The Urban Chicken Podcast - The Urbanite's Podcast Resource for Keeping Backyard Chickens - UCP Episode 029: The Secret Lives of Chickens – Insights with Lauren Scheuer (Chicken author/illustrator/owner)

UCP Episode 029: The Secret Lives of Chickens – Insights with Lauren Scheuer (Chicken author/illustrator/owner)

10/11/13 • 68 min

The Urban Chicken Podcast - The Urbanite's Podcast Resource for Keeping Backyard Chickens

Lauren Scheuer and Lucy the Barred Rock – photo courtesy of Lauren Scheuer

Whether a chicken has a qualitative conscious state of being is surprisingly a matter up for debate.

Recently, a co-worker told me that chickens do not have any feelings. He went so far as to even doubt whether chickens are fully self-aware. I was dumbstruck by what he was quite seriously suggesting. As he shared his opinions, I could barely stop myself from blurting out, “You obviously know nothing about chickens!” Of course chickens have feelings, as well as personalities, emotions and self-awareness – any chicken-owner can tell you as much. However, upon greater reflection, it struck me that my co-worker is not alone in his sentiments. In fact the prevailing attitude might be closer to his point of view than mine.

Lauren Scheuer joins me this week on the Urban Chicken Podcast, to talk about her experiences raising soulful backyard chickens. Her shared tales of chicken language, humor and compassion certainly contradict any beliefs that chickens lack self-awareness.

Lauren Scheuer is a formally trained artist (holding a Bachelors of Fine Arts from U.C.L.A.) and works as a professional illustrator. Her drawings are regularly featured in American Girl magazine. Lauren has also illustrated several children’s books and has provided drawing for other magazines, the Boston Museum of Science and the Roger Williams Zoo in Rhode Island.

Lucy – photo courtesy Lauren Scheuer

Lauren’s work with chickens began five and a half years ago when she got her own foursome of hens for the backyard. One of her first four hens, Lucy (a Barred Rock), suffered a terribly debilitating bout of Marek’s Disease, from which she miraculously survived but was left lame. It was during the careful nursing of Lucy through her illness inside her home, that Lauren first gained insight into the secret world of chickens.

Through simply spending countless hours in the garden with her hens, Lauren has learned all of the different personalities among her flock members. Her hens have slowly let Lauren in on their chicken world of relationships between the flock members, other animals and also with her, the human with all the snacks.

Lucy with her Book – Lauren Scheuer

Lauren has seen first-hand, unmistakable examples of compassion and friendship amongst her hens, as well as jealousy and rivalry. Lucy in particular, speaks to Lauren in “chicken.” This might sound far-fetched, but before you judge the ability of chickens to have a language, you might watch the fascinating Nature episode, “My Life as a Turkey.” This episode of Nature deals with the story of a wildlife artist who raised a flock of wild turkeys from hatchlings. Through his close interactions with these birds, he came to discover and understand the language and interpersonal relationships of his turkey flock. Arguably, turkeys are simply a large cousin to the chicken. (There is a link below to this full length Nature episode and also an embedded preview of the show.)

Feeling compelled to share Lucy’s story, Lauren began Scratch and Peck, her blog about her chickens. Scratch and Peck is different than other chicken-related blogs that are on-line. It reads like a story and is heavily illustrated. If I had to describe the Scratch and Peck blog in a single word, it would be: CHARMING.

Earlier this Spring Lauren published her first book, Once Upon a Flock: Life with My Soulful Chickens. The book is the story of Lucy and her flock mates. Though the book reads like a memoir, it also shares many valuable, practical tips about backyard chicken-keeping and coop building. The book is particularly gorgeous and very humorous, as it is fully illustrated with over 400 drawing and pictures! (See below the hardback and softback covers of Lauren’s book.)

The Nuggets Piggie Piled in Their Coop – courtesy Lauren Scheuer

Lauren shares on today’s show her vast knowledge of chicken-keeping, chicken personalities and emotions, and coop building (she is a self-admitted manic coop builder having constructed six ...

Lauren Scheuer and Lucy the Barred Rock – photo courtesy of Lauren Scheuer

Whether a chicken has a qualitative conscious state of being is surprisingly a matter up for debate.

Lucy – photo courtesy Lauren Scheuer

Lucy with her Book – Lauren Scheuer

The Nuggets Piggie Piled in Their Coop – courtesy Lauren Scheuer

Lauren shares on today’s show her vast knowledge of chicken-keeping, chicken personalities and emotions, and coop building (she is a self-admitted manic coop builder having constructed six ...

Previous Episode

UCP Episode 028: Vestibulo Ocular Reflex or Why Chickens Have Steady Cam Heads & Humans Don’t

Chicken Steady Cam Experiment – photo courtesy of jeremiahwj

Mercedes-Benz recently released a new commercial in which several chickens are rolled and moved about by anonymous human arms. The point of the commercial is to demonstrate the fact that a chicken’s head is incredibly stable despite its body’s movements (and then liken their automobile’s stabilization to a chicken’s stable head). This physical attribute gives chickens the appearance of having “steady-camera” head.

This past week, several blogs and news sites reported on this unique and hilarious chicken commercial. However, none of these articles actually really discuss why chickens’ heads behave in this manner. I was dissatisfied with these blog posts and news stories and so I did a little research on the subject. I share what I learned through this research with you on today’s show.

Here is the Mercedes-Benz chicken commercial

Before I get started I need to provide you, the audience, a disclaimer. I am not a doctor – nor do I play one on television. I am in no-way connected to the medical field. What I am going to share with you herein is all that I was able to learn as a layperson. Take the following information as you will.

The Human Vestibulo Ocular Reflex

To understand why the chicken is what it is – we must first understand how our own human physiology works. Humans are blessed with a physiological system called the vestibular system. The vestibular system is a sophisticated internal system that links the eyes with the inner ear and allows for clear vision while your body is moving.

The human eye acts like a tiny camera obscura. Like a camera, light enters into your eye through your cornea that dilates (i.e. opens or closes, much like the aperture of a traditional camera) to control how much light is allow to enter into the eye. This light is then focused on the back of the eye, which is the retina. The image that is focused on the retina is then transmitted to the brain (this is how you can see). As amazing and glorious as the human eye is – the retina cannot instantly refocus an image which is being moved. If you shake your camera while snapping a photograph you end up with an out of focus picture. Your retinas are the same – if the eyes are not stable, you get a blurry picture in your head.

Humans are moving creatures. We need to be able to move and see clearly at the same time. In order to compensate for this shortcoming in the eye, the human body has the vestibular system. The vestibular system is a set of reflexes which steadies the human eye position when the head and body are moving. The vestibular reflex system is commonly referred to as the vestibulo ocular reflex (“VOR”). The VOR is actually a complex connection between your inner ear and certain muscles in your eyes.

Inner ear diagram

There are three organs in your inner ear that register the roll, yaw and pitch in the movement of your head and body. If you are unfamiliar with these terms (roll, yaw and pitch), please refer to the link (HERE) which shows an airplane demonstrating roll, yaw and pitch. The three inner ear organs that detect motion (i.e. roll, pitch and yaw), are the semi-circular canals, the utricle and the saccule.

The semi-circular canals are actually three tubes positioned at different angles and filled with a liquid inside. When your head moves, the fluid inside these canals shifts and disturbs tiny hair cells. This disturbance to the tiny hair cells triggers the VOR. Two of the three semi-circular canals detect the pitch movement. Pitch is the movement of the head up and down (like shaking your head “YES”). The third semi-circular canal detects yaw. Yaw is the horizontal movement of the head (like shaking your head “NO.”)

Short Video that explains how the inner ear is connected to the VOR

The utricle and saccule are a little different than the semi-circular canals. The utricle and saccule are not shaped like a like long narrow tubes. Instead, the utricle and saccule are small chambers. In these chambers are either a gel like substance or small calcium carbonate crystals. When your head tilts in a roll motion (imagine you were moving your head back and forth trying to touch your ears to the top of your shoulders), or if your body is moved vertically (e.g. when you’re in an elevator), or your body is moved horizontally (e.g. when you’re on a train) – the gel and little calcium carbonate crystals move in the utricle and saccu...

Next Episode

UCP Episode 030: Shell-less and Soft-Shelled Eggs

Beatrix’s Soft-shelled Egg – photo by Jen Pitino

Eggs: they’re colorful; they’re delicious; and they’re supposed be the hard-shelled and oval. However, sometimes they’re not shaped and formed as they ought to be. Today, on the Urban Chicken Podcast we are discussing why chickens sometimes lay soft-shelled or even shell-less eggs. We will also consider what you the chicken owner can do to try to remedy any soft/shell-less egg issues in your flock.

Beatrix in the Tomatillo Patch – photo by Jen Pitino

My beautiful and very sweet tempered Welsummer hen, Beatrix has never laid me a proper egg. She rarely lays and when she does it is always either soft-shelled or even completely lacking a shell. She usually leaves these disturbing egg monstrosities at the bottom of the coop and not in the nesting box. Consequently, I have been researching why is she laying me icky eggs. Today I am going to share all that I have learned through my research.

HOW A CHICKEN MAKES AN EGG

To understand how an egg might be formed improperly, we should first understand how a chicken makes an egg. Here is the egg-making process all hens go through. As mentioned in UCP episode 018, all hens are born with two ovaries, but only the left one is active in the forming of ova (i.e. eggs). The right ovary is not fully formed and lays dormant. Once a day, the hen’s ovary releases a single ovum , though this is called an “oocyte” in chickens, which then enters the oviduct. The oviduct is a long tube that carries eggs from the ovary to the cloaca, which is the opening at the rear of a chicken from which she lays her daily eggs. The oviduct itself has distinct segments that perform different duties.

oviduct chart – by Jonchère et al. BMC Genomics 2010 11:57

When the freshly released oocyte enters the oviduct, it consists of just the yolk in a fully formed egg. This yolk is initially enters the segment of the oviduct known as the “magnum.” While traveling through the magnum, the yolk (oocyte) is covered with albumen (i.e. the protein whites of an egg). The egg then continues traveling down the oviduct from the magnum to the “isthmus” section. It is in the isthmus that the eggshell membranes are deposited over the yolk and whites. The egg then travels from the isthmus to the uterus (also known as the shell gland). Over a period of time ranging from nineteen to twenty-six hours, the egg will remain in the uterus while the calcium carbonate shell is deposited over the egg. The egg finally leaves the uterus section of the oviduct to journey the final segment of the oviduct to the cloaca. Just before an egg is laid, the protective bloom is deposited onto the outer shell of the egg (for more information on egg blooms see: UCP episode 013).

AN EGG INSIDE AN EGG PHENOMENON

Egg inside an egg! – photo by Sean Wilson

The explanation above is how an egg is formed in a nutshell. In rare cases, while in the process of producing an egg, the hen can experience a “counter-peristalsis contraction.” A counter-peristalsis contraction is when a second egg is released by the ovary before the first egg in the system is laid. The counter-peristalsis contraction causes the first egg traveling through the oviduct to reverse its course and be pushed back up to the top of the oviduct. As a consequence, the first egg (i.e. the lower one in the oviduct that reversed course) is typically sucked up inside of the second egg. The second egg then travels down the oviduct and has albumen and a shell deposited over it and first egg, which is now joined with it. This creates a very large egg for your poor hen to lay. Poor Chickie-choo! When you crack open such an egg, there is normal yolk and whites and also a whole other fully formed egg inside (shell and all).

Tiny egg inside an egg! – photo by rumperpumper83

The recent TINY egg found inside a regular-sized egg in Britain, was also caused by a counter-peristalsis contraction. However, in this case the oocyte that was released in the first egg (the one that reversed course in the oviduct) was tiny because the ovary had released an egg out of order. Usually hens ovulate daily in order of...