How to Read a Chicken's Mind: Understand How Chickens Learn, Perceive People, Express Emotions, and Pass Down Knowledge

by Melissa Caughey

Overview

Best-selling author Melissa Caughey leads readers into the surprisingly complex thoughts, emotions, and behaviors of the world's most common bird.

Backyard chicken keepers delight in learning all they can about their beloved flocks. Best-selling author and backyard chicken keeper Melissa Caughey shares her years of experience with and research about our feathered friends with this entertaining and informative exploration of what chickens think and feel. From chick days to the golden stage of "henopause," Caughey offers insights into the range of emotions that chickens can express, their unexpected intelligence, different personality types, and the complexities of flock dynamics.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781635868692
Publisher:	Storey Publishing, LLC
Publication date:	02/04/2025
Sold by:	Hachette Digital, Inc.
Format:	eBook

About the Author

Melissa Caughey is the author of the best-selling books How to Speak Chicken and A Kid’s Guide to Keeping Chickens, as well as Chicken Wisdom Frame-Ups. She is a backyard chicken keeper, beekeeper, master gardener, and writer who pens the award-winning blog Tilly’s Nest. Caughey has been featured in many national publications and can be found speaking on an array of topics at events across the country. She lives on Cape Cod in Massachusetts.   

Table of Contents

1  The Universal Bond between Humans and Chickens
 The Domestication of Chickens
 How People Perceive Chickens
 How Chickens Perceive People
 Do My Chickens Love Me?
 Chickens as Healers
 Developing Trust
      
2  Flock Talk: How Chickens Communicate
 Shouting and Whispering
 I Recognize That Voice!
 Understanding Different Languages
 Fowl Language
 How to Speak Rooster
 Food Calls
 The Importance of Names
 Different Roles in the Flock
 When Henopause Happens
           
3  From Feathers to Feet and Everything In Between
 Chicken Anatomy [spread]
 All about the Beak
Chicken Ears Are Better than Human Ears
 The Beauty and Function of Feathers
 Legs and Feet
           
4  Chicken Psychology: Deeper into the Realm of Bird Brains
How Do Chickens Learn?
Passing Down Knowledge and Tradition
Do I Know You?: Recognizing Others
            Covert Chickens: Speaking in Code
            Devilish Chickens: Deceit and Manipulation
            Broody Hens in Hypnotic State
Memory and Sense of Time
            Self -Awareness
            Personality Traits
            Feelings and Emotions
           
Epilogue – Do Chickens Have Souls?
 

 
 

Editorial Reviews

"Melissa Caughey will put you in awe of these common birds so many take for granted.”—Sy Montgomery, author of Birdology and What a Chicken Knows

"Melissa Caughey is to chickens what Jane Goodall is to chimpanzees."—John Kricher, author of Peterson Guide to Bird Behavior

“This book will make you really love chickens and teach you a lot about animal behavior.”—Temple Grandin, author of Animals Make Us Human and Animals in Translation

From the Publisher