The Natural History of the Chicken

Shockingly amazing detailed stories
Ignore the title it has nothing to do with history. If you are an animal lover and have some sense that animals have a soul and have the ability to learn, then you will enjoy this, if not skip it. It disgustingly shows the hundreds of chickens living packed together where they cannot even spread their wings and where the majority of eggs come from versus the cage-free or range-free chickens. And unbeknownst to me, commercial chickens are all given vaccinations when they are only a few days old, shocking. Then there is the unique story of the headless chicken which is true and was written up in newspapers all over the world. I remember my father cutting off chicken’s heads and they ran around before they croaked and this one in the film did too but never died, you have to watch for the details. There was also a woman with a pet rooster and I know a friend personally who went through two pet roosters that she loved as much as her family so I can personally relate to that story, if you have no feeling for the animal kingdom you will think it is a crazy story and not relate. I did not like the man raising roosters for cockfighting which was big business when I lived in Hawaii because they killed to the death, I could not tolerate watching that, it was not shown in this film. There was a farmer that was absolutely hysterical imitating the different movements that roosters make when mating, really funny and done exactly as the roosters. There is also a very interesting story of Liza who was unable to have babies of her own until her owner went out of his way to make some intensive accommodations which evolved into an interesting story. Lastly there’s actually an nde experienced by a chicken that was told to an animal communicator by the chicken that froze to death and was brought back to life by her owner doing CPR which was also highly publicized. An incredible amount of informative information in a 56 minute documentary. Since I was raised on a farm and have been involved with animals my entire life, to me I’d rate this 10 stars but if you think animals are just dumb animals, and couldn’t possibly be interested in watching Pavarotti on TV, skip this film!

Delightful
Wonderful! A fantastic discovery. This has become a family favorite (I fast forward a few scenes for the kids). Humorous, insightful- a commentary on humanity as much as on chickens- but also a way to discover greater appreciation for this common bird. Favorite scene: reenactment of MTM rescusitation of frozen live chicken; Favorite line (after recording the sacrificial behavior of his chicken, seated in his armchair, legs crossed, reading his account from a book): “now I am proud to be called ‘chicken'”… priceless! Recorded it on pbs but I’m on amazon to order a copy for a friend who owns chickens. We need more documentaries like this by such insightful, witty folks. And as far as the misleading title…do note many low star reviews are due to false expectations rather than criticism of presentation. So please read item description and reviews carefully: perhaps the description could be clearer (alludes to vignettes), but natural history is a broad almost multi-disciplinary term including more than just sciency science (check out its definition on Wikipedia) so if you want to use a DVD for more narrow science this may not be it- you really need to research to find the specific content you need (I’ve been frustrated myself with the inability to preview content and then being disappointed). But there is no rule against creatively making a slightly ambiguous or even ironic title for a project- it is on the buyer to research precise content. And this would still be good for an older audience natural history/multi-disciplinary educational DVD.

Interesting documentary, but not impressively so. Not nearly as good as Lewis’ “Cane Toads”. This film combines quirky human characters – people who have overly personalised individual chickens and think they have relationships with these “friends” – with disconnected sequences on US industrial scale chicken production and the rough business side of chicken and rooster raising. The pieces are interesting in themselves, but the whole is not more than the mere sum of parts. Maybe a little less. There is no connecting narrative. None of the creative camera work of “Cane Toads”. It’s not funny. Even the quirky human characters seem a bit flat-footed.