The Natural History of the Chicken

I wouldn't have expected such a strong, consistent and enticing show from a chicken documentary, just like most people here. Watching the tender tales of chicken love was a fun and, to some degree, beautiful experience. The connections that can be made between human beings and animal usually have this loving and innocent quality to them that eludes most relationships in life. To find these chicken stories and portray them in such a skillful way is surely a feat worth praising.

Yet, while it is consistent with the world-view of this film, I resent the fact that industrially bred chicken - and their owners - are deemed to be inferior in passion and devotion. While the comments (or lack thereof) in presenting the larger chicken business do not go into blatantly manipulative affirmations against chicken products, they still spell out a very negative view of what is outlined to be exploitative behavior. I'm sure you can find interesting tales of care from farmers who happen to own large chicken housing establishments, because it's not easy at all to look after tens of thousands of chickens and ensure they live a healthy life. And while there is certainly a level of detachment involved in "the industrial chicken", it's necessity for basic and essential food products cannot be denied and should not be denigrated. To my mind, restricting the film to what it does best - establish the beauty of life - would've done it more good and would've conferred it a higher consistency and integrity, in a purely structural sense.

Beyond this though, which is truly only a slight part of this documentary, I think it's worth a recommendation for its ability to encapsulate the specialness in this absolutely unique relationship people have with animals.

You know if it says PBS it will have quality, as far as documentaries go--but who would have thought an hour's worth of chicken fact, trivia, and homespun truth could be so entertaining! Having grown up around friends and neighbors who raised chickens in their backyards I know how amusing these feathered comedians can be. Yet, there is also something dignified about them as well. This documentary covers the whole scenario of where chickens are in the hearts of Americans. They are livestock, they are pets, they are sideshow wonderment,and they are noisy nuisances. They are also big business. Clever editing, reenactments, and filming techniques make this a keeper. We tend to watch it in winter, right around when the snow is lingering too long on the ground. Watching Cotton the Chicken taking a swim, or the drama of Valerie's rescue is enough to bring anyone out of the winter glums.

Last night on PBS I watched "Natural History of the Chicken", expecting to see a rather dry scientific discourse on the evolution of the chicken, and a history of how it achieved its current status in out modern society. It was nothing like that!

It is entertaining, funny, smart, educational. At times I asked myself, "Is this a Christopher Guest film, like 'Best in Show'?" There was the fluffy white chicken kept as a pet, rides in a car, carried in a basket through the supermarket. And with a diaper, no less! The chicken that froze outside, then was revived through "mouth to beak resuscitation." The 100 fighting roosters that made so much noise the neighbors had to get a court order to shut them down to 5 max! The miserable life of laying chickens in pens. The "headless" chicken that wouldn't die. The little, fluffy white chicken that protected her chicks when the hawk dived down.

Very well done film, I hope to catch it again, as a documentary I rate it "8" of 10, might even deserve a "9". Marvelous!! :-)

A pal with a sense of humour sent me a tape of this documentary, without a label to indicate the contents. Well, I popped the tape in the player and sat there, totally entranced by the sights and sounds! Brilliantly photographed and directed, full of good humour, captivating people and chooks, it literally kept me sitting on the edge of my seat until the credits appeared.

Without a doubt, this is the best animal documentary I've seen in the past 20 years. Seemingly chooks are more difficult to train than any other member of the animal kingdom. The feathered actors in this documentary seemed far more intelligent than many human actors I've seen in the current crop of big name movies.

Great fun for all the family.

This is the best possible way you could make a documentary film about chickens. Rather than being a dull, bland, and boring film with a narrator whose voice sounds miserable, you get a bright, quirky, heartwarming and zany look at human eccentricity and the chicken's more interesting and surprisingly intelligent behavior.

From a woman who is seen carrying her pet chicken in her pocket book while buying groceries to a man, hilariously, doing impressions of the various calls of chickens to the story of a living headless chicken, this documentary is consistently entertaining and well made. It actually gets even more bizarre than the two early Errol Morris films ("Gates of Heaven" and "Vernon Florida")!

The film isn't about the history of chickens at all. I mean, nothing in this film is historical, therefore making "The Natural History of Chickens" a pretty misleading title. So if you're looking for an ACTUAL history of chickens, then you probably shouldn't watch the film. However, if you want to see a really funny and weird doc that is sure to entertain and amuse, this one's totally for you!