Under the Henfluence - Book Review — Randy's Chicken Blog

Oct 29

Oct 29 Under the Henfluence - Book Review

Here are the five stages of chicken acquisition, according to me.

First. You decide you should maybe get some chickens. Because your neighbor has some, or you’ve read about them, and the idea resonates with you. Having a few hens pecking and clucking around the yard would give your home the bucolic atmosphere that you’ve been yearning for. And all those eggs would provide you with an appreciation of where your food comes from.

Second. You begin reading everything you can get your hands on about chickens – you subscribe to a chicken magazine, pick up a dozen or two chicken books, and start following a bunch of chicken blogs. And chicken stuff starts popping up in your social media feed.

Third. After determining how many chickens you can practically keep, you build or buy a coop. You also acquire some thoroughly researched equipment. At this point you feel prepared to get some chickens.

Fourth. You pick up some birds. And immediately, you’re blown off your feet by these amazing creatures. Who knew that each chicken has its own personality? That there is such an intricate social structure in a flock? That watching your birds go about their lives is like following a never-ending Netflix series? That you’d get so invested in their lives? So attached? That you’d love them like you love your pets? That they are pets? Who knew?

Fifth. You tell all your friends about this amazing new universe that you’ve discovered. You want to shout it from the rooftops! And your original analysis of how many chickens you can keep goes out the window…because there are so many amazing chickens out there…

Under the Henfluence is a book about the world of backyard chickens and the people who love them. It’s also Tove Danovich’s personal story of her passage through the five steps.

Step one happens when Danovich is living in Brooklyn and notices that somebody is keeping chickens right there in their tiny front yard in the middle of the concrete jungle. That, she decides, is for her. But she realizes she’ll have to forgo her own personal chickens until she can have a chicken-worthy yard.

Danovich’s quest for that chicken-worthy yard results in a move to the other side of the country. Both she and her fiancé have jobs that can be done from anywhere, so after some careful research, they move to Portland. A house on a half-acre—chicken perfect! After a couple of years in Portland, she’s not only perused every chicken book she can find at the library but she’s also noticed that “my laptop slowed to a crawl from all the tabs I opened on different chicken breeds.” She’s well into step two.

Danovich decides that three hens are a reasonable number. The American Poultry Association, she realizes, recognizes 120 breeds with 450 variations. The well-known chicks-through-the-mail website that she peruses offers 87 types. Narrowing her selection is a challenge, but she gets there. Her choices; a Dominique, an Olive Egger, and a White Legbar. Finally, huge milestone, she clicks the ‘order’ button. And then she waits.

When Danovich gets that early morning call from the post office and makes the journey to pick up her peeping bundle, she has an immediate bonding experience. It’s the very same experience every one of us chicken folks who’ve received chicks by mail have gone through. She rushes them home and puts them under the heater in the brooder box she’s set up in her bathroom. She watches them, fascinated. “They were gray (the Olive Egger), yellow (the Legbar), and black with yellow spots (the Dominique). When they walked on their thin, wormlike feet, they stumbled around like drunken sailors. The first time I saw them take a sip of water into their beaks, then tilt their heads back…it was like watching a baby sip like a French sommelier. It was just a drink of water, but to me it was unbelievably adorable. This must be how moms feel watching their babies, I thought.”

“They’re shaped like little eggs with legs!” she gushes. Just like that, Tove Danovich has become a chicken mom. She names them after three female characters in Mad Men. The Olive Egger, the bravest of the three, is named Peggy. The yellow one, who prefers her creature comforts, becomes Betty. And the Dominique, by default, is Joan. From that first morning, each day is filled with the sound of peeps emanating from the brooder box in the bathroom, and Danovich finds that she is taking hours-long breaks from her office across the hall to watch the babies. Step four? Check.

As the weeks go by Danovich becomes attuned to the behaviors and personalities of her little flock. She notices how they chirp softly to each other as they run around the brooder, and also the lonely, distressed call a chick makes when separated from its flock-mates; an “endless, volume-at-eleven, two note sequence” that she dubs “the lost chick call.” As the weather warms, the growing chicks move to the outdoor coop, and forage on the lawn. And one day, as the chicks are foraging, Betty, tragically, meets death in the same way that millions of her prey-animal species have. The perpetrator is one Danovich’s two dogs; slave to her predator instincts and not yet instilled with the notion that these little birds are part of her pack.

Danovich grieves, wonders over her own grief at the death of a chicken, and worries that her friends would not understand. When she stops crying, she becomes aware of Peggy and Joan calling from their coop. It is the lost chick call. “Unlike the tiny peeping they once made, this sound felt like it was being wrenched right out of their throats…No one ever told me that chickens mourned.”

“The day that Betty died,” Danovich writes, “was the day I stopped eating chicken entirely. As long as I was raising these girls as pets and members of my family, I couldn’t pretend other members of their species were any less deserving.”

The day Betty died is also the day she starts looking for more chickens. She acquires four more hens. Later, more chicks follow those. Step five? Predictable? Well, yeah.

Does my calling her actions predictable sound hard-hearted or dismissive? Well, here’s my own experience. I got my first chicks, sixteen of them, from the same through-the-mail outfit that she did. When my first peeping box arrived at my local post office, the peeps were weak and sporadic. Chicks can survive in a mailer pretty well for two days. Three days is the allowable outside limit. Due to a malfunction of our postal system, my chicks arrived after four days. Five were dead on receipt. One more died within a few hours. Two more died during the course of the afternoon. Two more died that night. I lost nine of sixteen chicks within a day of receipt. I was devastated. That very week, I managed to find an additional thirteen chicks to add to my flock. Later, more chicks followed those. Step five? Predictable? Well, yeah.

And, of course, I had to shout from the rooftop about my amazing birds. First it was just personal Facebook posts. Those morphed into a dedicated Facebook page and then this blog. Let’s see. That’s the other part of step five, right?

Tove Danovich has also completed the other part of step five. She has her own social media presence, but even better, she’s written Under the Henfluence – in my estimation, the best new chicken-themed book this year. I love this book so much.

Here’s why I love it. Tove Danovich has written a heartfelt, personal account of her journey through the five steps of chicken acquisition. But woven into that account is some excellent reporting: Behind the scenes at a chick hatchery, an Ohio poultry show, 4-H, chicken therapy, a Minnesota chicken rescue. Chicken-themed topics that I’ve never seen in print before. It’s the sort of skilled reporting and interviewing that one would expect from a professional journalist. And, btw, Tove Danovich is not just a chicken mom—she is a professional journalist.

If you’ve gone through the five steps and are a dedicated chicken junkie, or if you’re simply among the chicken-curious, wondering if this chicken thing is right for you, you need to read this book. “This is a book about chickens,” Tove Danovich explains, “but it’s also about how they can change your life if you let them.”