic social unit for chickens. And just like when you're living in a community, your community will have its own culture, their flocks do. But when my friend and tenant, Elizabeth, moved in with her flock, which she called the Rangers, I saw just how different her flock was from mine. Her Rangers were. They were drama queens. They were a riot. I mean, each bird had such a distinctive personality, and each one of her birds, like, did different things with her. Some birds said certain things to her that they said to nobody else. One of her birds would say this phrase - duff, duff, duff. But just to her. Not to other birds, just to her. Another one made up a game that they obviously thought was hilarious, and they would. This bird would find a delicious treat and call all of the others in the flock over to enjoy the treat. And she would put it on the ground and wait till everyone raced over to take it. And at the last minute, this bird would swallow the treat. And she thought that was absolutely the height of wit. But the thing about the Rangers were they were rowdy. They were ready to rumble. And even though her flock and my Flock were never together. They were always separated by a fence that she put in for her run. And even though my hens had been living on this property for years and years and years, her hens basically insulted them, yelled at them, threatened them. You could see with their bodies that they were just puffing themselves up. They were dragging their wings on the ground. They were stamping their feet. They were just abusing my ladies, who were gentle and peaceful, and they wanted none of it. So what did my ladies do? Well, they basically moved next door, and we never saw them except at night. They would come back in. And this was just because her rangers were so aggressive. They were a bunch of toughs.

[19:50] Cindy: That's exactly what it was reminding me of, like a West side Story tale or something like that.

[19:55] Sy: It really was true. But, you know, eventually Elizabeth met the man that she would marry, and she and her flock moved to a new home. And then my ladies just moved back home like nothing had ever happened.

[20:09] Cindy: They were like, phew, we can live our lives again without all of the interruptions.

[20:14] Sy: Well, they still had a pretty good situation because the neighbor's yard was quite spacious and had plenty of delicious bugs. And by that time, the little girls that I told you about and their mom had moved away, but the folks who moved in had left upstate New York, where they kept chickens, and they had also kept pigs. And they were kind of sad that in their retirement, they weren't going to keep these animals anymore. But guess what? They moved in next to us. So not only were they, like great aunts and uncles to Christopher Hogwood, our pig, our chickens were crazy in love with them, to the point that our chickens would mount two flights of stairs, which to an animal who's only about a foot tall, that's a lot of work. They would mount two flights of stairs to go up to the second story window, where they would look in and look for Bobby and Jarvis. Bobby was often doing dishes or making food in the kitchen, and they would entice her to come out and hang out with them. And whenever Bobby and Jarvis would come outside, the chickens would mob them as if they were rock stars. And sometimes Bobby and Jarvis had to sneak out to their car. If they didn't have 10 minutes to spend petting my chickens, they had to just sneak out to their car so they could get away.

[21:36] Cindy: I adore these stories. They're just so entertaining.

[21:39] Sy: I adored my hens, and I'm so pleased to be able to share them with people. And I. I think some of the people who buy the book will be people who already have chickens and are already enchanted with chickens. But even they, meeting my flock may learn things about their flock that will make them even more impressed and in love with their ladies or their girls or their rangers.

[22:04] Cindy: I think the book will appeal to a wide range of people, as you just mentioned, chicken owners, but also people like me who love animals but don't know that much about chickens and are really interested in learning more.

[22:13] Sy: Yeah, I hope so.

[22:15] Cindy: Well, let's talk about the title and cover. I think the COVID is beautiful. And how did you decide on both the COVID and the title?

[22:21] Sy: Well, this book joins two other slim volumes also about birds. One is called the Hummingbird's Gift and the other is called the Hawk's Way. And so we wanted a cover and a trim size that would kind of go with those other two books, which were also published by Simon and Schuster, because those two books in that format did very well. It's an easy book to finish. It's not that many pages, but it's a beautiful book to hold in your hands. And it has these gorgeous photos. All of them are by Tia Strombeck, except for a few that I've contributed myself of individuals that I knew before I knew Tia. And so we kind of hoped that would work for people and they might want to have all three books and they'd all fit nicely together on your shelf.

[23:07] Cindy: And I think they make great gifts. I've heard several people say that good hostess gifts or a holiday gift, I think they would work for almost anybody in this size is really nice.

[23:16] Sy: Yeah. And you could easily finish a whole book in a day. And I think for people who, you know, don't necessarily feel like they have time to go through a 300 page, you know, novel or a nonfiction book that gives you a hernia when you pick it up, at least this is a book that you can put next to your bedside and finish it in one night.

[23:37] Cindy: Well, and I'm going to put it in our guest room by the bed there because I figure when guests are in, it's something easy to pick up, flip through, read a little bit of. But you don't feel like you have to finish it right then, Right.

[23:47] Sy: Oh, well, I'm honored. That's great.

[23:49] Cindy: Well, before we wrap up, Sy, I'd love to hear what you've read recently that you really liked.

[23:53] Sy: Well, I'm having a blast reading great books. I read and reviewed for American Scholar, a book that's now out by the Spanish philosopher Susana Monsoon. And it's called Playing Possum: How Animals Understand Death. And it sounds like a bummer, but it's not. A lot of it is quite cozy and humorous, and it is not what you would expect. It is not page after page of animals grieving just as we do. Animals can understand death without grieving the death of the dead one, particularly predators. Because guess what they're going to do about the dead when they're going to eat them. But that doesn't mean they don't understand that death is a permanent condition. And I found this, this book really illuminating to read. I also just started on the ARC of a book that isn't quite out yet, and it's called Raising Hare. And it's about a woman who wasn't particularly a pet lover or even that big of an animal person who raised a leveret, a baby hare. And this is a very hard thing to do because although there's a lot of information out there about rabbits, there's very little about hares. And her writing is compassionate and evocative, and she's a terrific observer.

[25:20] Cindy: That sounds really interesting.

[25:21] Sy: Yeah, I just started it and I've been reading it. A friend of mine's in the hospital, and sometimes your person in the hospital is just sleeping. And it's nice to bring a book just so that you can be with your person and sometimes just hold your person's hand, even if they're asleep. But if you have something to read, it keeps you calm and centered and in a good place while your person is recovering.

[25:44] Cindy: I agree with that, and I hope your friend recovers soon.

[25:47] Sy: Well, thank you. She's home and I can't wait to share the book with her.

[25:51] Cindy: Wonderful. Well, that is great news. Well, Sy, thank you so much for taking the time to come on the Thoughts From a Page podcast today.

[25:58] Sy: Oh, such a pleasure talking with you. Thank you.

[26:03] Cindy: Thank you so much for listening to my podcast. I would love to connect with you on Instagram or Facebook where you can find me at @thoughtsfromapage. If you enjoy the show and have a moment to rate it or subscribe to it, wherever you listen to your podcasts, I would really appreciate it. It makes a huge difference. And please tell all of your friends about Thoughts from a Page. Word of mouth does wonders to help the show grow. The book discussed in this episode can be purchased at my Bookshop storefront and the link is in the show notes. I hope you'll tune in next time.