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Click on the following headlines to learn what we thought of these books about animals' lives.
The Pig Who Sang to the Moon by Jeffrey Masson
"The Pig Who Sang to the Moon: The Emotional World of Farm Animals" is the book that inspired us to start CockadoodleMoo. In it, Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson goes through different farm animals such as pigs, cows and chickens, explaining how they're treated on farms today and how, in the wild, they would behave. Here's an excerpt (see the original book for footnote citations; P.S. the book is also available on audio):
Perhaps if we had realized they are birds, with all the wonderful characteristics of birds, we would have paid closer attention to the ways in which chickens can enchant us. Take dust-bathing, for example. We call it a bath because the chicken finds a small indentation of dry earth and then proceeds to immerse herself in it as into a warm bath. The earth cleans her feathers. The first time I saw a chicken taking a dust bath, stretching out one iridescent wing and holding it up to the sunshine, then settling into the warmth of the afternoon only to fly effortlessly to a tree to roost in the evening, I was astonished. I did not know a chicken could fly into a tree. My surprise was a product of pure ignorance. I simply did not know chickens...
Hen & the Art of Chicken Maintenance
Dianne really loved "Hen and the Art of Chicken Maintenance: Reflections on Raising Chickens" by Martin Gurdon — BEFORE we had chickens. I read it aloud to her a couple of years after her first reading and while we had chickens, and I liked parts of it. I'm not sure how Dianne felt the second time — she'll have to write her own review. My main problem was that while Martin and his wife came to care for the chickens and see their own individual personalities, but it never seemed to click with them that the way they keep buying new ones from breeders ultimately harms the chickens. I never felt like they progressed over the course of the book — it was just a series of humorous incidents interspersed with some care tips as they learn through trial and error on the chickens.
It's humorously told, with British wit and whimsy. And I found parts interesting such as when they realize with horror that they've been locking the chickens in their coop with blood-sucking mites that attack them at night. And the political machinations amongst the chickens. And the transgendered rooster.