Chickenology (HENS & ROOSTERS) Part 2 Encore with Tove Danovich

We’re back for Part 2! If you missed Part 1, start there for the chicken basics and then come back for the weird stuff like chickens eating chickens, why chickens bother laying unfertilized eggs, rooster gossip, fairy eggs, nest abominations, bird grief, beak accessories, soft burbling chicken sounds, spicy chicken feed, safe corners of the internet, multicolored eggs and the big questions: SHOULD YOU GET A CHICKEN OR WHAT. We help you decide.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Alie Ward?

  Oh, hey. 2026 Ally here, and I promised you more chickenology. And so here is the thrilling follow-up to last week's top-notch encore, which will have you buying a chicken book before we even get to the new 2026 secret to the end. Okay, cool. Oh, hey, it's still your neighbor's daughter who approves of your mustache, Ally Ward. And we're back with part two of chickens. Are you ready for this? Okay, so this guest, who we met in the fabulous part one this week, wrote "Under the Henfluence," and we had so many questions. We had to split this between two installments, so welcome to part two. But before we get into it, thank you to everyone at Patreon.com/ologies for supporting the show for a buck or more a month and submitting questions for this.

• 0:43Alie Ward?

  Thanks, everyone who tells a friend about the show and who subscribes and rates and leaves me reviews like a little treasure, including these farm-fresh ones. One from Christie, who wrote, "Imagine my shock while driving to my parents' home in Fitzgerald, Georgia, and hearing the name of my hometown out of the blue. Yes, the occasional rooster makes its way to my parents' home. They're large and charge and absolutely beautiful," said Christie in their review. So thank you so much for that review. And also, thank you to sponsors of Ologies who make it possible to donate to a cause of the chickenologist's choosing. Picture this: years of guaranteed research support and a vibrant scientific community that has your back. If you are a PhD student, postdoc, or early-career faculty

• 1:27Alie Ward?

  in the biological or biomedical sciences, that doesn't have to be a fantasy. HHMI has a program for you. The Howard Hughes Medical Institute supports scientists at every career stage with a people-not-projects approach, long-term support, and the resources for breakthrough science. Applications open now. You can find your program at HHMI.org/ologies. Oh, trips are full of unexpected discoveries. Maybe you see a sea slug, or you find out that your friend still sleeps with a stuffed animal. But when it comes to your vacation rental, there should not be any surprises. When you book a Verbo vacation rental, if what you expect isn't what you get, Verbo Care has you covered. If something's broken or just not right, Verbo will work to make it right.

• 2:12Alie Ward?

  Plus, you get 24/7 live human support with every booking. Grab your stuffy. We're going on vacay. So book today on the Verbo app. If you know, you Verbo. Terms apply. See Verbo.com/Trust for details. This podcast is brought to you by Aura. Your body has a lot going on: sleep, stress, recovery. You would be surprised how connected it all is. Aura Ring tracks more than 50 metrics from your finger, and the Aura app brings that information together to help you see patterns across your sleep and stress, activity, and more. So you can start connecting the dots and figure out what works for you. Learn more at AuraRing.com. Wear your best life with Aura.

• 2:56Alie Ward?

  Let's wrap up this chicken two-parter, cuddle up in the coop, and listen to a squawk about fairy eggs, dark yolks, relaxing klucks, pecking orders, beak accessories, spicy rats, awkward molting, chicken-on-chicken crime, pet chickens, and coop advice, and more, with hen mom, chicken researcher, journalist, and author of "Under the Henfluence: Inside the World of Backyard Chickens and the People Who Love Them", chickenologist Toba Danovich.

• 3:45Alie Ward?

  Oh, I have so many questions from listeners. Can I just lob them at you?

• 3:50Speaker 01

  Please.

• 3:51Alie Ward?

  Myliss Robertson, first-time question asker, says, "I have friends who insist that brown eggs are healthier than white, and that it means that the chicken was raised naturally." And Myliss says, "I think it's because of the breed of chicken. Who's right?"

• 4:04Speaker 01

  They are right. It's the breed of the chicken. That said, the brown egg layers do tend to have a slightly higher feed conversion ratio, so they need a little bit more food to lay those eggs. The white egg layers have smaller bodies, so white eggs will tend to be the cheapest eggs still because of that.

• 4:27Alie Ward?

  Ah, so yes, brown eggs are more expensive to produce in terms of feed. And for all the patrons who asked about egg color, looking at you, Mira Semitov, Will Kangen, Elena Cruzen, Dunia Khan, Anna Easton, Erin Knapp, Alyssa Elliott, Zoe D., Shoshana Bell, Elizabeth Wies, Shannon Feltes, and Paul Smith, who wrote in, "Talk to me about blue eggs, please." So yes, there are many breeds and hybrids of chicken, and each chicken makes her own egg color, which doesn't change from one color to the next ever. It's like, this is my egg color. But different breeds of chickens tend to have their own color tendencies. And there are even chickens called Easter Eggers that produce pink and dark brown and sea glass blue.

• 5:12Alie Ward?

  There are chickens that make mottled Java-colored eggs and olive speckled treasures. I mean, olive ones and blue eggs?

• 5:20Speaker 01

  I will say, if you get eggs that are like blue or green, those chickens are really inefficient and probably a farm is not going to have those if they're going for like high-volume egg output. So I always think that's kind of a nice little nod to what kind of conditions the flock was maybe raised in or like the ethos of the chicken keeper, if you have rainbow eggs, because they're just like very impractical.

• 5:47Alie Ward?

  I had no idea, but they're beautiful for the person that harvests them, right?

• 5:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, they're delightful. I love them. We like pick out, you know, which eggs will I have today for my breakfast? So it feels special.

• 5:59Alie Ward?

  First-time question asker Melissa Kane and Allison Farmer, who may or may not be a farmer, wanted to know, do they get pissed that you take their eggs?

• 6:08Speaker 01

  So when chickens are broody, which is what we call it when they really want to like sit on a bunch of eggs and hatch them into chicks, you will sometimes get a hen who gets very fluffy and will like packet your fingers when you go to take the eggs from under her. The rest of the time, like, they're dropping an egg off and they're walking away, and they don't even notice that I have taken them. So most of the time, they really don't care. It's only when they're like, this is my clutch of my babies, that they, you know, even seem to note that those eggs are gone.

• 6:44Alie Ward?

  So what about double yolks? So we covered this in the Oology episode, all about eggs. But for folks who asked, looking at you, Chicken Haver, Gregory Kerschoffer, Ashley Oakley, and Maria Muscarella, those double yolkers are typically laid by younger hens that are just booping out yolks from their robust ovaries faster than the shell-making department can keep up. But so many of you, including Katie Seeger, Manasvi Verma, Brandy Harbro, Tony Benvenuti, Kherazandhi, Extreme Bee, Rachel and Ali, and Samantha Axtman, asked why chickens are wasting all this energy to lay these unfertilized eggs that we make into yum yums. And so here's the deal: so the chicken egg starts off as a yolk, but if they are doing the nasty with a rooster,

• 7:27Alie Ward?

  it'll get fertilized early in the egg process, in the oviduct, or a spot called the infundibulum. And then it goes over to the magnum, where the egg white forms, and then it gets a shell. So that's kind of the order. The sperm happens early in the egg-making process. And if for some reason their system skips a yolk, you have what's called a fart egg, a cock egg, a fairy egg, a witch egg, or a wind egg. But a wind egg can also mean that it's soft-shelled, which can happen if a chicken gets too hot, or needs more calcium, or is eating too much spinach, or needs a trip to the vet, which patrons Doug Pace and Eleonora wanted to know about. And my life was fine until I saw that Chicken Haver Chandler Witherington

• 8:11Alie Ward?

  and Elta Sparks asked about lash eggs, Elta having seen them on lists of the grossest things people need help identifying. What is that? And apparently, a lash egg is an egg-shaped mass of tissue, pus, and yolk stuff, and it has kind of a rubbery texture, like leftover sausage. And these abominations are caused by a bacterial infection. And if you're too chicken to look up photos, just picture a Scotch egg made out of silly putty. It's really bad. It's very unpleasant visually. Also, as long as we're discussing fleshy nubbins, let's talk rooster dicks. Surely, a thing called a cock has one, right?

• 8:54Alie Ward?

  Nah. Allow me to read you something from the scripture of Cacklehatchery.com. Quote, "A rooster does not have a penis. An incubated egg that will become a rooster starts to develop a penis, but early in the second week of embryonic development, a cell death protein called BMP4 cloaks the incipient penis, causing it to stop developing and instead remain as a rudimentary nub. You thought you understood the term cock blocker until you met the protein BMP4." Wow. But back to the fertilized and unfertilized eggs. Okay, so sperm or not, these hens' bodies are making the eggs. If they were to get fertilized, they'd be fertilized way up in the egg-making process.

• 9:36Alie Ward?

  And remember, their jungle fowl ancestors lay just a few small clutches a year, and most of those do get fertilized, because it's nature and people be banging. But these domesticated chickens are just on hyperspeed in the egg-laying department, and they live in a convent. But do they know? Do they tend to know when one is fertilized? Like, will they remember, like, "I definitely boned the other day"? These are probably fertilized.

• 10:01Speaker 01

  I don't think so, because we don't have roosters and my hens still go broody, which is also another genetic thing. Most farmers have bred bruniness out of the commercial strains because when a hen goes broody, she's like, I've laid 12 eggs. This is enough. I don't need to lay anymore. I'm going to like, sit on these eggs and stop it. And the farmers are like, I would like to have more eggs, please. And now that we have commercial incubators, you really don't need a good broody hen that will sit on eggs and hatch out new ones, which you used to, that used to be very important because it's how you get more chickens. But yeah, they're like, this is a waste of time. Let's get chickens

• 10:45Speaker 01

  that just like, don't want to be mothers at all. So that's, that's more of what we have. But a couple of our hens like, love to go broody. They will sit on anything. They will sit on nothing. There are some very funny videos of people with like, a hen that was trying to be broody on like, a light bulb for other round objects. So yeah, their hormones just get switched on and they're like, I want to sit on things, make them warm.

• 11:11Alie Ward?

  Also, side note, apparently if you leave eggs in a nest box too long, some hens will be like, well, this is just a snack I made with my butt and they'll eat them, which is why it's good to keep an eye on your hens and harvest at least once a day, so they don't make breakfast out of something that was part of their bodies. But this brings up a related query. So patron Emma Giles, who works with the local Boys and Girls Club, said, Young Persia asked, are chickens cannibals? Persia, you weren't the only person that needed an answer to this. Bronwyn, Rebecca Hathley, Emma Donovan, Alle Guerrero, and first time question asker Belle, all needed to know too. Some people asked, are chickens cannibals? Belle, first time question asker, said, naturally,

• 11:53Alie Ward?

  I'm coming in hot with a weird one. What's the deal with chicken cannibalism? So, so many folks. This is the first I have heard of this. Are chickens cannibals?

• 12:03Speaker 01

  So chickens are omnivores. They do eat, you know, like bugs is usually more their normal meat, though I've heard of like chickens eating mice and lizards and things like that. Usually cannibalism is not like, it's not a natural behavior. I would go so far as to say it's not really like a supernatural, everyday behavior throughout most of the animal kingdom anyway. But it does happen pretty regularly on farms because they are in such crowded, stressful conditions that for whatever reason, this is one of the behaviors that will happen. There is something that like, even chickens in a small flock will

• 12:43Speaker 01

  occasionally do, where if a hen or rooster is injured and they see that, they might peck at the injury, which then makes it worse and causes problems. So that can be a problem on these farms too, as is like feather picking. And they'll basically make these other chickens kind of half bald. But it's a stress response. And the way that the industry has dealt with that is that all hens, chickens are de-beaked, usually when they're like a day old. They used to use a hot blade to do it. Now I think it's like infrared somehow, which is supposedly a little bit more exact. But it makes it so well, they can peck, the beak doesn't curve down all the way. So they can't do

• 13:28Speaker 01

  as much damage. But it's, you know, pretty controversial. Like, the chicken's beak has a lot of nerve endings in it. It's kind of their primary sense organ, like how they explore the world is by pecking at things, seeing what it feels like and if it's food or not food.

• 13:45Alie Ward?

  So patron Emily Stauffer wanted to know if de-beaking is at all humane. And Asha Ramakumar says that they're studying farmed animal law and want to know, what are the psychological effects of de-beaking? And I did look into a few papers, including the 2018 Advances in Poultry Welfare Study, Feather Pecking and Cannibalism. Can we really stop beak trimming? Which says that inter-bird pecking, such as feather pecking, vent pecking, that's butthole attacks, and cannibalistic tissue pecking are injurious and have really detrimental effects on bird welfare. And it went on to say that the practice of beak

• 14:24Alie Ward?

  trimming can reduce mortality and injury. However, beak trimming also has adverse consequences for bird welfare and is widely regarded as an unacceptable method of controlling bird behavior. A number of European countries have now banned beak trimming or plan to do so, the paper says.

• 14:42Speaker 02

  So, what do we do?

• 14:44Alie Ward?

  Well, a 2020 study published in the journal Poultry Science, titled Effects of Plastic Anti-Pecking Devices on the Production Performance Beak Length and Behavior in Chinese Wenton Chickens, did fit some chickens with pads, plastic anti-pecking devices, which the study says, appears to be effective at reducing mortality and plumage damage. But there are also chicken blinders that you can affix to their tiny cute faces that allow the chickens to see dirt and scratch around and they can feed, but looking forward blocks their vision of other chickens. And I did look these chicken blinders up. And according to the Amazon reviews, they are 1,000% more hilarious when you stick googly

• 15:27Alie Ward?

  eyes on them. Also, I highly recommend that you read reviews of chicken products because they contain tales such as, I was skeptical of the peepers, but let me tell you, Fabio Aru immediately chilled out and left Winnie, his girl, alone. I don't hear any more crying or chicken ruckus, nor are their feathers piled up like a crime scene. So get into those reviews if you are in need of detailed gossip about hens, which is like, just the amount of pettiness that feels good, but hurts no one. 10 out of 10, would read again. But there are also anti-chicken assault options, like foul tasting feather sprays you can use to discourage inter-chicken bullying, or little jackets that you can put on your

• 16:09Alie Ward?

  chickens. But in big commercial operations, at least in the US, de-beaking and beak trimming still happens and is the norm.

• 16:17Speaker 01

  So yeah, that is mostly how we deal with the potential of chicken cannibalism, which does happen, but is not like a supernatural behavior in the species.

• 16:27Alie Ward?

  As news to me.

• 16:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:30Alie Ward?

  This next question was on the minds of Amy Naramatsu, Laura Jordans Harris, Emily P. and Rebecca Gerling, who asked, do they have chicken Fight Club when we're not looking? And this was also needed to know by first time question askers, Amos Lomaya Stua, McBride, Katie Nichols, and... Cynthia Zhao says, what are chicken social structures like? The term pecking order is often used to describe hierarchies. So how are chicken societies formed and maintained? And Kai, another first time question asker, asked if hens swap places from who is mama hen and who isn't? I'd never realized that pecking order came from chickens.

• 17:08Speaker 01

  I had not. It does. It does come from chickens. I love the pecking order origin story. There was this Norwegian, I guess, zoologist.

• 17:19Alie Ward?

  One Thorleif Sheldonrup Ebbe, who at the age of 19, wrote, The Voices of Chickens, A Contribution to the Psychology of Chickens, and later, the dissertation, Galus domesticus in Its Daily Life, which earned him his PhD and what we can now call Chickenology. Tove explains his findings.

• 17:39Speaker 01

  And he had like, a country home out by his grandparents that he would go to as a little boy. And there were chickens nearby. And he was like, I'm really obsessed with these chickens. And he got out these notebooks and was just like, studying chickens for years. And I think when he was 19, he published about the chicken social structure, which he referred to as the pecking order, where essentially, the most dominant chickens get kind of like first dibs on, you know, the best food and the best perching spots and the best sunbathing spots. So it was just this guy that was like, really into chickens and watched them and did this discovery that, you know, people hadn't really studied

• 18:22Speaker 01

  a lot of social structures in animals at that point at all, which now of course is like, a huge thing, how, how we relate to each other. So I think when people think about the pecking order, they think it's going to be more of like, a ladder. It's like, I'm first and you're 10th. And I've discovered it's a little bit more kind of like, triangle shaped. So in my flock, Peggy, who is my only of the first three chickens that is still with us, she is the, the head hen. And she is a benevolent ruler, I like to say. So when the other chickens fight, she will actually run in between them and break up the fight. And she'll just stand there. And then if they start again, whoever

• 19:05Speaker 01

  has started it, she'll run over and like, give them a big peck, which I always think is the funniest thing to watch. And I'm like, good job, Peggy.

• 19:12Speaker 02

  Congratulations, Peggy.

• 19:13Speaker 01

  But yeah, you know, it's kind of like, a couple of the next oldest ones are beneath her. And then on the rung under that, there are like, some of the younger ones. And it does fluctuate a little bit too. But a really interesting thing about that is, you know, sometimes you bring a new chicken into the flock and it's kind of chaos, because they have to figure out where this new chicken fits in the pecking order. And the way they do that is by fighting, which is like, not super fun to watch. And you're like, why can't you all just get along? But they can actually infer where the other chickens are. So they don't have to fight every single other chicken. They're like, great, I beat

• 19:54Speaker 01

  the number two chicken, so I must be like, below the head hen and above everyone else. And then they can kind of go, go on their merry ways.

• 20:03Alie Ward?

  I just had no idea, but I absolutely love the idea that they're working it out.

• 20:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, they are. They're figuring it out. I've definitely had hens where like, briefly, one of them will have a problem with the other. I don't know why. I don't know what dramas happen specifically. But for a while, like one of them, if she goes up to another, she will get like, pecked and run off. And then a few months later, they're like, fine, again. I'm like, I don't know what happened, but I'm so curious. It's like a soap opera in your backyard.

• 20:34Alie Ward?

  I imagine that there's a lot of watching chickens that happens when you have chickens.

• 20:38Speaker 01

  There's a lot of chicken watching. It's very relaxing. I have a yard that requires weeding, which is not fun to do. But having chickens for company makes it seem like an exciting thing we're all doing together. And the chickens love when I weed because I'm digging up all these like worms and dirt. And they're like, this is amazing. So I'm just hanging out in the yard, doing my weeding, and they like to make this really lovely burbling sound back and forth.

• 21:14Speaker 01

  It's just kind of like a check-in with the flock where it's like, I'm okay, you're, you're okay. Everything's good. And they just kind of do this quiet chatting whenever they're outside. And it's so relaxing to listen to and they're, they're fun to watch. It's like, it's very meditative to have chickens because they're always up to something, but the stakes feel low, at least to me.

• 21:38Alie Ward?

  I love that this, it's like a low, a low stakes, high drama, but beautiful situation.

• 21:45Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 21:46Alie Ward?

  A lot of people wanted to know what chickens eat. Alyssa Elliott says, my chickens love zucchini and squash, but they refuse to eat any sort of the peel or rind. They're also picky jerks and they don't eat table scraps. Jen Scroll Alvarez wants to know, is there anything a chicken won't eat? Rachel Kasha says that everyone knows pigs will eat anything, but no one ever talks about how chickens eat anything. Erin Gunderson said on TikTok, they saw people feeding chickens steak. A lot of you needed the scoop on chicken feed, such as Ellie Cooper, first time question asker Kate Walton, Anna Easton, Adam Dunn, Mary Conicannon, Shelby Mills, Brian Hyatt, Mark Hewlett, and Robin Stumbo, who traumatized me by writing in, when I was a kid, I saw

• 22:28Alie Ward?

  a chicken chase after and swallow a mouse hole. And I've never been the same. And I've heard they're also really into bugs. Are there any estimates of how much of a chicken's diet animals make up? What do they eat in general?

• 22:41Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, they, they're omnivores, so they can kind of eat anything except for things that are bad for them. So, you know, in, in the yard, they love grass. Mine love like dandelion greens in particular. That's a special delicacy. They love grapes. They love red fruits and bugs also. But yeah, they can eat most things. There is a small list of stuff like, I think avocado is really bad for chickens, citrus, you know, don't give them like junk food is just not, not great for anyone, even if like technically it might be fine. But they can eat anything. They can technically eat like meat. I've

• 23:21Speaker 01

  seen people feed chicken to chicken, which, you know, there's some like pathogen risk also, like maybe a little weird, but technically they can in fact eat that. So yeah, they, they're equal opportunity. That said, they do have preferences. So mine certainly have things that they will turn their nose up at. And I think some of that is because they are also very spoiled. So they're like, we get treats every day and we have this great food. So unless you're giving us like the finest scraps, I, I just don't even need it.

• 23:53Alie Ward?

  And if you've ever wondered why your sister-in-law's chickens' yolks are so much more orange than the ones at the store, it's their diet. So more carotenoids means deeper-hued yolks. And patron Scott Hanley asked, is feeding chickens red pepper seed flakes a real thing to get deep orange to reddish yolks? And hot dank Scott, according to the 2012 paper, the effect of red pepper powder or red pepper pigment on the performance and egg yolk color of laying hens. Yes, feeding your hens red pepper will deepen the yolk color. But a little goes a long way, like one cup in 25 pounds of feed should do it. But won't your hens be crying at you and begging for milk?

• 24:37Speaker 03

  Get the milk, get more milk ready.

• 24:39Alie Ward?

  That does make me want to ask, AJ Gray said, they read somewhere that chickens aren't affected by spicy food. Anna, Lisa, Michael, and first time question asker Hannah Smith all asked about chickens tasting spicy stuff. But AJ Gray says, they heard about this. They gave their in-laws chickens some flaming hot Cheetos and it was like an instant coop disco party. They went wild for them, but AJ was worried that they were burning their little beaks off. So what exactly is going on with chickens and spicy things?

• 25:06Speaker 01

  Yeah. So like a lot of birds, they, I mean, I guess they have the capsaicin receptors, but they're not turned on. So they cannot taste spice or like feel the heat from spice. So I know some people, especially if you feed like backyard birds and your squirrels are eating it all the time, you can get special bird seed that's like coated in hot pepper that's supposed to make squirrels not like it because the birds won't notice. So yeah, the, the flame and hot is not flame and hot for, for chickens. They're just like, great, it's a corn puff. This is amazing.

• 25:41Alie Ward?

  Ah, and that's why they had a disco party?

• 25:43Speaker 01

  Probably.

• 25:44Alie Ward?

  Just because of the corn. And who wouldn't?

• 25:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:46Alie Ward?

  What a texture, you know?

• 25:47Speaker 01

  I love a corn puff.

• 25:49Alie Ward?

  And on that note of eating anything, Clarinetta wants to know, is it true that chickens eat rocks on purpose?

• 25:54Speaker 01

  They do.

• 25:55Speaker 03

  Excuse me?

• 25:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, little bitty rocks. So, you know, you may have noticed chickens don't have teeth. And so how they and other birds grind down their food is they have this area called the gizzard. And they put like tiny little rocks and pebbles and stuff in there that hangs out and it kind of just squishes it like a mortar and pestle system until it's broken down enough to travel down the rest of their intestines and out the other side. So they do need like a small amount of rocks, not, not all the time. They'll, they'll kind of figure it out as long as the things are there for them to get. But it's also why chickens,

• 26:37Speaker 01

  like a lot of other birds are super susceptible to heavy metal poisoning. Is like, say a dog eats zinc or lead pellet or something like that, they will just poop it out the other end. It's, it's not really a big deal.

• 26:50Alie Ward?

  In small amounts, relatively speaking.

• 26:53Speaker 01

  But for chickens, that piece of metal will sit in their gizzard and it will get ground down into flakes over time, spreading that throughout their bodies. So that's why that's a really big issue. And I've actually had one of my hens briefly went blind from zinc poisoning because she got a hold of probably like a little piece of a nail, which is made out of galvanized metal or something like that. And it was just getting like round in her gizzard for a while and clearly worked out of her system before it did. Too terrible of damage. But yeah, it's, it's a wild system.

• 27:28Alie Ward?

  Well, that brings me to a couple of questions. Potato Puffer and Whitney both asked about, in Potato Puffer first time question asker's words, how big of a concern is lead contamination in backyard chicken eggs? And Whitney said, I saw a study from Australia showing eggs from backyard coops had way more lead due to the presence of heavy metals in the soil. This seems to have been in areas where neighborhoods were built atop old industrial zones. So should testing eggs be more commonplace? Whitney wants to know. But is this something that you've heard much about?

• 27:58Speaker 01

  I've definitely heard of it. I think it certainly is worth thinking about if you're getting backyard chickens, especially if you live in like a really urban environment or have an old house. There's, you know, a strong likelihood that at some point there was lead paint that might have flaked off or pipes in the soil. A really easy way, if that's something you're worried, is like get a soil test and then you will know what kind of, of metals and, and other things are, are in your soil. I will say that birds are so sensitive to a lot of that stuff and they're small that I personally, unless I regularly had a lot of hens that were getting sick from it, I would personally assume that it was fine for me.

• 28:43Alie Ward?

  And for more on this, you can see the recent episodes on domacology and environmental toxicology, or our older episodes on plumology, feathers, ornithology, pelicans, et cetera, which are linked in the show notes because we want you to have them. But before we move on, we're going to throw some money at an ologist-approved cause. And this week it's going to Second Hen, which is a nonprofit that rescues egg-laying hens past their prime, AKA spent hens, and finds them loving homes to live out their days as pets. So you can find out more about them at the link in the show notes. That was Second Hen. And thank you sponsors for making those weekly donations possible. This podcast is brought to you by Squarespace. If you haven't heard me gushing about Squarespace

• 29:25Alie Ward?

  for years, it's an all-in-one website platform. Whether you're trying to grow a business you have, or if you're just a baby business getting started, it has everything you need. That's where I secured my domain name. It helped me build a professional site. I can update it so easily. I've been using Squarespace since before Ologies existed. After procrastinating for years, I literally built my website in one evening. They have templates, they have flexible editing tools. Squarespace also makes it easy to share your work. You can book clients, you can get paid. They have built-in tools for scheduling and invoicing and email all in one place. Whenever someone I know needs a website, whether they're a scientist that needs to put their work up, or someone who's just starting a business,

• 30:07Alie Ward?

  I'm like, dude, Squarespace. So head to squarespace.com/ologies for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use offer code OLOGIES to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. You can do it. This episode of Ologies with Ally Ward is brought to you by Alloy Health. As you may know, we've talked a lot about estrogen and hormones on this podcast. We have a three-part menopause episode. And there's something that nobody tells you, and this is that your skin changes that start in your 40s, they aren't just aging, they are hormonal, specifically estrogen loss. So estrogen naturally helps maintain collagen, it helps support elasticity, it keeps your skin hydrated. And as it declines, your skin gets thinner and drier. So if your

• 30:47Alie Ward?

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• 31:31Alie Ward?

  I can't tell you how many times your mother and I have been like, what are we gonna eat? It's constant. You know what I mean? Busy schedules, you got nutrition goals, you have your stomach and brain maybe not agreeing. Maybe you got picky eaters. This is where Hungry Root comes in. I think they are great. Hungry Root figures out what foods you like, what you don't, what kind of fits your life. And then they're like, hey, how about these groceries? And how about these recipes? And you're like, what are you, my second brain? For me and Jarrett, we are eating more plant-based meals. Jarrett is also dairy-free. So it's been really helpful to take the guesswork out of mealtime and also learn more recipes that maybe we hadn't tried before. I also like that we're not spending time meal planning or grocery shopping because it just shows up for us.

• 32:15Alie Ward?

  Some of my favorite recipes for Hungry Root, they have a lot of really great curry bowls and stir fries. I signed up for snacks too, because I'm a human being. So explore my digital cookbook, Pod Mom and Dad's High Protein and Low Dairy Menu, for free at hungryroot.com/ologies. And for a limited time, you can get 40% off your first order, plus a free item in every box for life with code OLOGIES. Let's have dinner. Supplement this, supplement that. Maybe you want to supplement your time by simplifying your supplement, once and for all. IM-8 has got that on lock. IM-8 has daily ultimate essentials. It has 16 supplements.

• 32:54Alie Ward?

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• 33:39Alie Ward?

  It's code OLOGIES at imhealth.com/ologies. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. We have to say that. From executive producer Andy Weir, number one bestselling author of Project Hail Mary and The Martian Comes, Exoplanet, an interstellar audio thriller written by Benjamin Percy, starring Anthony Mackie, Ariana DeBose, and John Leguizamo. One crew, one alien planet, three different timelines. After a quantum anomaly tears their starship apart, survivors crash land in different eras, hunted by an alien intelligence that could consume humanity. Running out of time, they must communicate across time to survive. Listen now.

• 34:22Alie Ward?

  Go to audible.com/exoplanetseries. And back to your questions, this time about chicken makeovers. What about molting? Britta Goldstein, first time question asker, why do my chickens choose the bitter, coldest part of the year to molt? And Tina Hwang wants to know, do chickens ever molt from the ass up? And apparently, one of their chickens, her name is Pudding, Tina says, gets butt bald once a year. So, and Tina says that they don't like looking at Pudding's butt, but she is their favorite chicken. So yeah, why do they have feathers on their feet? Suzie wants to know. Also, I cannot believe no one asked this, so I'm going to, but I'd like to know if

• 35:06Alie Ward?

  you, if it's odd or if it's satisfying to look at videos of bumblefoot.

• 35:12Speaker 01

  Right, these are all good questions. And you'll have to remind me if I've like forgotten one of them.

• 35:17Alie Ward?

  But there were like 10 that I just launched.

• 35:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, just write them down.

• 35:22Alie Ward?

  So molting, why do they molt in the cold? And why do they molt from the butt up?

• 35:27Speaker 01

  Well, I don't think they specifically molt from the butt up. Maybe your chicken is just like a special, unique flower. If it were me and I always had a chicken with the bare butt, especially at a certain time of year, I might wonder about like mites, or maybe there's feather picking going on, or like some other issue in that area that's causing feather loss. That said, they do molt. They look very silly and sad. They don't like being picked up because all their little quill feathers are pushing out and it like doesn't feel very good.

• 36:00Speaker 02

  My golly, you're prickly.

• 36:02Speaker 01

  It's probably like a baby teething, but it's all over your body. So they get pretty grumpy when they are molting. They do tend to do it in kind of like fall/winter. I would imagine that has to do with the fact that, you know, when a bird is molting, their feathers have gotten kind of raggedy. They're not as like insulating as they were before. And so while it might seem a little bit weird to us, by having like peak feathers for the coldest time of the year, they're actually better able to kind of like insulate themselves on cold days because they have those nice, like fresh, perfectly zipped up feathers that are doing the things that feathers are supposed to do.

• 36:42Speaker 01

  So yeah, it takes about like two months for a molt to kind of like start and finish. Some years I have chickens that like, they just molt a little bit and then the next year they're like half bald, the quillie sad, which usually people just refer to it as a hard molt. But yeah, it's, it's an important process. They look really silly, but they're, they're doing what they're supposed to do.

• 37:06Alie Ward?

  But for those who relish the chance to see stuff coming out of strangers' pores, you'll love bumblefoot, where a chicken's dinosaur foot gets a giant nasty black head. Have you ever picked out a bumblefoot?

• 37:20Speaker 01

  I have. I actually just was looking at my flock and I think one of them has a little bumble starting, so I'll have to do that.

• 37:27Alie Ward?

  Do you love it? You love it.

• 37:29Speaker 01

  I usually don't find it satisfying. That said, I just watched a video yesterday where someone found a bumble like between their chicken's toes and just kind of like popped it out. And I was like, this is better than a doctor pimple popper video for sure. And I know bumblefoot, it's like a bacterial infection, similar to like a staph infection. It might actually be staph bacteria. But, so it forms this hard kernel. And to remove the infection, you have to like cut or pop the kernel out. But yeah, chicken surgery isn't like my favorite pastime.

• 38:08Alie Ward?

  DIY chicken surgery. I mean, there's a, there's a hobby for everyone, you know?

• 38:12Speaker 01

  So it's a wild world out there.

• 38:15Alie Ward?

  Last question, or two more listener questions. Jamie Simons, first time question asker, says, I've heard chickens mourn when one of the flock dies. For people with backyard chickens, how do we help with this? Is that true?

• 38:27Speaker 01

  They do. Yeah, I mean, as the existence of the pecking order should kind of reveal, like they're social animals. They have relationships with each other. They can have, you know, friendships or, or brief enmitieships. I really only saw like proper grieving in my flock for the first loss. And they were pretty young at the time and did this sound that, so when chicks are separated from their mothers, they do this special peep that I call like the lost chick call. And it's, you know, like a little humming signal and I'm distressed, like come, come get me, return me to the rest of my flock. So one of our dogs got our chicken and now they're, the dogs and chickens do not share

• 39:12Speaker 01

  outside time together anymore after that. But the flock was doing this really loud version of like specifically the lost chick call, right after that happened for a while.

• 39:30Speaker 01

  And it just like broke, broke my little heart. I already liked chickens before, but that really did change my relationship to them significantly. It's, it's hard to see like creatures grieving and not feel like there's a lot going on there.

• 39:46Alie Ward?

  For more on this, you can see the Corvid Thanatology episodes on crow funerals, because crows have funerals. Or there's the Thanatology episode from this past July on grief. And yeah, you can grieve a chicken. And a chicken can also grieve a chicken, from what we understand. First time question asker, Alyssa Purseau, asked if chickens get lonely if their flockmates die and if they're the only ones left? And how can you tell? And Tove can.

• 40:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, they do. I mean, I've also heard of like some chickens, you know, if they have a particularly close friendship and the other dies, like the remaining chicken will get clearly depressed and not eat or drink. And they just kind of sit fluffed up for a while. And I think, you know, like, like people, hopefully, eventually they get through it. Yeah, they have friends and they lose friends and it's hard for them like it would be for all of us.

• 40:35Alie Ward?

  Do you eat chickens or no?

• 40:36Speaker 01

  I don't anymore.

• 40:37Alie Ward?

  That's what I figured.

• 40:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. It was actually after that chicken died. I was like, I just can't anymore. My chickens go to like the vet when they're sick too. So I was just, it felt very silly to be paying to save one chicken and then paying to eat other chickens.

• 40:56Alie Ward?

  And also you must get plenty of protein with eggs.

• 40:58Speaker 01

  I do. All, all the eggs. I am set. Yeah.

• 41:01Alie Ward?

  Last listener question. Savannah Frost wants to know, is getting backyard chickens worth it? And how do you essentially, what bunch of people? The big question asked by potential chicken havers, Kelly Schaefer, Mete Huerta, Danae Dejournette, Selena Hune, Tamara, Koutenho, Montana Flynn, Brittany Schafus, Caroline Clancy, Amelia Frank, Taylor Clinton, Trinity Higgs, Scarlet Ponder, Amelia Hines, Megan Duffy, Megan Thompson, Emmy P., Hari Riley, Lydia, Lambie, Elders Amora, Ashley Ogie, and Feather Evans, all want to know, should they get chickens? Will the chickens love them? Do chickens make good pets? Can you boob a chicken? Should we let chickens into our lives and

• 41:42Alie Ward?

  our homes? What advice do you have for people considering getting some backyard chickens?

• 41:48Speaker 01

  Yeah. Do your research. I mean, you are bringing an animal home, so be prepared to take care of that animal. I think is kind of obvious, but yet it's surprising how many people don't do that. I mentioned this earlier, but starting off with a really good coop is going to make life better for you. I talked about predators that will eat your chickens, but another thing you should definitely think about is rodents, because unless you live in Alberta, Canada, that somehow has no rats, like rats are everywhere. You may not see them, but they live around you and eventually they will find your coop and try

• 42:27Speaker 01

  to get inside it. So if you do things to store the food in galvanized tins and have the coop set up in such a way that rats can't like tunnel underneath it, you and your flock will be so much happier in the future. So there's a lot of preparation stuff like that. But they're really lovely animals. I know some people get them and decide that they're not for them. You know, you do have to think about if you're going out of town, like any other pet that you have, like who's going to take care of them. But they're, they're very charismatic. If you garden, you know, great for compost. There's, there's a lot to recommend the chicken. I also think they're an amazing pet if you have kids, because

• 43:12Speaker 01

  the chores can really be like scaled up very easily depending on your age. So you might have, you know, a three-year-old that just like helps collect the eggs. And as they get older, they can like actually change the water. And the chickens are outside, which makes it a lot easier to not have something happen when you're not there to supervise. So I, I think they can be a really fun pet in addition to the fact that if you get one of the giant breed of chickens and a small child holds it, the chicken is like as big as the small child and it's the cutest thing. So for that reason alone.

• 43:46Alie Ward?

  Yeah, Clara Norrell, a first time question asker, wanted to know, what's the best argument to finally convince my wife to let me have chickens? And in case she cracks, what kind of chickens should a complete noob start with? Is it good to entice someone into getting chickens by looking at all the cool chickens you can get? Or should you start with like the Honda Civic of chickens?

• 44:08Speaker 01

  It, it probably depends on who you are arguing with. So, you know, if your partner is someone that is really like susceptible to cute things, then you probably want to show them like silkies because they look like fluffy cloud muppets or other bantams with like boots and beards because they're, they're so adorable and you will still get eggs from them. But if you're with someone very practical, then being like, yeah, we, we can get these eggs in the backyard and it's definitely a great deal. Look at all these grocery store shortages and just don't think about the fact that you will almost definitely spend more money on your chickens than you would eggs at the store, but it's still great. So.

• 44:52Alie Ward?

  But it's a way of life as well, right?

• 44:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, it's, it's a community. I do, I feel like the chicken internet is just such a nice place is the other thing. Like I've met so many chicken people now over the years and they're all just like really nice people.

• 45:10Alie Ward?

  And if you're not following her flock, you can check out her chickens Instagram account at Best Little Hen House, which has like over a hundred thousand people gawking at her sweet hens in her little cabin coop. It's a mood and it is a good one.

• 45:23Speaker 01

  You know, even social media typically is you get a larger account, the comments you get can be kind of weird, but like chicken people are just so nice and they just want to talk about how great chickens are and how pretty your chickens are. So it's, it's a delightful little corner.

• 45:38Alie Ward?

  Somehow, I think partly because I started researching chickenology, if that was a term, I started getting a lot of chickens in my feed. The chicken feed. And the internet definitely, my algorithm definitely thinks that I am considering chickens and it's not wrong.

• 45:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's definitely happened to a lot of friends of mine. They're like, I started following your chickens Instagram account and now like I just get chickens in my feed constantly. To which I say, I'm sorry slash you're welcome.

• 46:08Alie Ward?

  I think it's a good problem to have, to want a chicken. It's, and just the idea of going to the post office and they're like, we got a little package for you.

• 46:17Speaker 01

  Here they are. They're peeping. The cutest thing.

• 46:20Alie Ward?

  And I love hearing your reactions to the episodes. And on this week's discussion thread on Patreon, Nadarian Knight wrote in, as a mail carrier, I can confirm that it is glorious whenever we get chicks in and you can hear them throughout the whole building. And Scott Hanley wrote, as a retired mailman, I have experienced my share of peeping boxes and I used to prank the clerks by whistling in a peeping fashion similar to the chicks and that would cause confusion and looks of concern as if they missed a box of live chicks. The Motley Lion also wrote in and said, as a postal worker, rural delivery, I deliver chicks, baby turkeys, baby geese, frogs, turtles, reptiles, insects like spiders and scorpions, cockroaches, crickets and bees. And Motley said, when they can't get a hold

• 47:03Alie Ward?

  of a customer by phone to pick up their baby chicks, say because they're Amish or they don't have a phone, they will make a special trip to deliver them. And Marcy Smith has mail ordered baby chickens and had a carrier drive his personal car on a Sunday morning to make sure that the chickies didn't get too cold overnight. So Marcy said, go postal workers and I echo that. But what does Tove not appreciate? What about, something's got to suck about having chickens. Worst thing about having chickens, be real, be real with us.

• 47:31Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, the, the rats are not great. They're so smart. It's just like kind of a losing battle. And I don't like just killing things forever. So really, you know, preparing to chicken proof your, your coop castle is good. But I think honestly, the hardest thing about chickens is like they die and it's hard. I mean, like any other animal you spend a lot of time with and you get attached to, you know, I have this flock, we have more eggs than we can eat. But when any single one of them dies, like it's really sad. And they, they have died for any number of reasons and it's always earlier than you

• 48:13Speaker 01

  want them to. And many chicken people, myself included, I think, become surprised by how attached you can get to like these weird little reptilian looking birds that are so different from us, but also so personable.

• 48:29Alie Ward?

  And so lovable.

• 48:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:31Alie Ward?

  There must be so much to love about chickens, but what do you love the most about chickens? Or about studying chickens to become a chicken author?

• 48:40Speaker 01

  Yeah. I think, you know, one of the things that's really great about chickens is that everyone seems to have a connection to them. Maybe you didn't raise chickens, but some member of your family did or a friend did. I feel like no matter where you are in the world, people have a chicken story to tell you. So it's been really fun when just in conversation, people ask me about what I do and I'm writing this book about chickens somehow. And then they just tell me a chicken story and it might be a really nice story or it might be, you know, the mean rooster that like chased them on the farm when they were a kid. I think it's something that, you know, they spread around the world.

• 49:23Speaker 01

  They are in every culture even today. It's something that we all just have this weird connection with, more so I think than other farm animals that are, are bigger. So I really love that about chickens. I love the little sounds that they make. I mentioned it's relaxing, but I think the, the best thing is they're really soft. You wouldn't think about it, but they're so soft and it's so nice to just dig your fingers into their, their fluffy feathers.

• 49:51Alie Ward?

  Oh, I gotta go pet a chicken.

• 49:53Speaker 01

  You do.

• 49:54Alie Ward?

  Definitely will be getting your book and we'll see if there's some chickens in my future.

• 49:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, there, there might be.

• 50:01Alie Ward?

  There might be.

• 50:02Speaker 01

  I'm so glad to share the world of chickens with all of the ologites out there.

• 50:08Alie Ward?

  There's gonna be a lot of chicken owners.

• 50:09Speaker 01

  So many. Yeah. Just, just tell me, tell me about your chickens. I'm winning here at all.

• 50:15Alie Ward?

  So ask lovely people about what they love. Don't be a chicken, but maybe get a chicken. It's really up to you, but Tove can help. Again, her book is geniously titled Under the Hen Fluence. And you can follow her and her flock on Instagram at Best Little Hen House. She is on Blue Sky at TK Dano, which is linked in the show notes. And if you're considering getting her book, either for yourself, for your chickens, or as a gift to loved ones, it's linked in the show notes as well. It's also probably at any bookstore you pop into or at bookshop.org. We are at Ologies on Blue Sky and Instagram. I'm at Ally Ward on both. Ally has just one L. And on TikTok sporadically at Ally underscore Ologies.

• 51:00Alie Ward?

  If you need shorter, kid-friendly, G-rated episodes, they are available. They're called Smologies. They're in their very own podcast feed. So find Smologies, S-M-O-L-O-G-I-E-S on your favorite podcast app. Subscribe, tell your friends with kids so you can listen with your Smologites on road trips or car pools or just around the house. And if you're getting gifts, consider ologiesmerch.com, if you will. We sell shirts and totes and stickers and hats at reasonable prices so you can find other listeners in the wild. Erin Talbert admins the Ologies Podcast Facebook group. Susan Hale is top of the pecking order as our brilliant and benevolent managing director.

• 51:42Alie Ward?

  Noelle Dilworth checks our eggs every morning and night as scheduling producer. Aveline Malik makes our professional transcripts. Kelly Ardwire makes websites, including ours and maybe yours. Jarrett Sleeper and Mark David Christensen, assistant edited this with the hen credible, Mercedes Maitland as lead editor alongside coop mate Jake Chaffee. Thank you both for all you do. Nick Thorburn wrote and crowed the theme music. And if you stick around to the end of the show, I tell you a secret. And I'm gonna play the original secret I recorded in 2023 first. So let's hear it. If you stick around till the end of the show, I'll tell you a secret. And this week's secret is that I went to a botanical garden a few weeks ago

• 52:25Alie Ward?

  and I picked up a little stick and it had the perfect groove to rub your thumb on it. And it's just a great size and a shape to just kind of sit there and fidget with. And I've kept this stick in my pocket for almost two weeks now. Goes from pocket to pocket and I just have a fiddling stick. And I wanted this stick to feel special, like you're not just a stick I put in my pocket. You're my special fiddling stick. So I painted the end of it with just a little bit of gold nail polish, as if to tell it, you're an object that I deliberately like to have around. So yeah, sometimes you just find a really good, small stick and it's just a new friend that hangs out with you when you're at a cocktail party mingling and you just need something to play with. So get yourself a good stick.

• 53:08Alie Ward?

  For the most part, they're very affordable. They're just on the ground. Okay, bye bye. And 2026 me here, and I want you to know, I still have that stick. It's in my backpack. It's more worn down and even smoother now. By coincidence, I was cleaning out some stuff this weekend. I have this horrible habit where I will use like a tote bag as a purse and then I will need to go somewhere else and I will just take the things I need the most from that tote bag and put it in another tote bag. So I have this like inception of tote bags that all have a few items in them that I no longer really want to deal with.

• 53:51Alie Ward?

  And so I was cleaning out tote bags. I was consolidating them, if you will. I found my stick. I was like, oh, sick. This is also before I remembered that this was my secret this week, but I just came across it. I said, oh, little stick, you're not getting tossed out. You're a friendly, you're a good stick. I've had you for years. So there's the timely update on that. Also, I am on psychiatric medication, which is fine. Okay, bye bye.

• 54:42Alie Ward?

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• 55:13Speaker 04

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• 55:38Speaker 05

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