The Private Life of... Jimmy Doherty investigates the hidden lives of the farmyard animals which are so often taken for granted

Cows
He visits a farm in Devon to find out about cows. They are taken for granted but what really goes on inside their brains? Jimmy tries to find answers to questions such as how does a cow work out who is the boss? Why have 1,000 people been injured by cows in the last ten years? And why are cows so sensitive to sudden movement? The show will also visit Chillingham Castle in Northumberland, where a herd of cows has been left naturally to run wild for over 700 years. Are cows really “one of the most successful species on the planet”? If you define success in terms of being escorted down to the abattoir at the age of six months or having your teats squeezed dry to make our Coco Pops more palatable, presenter Jimmy Doherty probably had a point. But Jimmy didn’t stop there, even claiming we have a “special relationship” with our bovine friends. I’m not convinced: We give them a decrepit old shed, an occasional change of hay and an electric fence; they give us a few gallons of milk and a couple of kilos of sirloin in return. It all seems slightly one-sided.

Chickens
He finds out about chickens: often taken for granted, what really goes on inside their brains? On a farm in Devon he finds out how chickens decide the pecking order. He also tries to find answers to questions such as how do chickens communicate with their chicks? How can chickens look in two directions at once? And can hens really change sex?

Pigs
There are five and a half million pigs in Britain and we spend, as a nation, £9 billion a year on pork products. But surely, wonders farmer Jimmy Doherty, there must be more to pigs than their taste. Jimmy visits a farm in Dartmoor to find out about pigs. How sensitive is a pig's nose? Why can they find truffles underground? How do piglets find the right teat to feed from? Pigs are very intelligent, but can they recognise themselves in a mirror? Not only do some pigs have straight tails and stripy fur coats, Jimmy Doherty proves their intelligence in a series of challenges before introducing you to the wild boar, "the SAS of the pig world". Worth watching purely to see Jimmy learn how to converse in pig, this is probably the only time you will ever see a pig and its "corkscrew todger" work its way towards "what must be the world's longest ejaculation"