The Private Life of Chickens

Chickens in Devon beware, Jimmy Doherty wants to peek inside your private life.

Tonight will see the latest instalment of his new TV show, The Private Life Of which explores the life of farm animals, and tonight Doherty looks at the animal of choice for dinner tables across the country, chicken.

The show will explore how a chicken’s brain works, what goes in to the development of the pecking order and if chickens can communicate with their chicks.

Last week in the programme Doherty communed with dairy cows, in a programme which saw him experiment with their intelligence and drew universal acclaim from readers on the FWIspace forums pages and from Tim Relf on his Field Day blog.

Writer and TV presenter Charlie Brooke said in his review of the programme for the Guardian: “You’ll learn that cows are faintly more interesting than you previously thought they were.”

Hopefully chickens will be slightly more interesting still.

The Secret Life Of Chickens will air on BBC Two at 8pm on Thursday. Watch it and share your thoughts with us on the forums pages.