Jane Goodall inspired my daughter. It started with chickens.

It wasn’t the chimpanzees that attracted my daughter to Jane Goodall. It was the chickens.

It’s a seemingly small biographical detail compared with the international accolades bestowed upon the revered primatologist: When she was 4 years old, the young Dr. Goodall was charged with collecting eggs on her grandmother’s farm.

She later told interviewers that it was this task that prompted the sort of wonder and curiosity that shaped her career. Where did that egg come from? Could she wait long enough to find out? Why did some hens squawk and flap in fear when she came near, and if she sat very still, would they become more comfortable?

When my Lydia was the same age, she was also in charge of egg collection. She would set off with her slightly older sister, Madeline, in their ruffly dresses and muck boots, across the dewy ground to our accidental chicken family. We had adopted a collection of abandoned roosters that somehow wandered onto our property, and hens I wrangled from a neighboring farmer to keep them company. My girls learned what made chickens peck, what made them cluck, which ones wanted hugs (very few), and which seemed happy to hang out with us (many).

Dr. Goodall also had Rusty, her dog, and wrote about what he taught her about other species and their capacity for intelligence, communication, and love.

Our pups were Karoo and Skye.