Felted Chickens
During my animal research, I spent time with chickens--a creature I had no familiarity with beforehand. I was surprised that they all chattered INCESSANTLY! I was so curious what they must be peeping about!
I couldn’t get their clucks, chirps, and barks off my mind. Why hadn’t I heard about chicken language? I’d been obsessing over animals—especially the ones we eat!—for years now, and not once had I stumbled upon the wide world of chicken lingo.
Later, I looked up “chicken language” online. I got all kinds of bizarre results and very few about actual transmissions between chickens.
Huh, I thought, That’s weird. They are so vocal!
Then I deleted “language” and replaced it for “communication.”
“How do chickens communicate?”
Now, thousands of results.
Ohhhh, I realized. We don’t call animal sounds “language.”
Humans have language, animals have communication. But what, really, is the difference? Language is intricate, yes, but I need months of lessons to get by in Russia within my own species.
Chickens, on the other hand, can welcome in a new member from a foreign flock and make it work.
The chickens have come to feel at home on this oddball, glorious earth—a place whose dominant species doesn’t highly prize the noble chicken—by developing an exuberant symphony.
It’s a rich language that I can only appreciate on a surface level—much like the language of accountants or people who can easily wake up before dawn without buckets of coffee.
While I won't speak fluent Chicken in this lifetime, maybe I’ll learn enough to be able to step in and out of their private world as long as they’ll have me, but I’ll always be a visitor.
If you ever begin feeling dangerously close to thinking you know everything, hang out in a group where you don’t speak the language.
You will be awakened to new forms of intelligence and a grounding sense of humility, even among chickens.
During my animal research, I spent time with chickens--a creature I had no familiarity with beforehand. I was surprised that they all chattered INCESSANTLY! I was so curious what they must be peeping about!
I couldn’t get their clucks, chirps, and barks off my mind. Why hadn’t I heard about chicken language? I’d been obsessing over animals—especially the ones we eat!—for years now, and not once had I stumbled upon the wide world of chicken lingo.
Later, I looked up “chicken language” online. I got all kinds of bizarre results and very few about actual transmissions between chickens.
Huh, I thought, That’s weird. They are so vocal!
Then I deleted “language” and replaced it for “communication.”
“How do chickens communicate?”
Now, thousands of results.
Ohhhh, I realized. We don’t call animal sounds “language.”
Humans have language, animals have communication. But what, really, is the difference? Language is intricate, yes, but I need months of lessons to get by in Russia within my own species.
Chickens, on the other hand, can welcome in a new member from a foreign flock and make it work.
The chickens have come to feel at home on this oddball, glorious earth—a place whose dominant species doesn’t highly prize the noble chicken—by developing an exuberant symphony.
It’s a rich language that I can only appreciate on a surface level—much like the language of accountants or people who can easily wake up before dawn without buckets of coffee.
While I won't speak fluent Chicken in this lifetime, maybe I’ll learn enough to be able to step in and out of their private world as long as they’ll have me, but I’ll always be a visitor.
If you ever begin feeling dangerously close to thinking you know everything, hang out in a group where you don’t speak the language.
You will be awakened to new forms of intelligence and a grounding sense of humility, even among chickens.
During my animal research, I spent time with chickens--a creature I had no familiarity with beforehand. I was surprised that they all chattered INCESSANTLY! I was so curious what they must be peeping about!
I couldn’t get their clucks, chirps, and barks off my mind. Why hadn’t I heard about chicken language? I’d been obsessing over animals—especially the ones we eat!—for years now, and not once had I stumbled upon the wide world of chicken lingo.
Later, I looked up “chicken language” online. I got all kinds of bizarre results and very few about actual transmissions between chickens.
Huh, I thought, That’s weird. They are so vocal!
Then I deleted “language” and replaced it for “communication.”
“How do chickens communicate?”
Now, thousands of results.
Ohhhh, I realized. We don’t call animal sounds “language.”
Humans have language, animals have communication. But what, really, is the difference? Language is intricate, yes, but I need months of lessons to get by in Russia within my own species.
Chickens, on the other hand, can welcome in a new member from a foreign flock and make it work.
The chickens have come to feel at home on this oddball, glorious earth—a place whose dominant species doesn’t highly prize the noble chicken—by developing an exuberant symphony.
It’s a rich language that I can only appreciate on a surface level—much like the language of accountants or people who can easily wake up before dawn without buckets of coffee.
While I won't speak fluent Chicken in this lifetime, maybe I’ll learn enough to be able to step in and out of their private world as long as they’ll have me, but I’ll always be a visitor.
If you ever begin feeling dangerously close to thinking you know everything, hang out in a group where you don’t speak the language.
You will be awakened to new forms of intelligence and a grounding sense of humility, even among chickens.