Peep The Delightful Science Of Chickens

Short Wave

NPR

News, Life Sciences, Daily News, Nature, Science, Astronomy

4.7 • 6.6K Ratings

🗓️ 12 April 2023

⏱️ 13 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

When Tove Danovich decided to dabble in backyard chicken keeping, she embraced a tried and true journalistic practice — reading everything there is to find on the subject. In her search, she found plenty of how-to guides, but what she really wanted was to know more about the science. She wanted to understand their evolution and unique relationship with humans.

"As I was reading more and as I was wanting this book that increasingly it seemed like it it just didn't exist. I wound up writing it instead," says Tove.

Today, Aaron visits Tove in her chicken coop to talk about her recent book Under the Henfluence: Inside the World of Backyard Chickens and the People Who Love Them and to meet the chicken stars of Tove's Instagram account.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to shortwave from NPR.
0:04.5	There are two ladies in their new coop.
0:09.0	Are there short waivers today?
0:12.0	We are coming to you from, I'm going to make some chickens.
0:16.0	Well, you can probably tell.
0:19.0	We are standing in the run of my chicken coop in my home near Portland
0:25.0	and there are eight very fancy chicken ladies all kind of milling around our feet and being upset that I haven't let them outside yet today.
0:35.0	Do you want to introduce yourself?
0:37.0	I'm Tova Danovich, I'm a journalist and a chicken keeper and the author of Under the Hen Fluence
0:42.0	inside the world of backyard chickens and the people who love them.
0:46.0	Hi girls.
0:48.0	Oh my god, they're beautiful.
0:50.0	It's just fun, you get really addicted.
0:52.0	You want to have one of everything.
0:54.0	So I like having them in all shapes and colors.
0:57.0	These ladies, Rose and Blancher, the two newest.
1:00.0	Oh, and this one just hopped onto a little trapeze.
1:03.0	To a swing?
1:04.0	Yeah, the chicken swing. That's Emileu.
1:07.0	Like a lot of chicken curious folks, Tova started out with just a couple of hens because she wanted the fresh eggs.
1:13.0	But that snowballed to eight hens and an Instagram account of which Emileu is the star.
1:20.0	She didn't just hop on swings either.
	...

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