![]() It is also made by hens in adult company, so perhaps can be interpreted as a call to share a precious finding. The rapid kuk-kuk-kuk food call has been shown in experimental conditions to be made when anticipating a food treat or access to a dust bath, another highly valued resource. Chicken noises: The tidbitting call attracts hens to the rooster. He uses a low-pitched, repetitive call tsuk-tsuk-tsuk or a purr for this purpose. He will also court her by calling her to potential nest sites. The feeding display is part of his courtship routine, to demonstrate his value as a provider. He uses this low call to court a hen, while he drops his wing and encircles her. When she is nearby, his call is lower and more rapid: gog-gog-gog-gog-gog. The better the food, the more excited his call. The rooster gives a similar call and display when finding food if there is a hen in the vicinity but some distance away. Chicks instinctively get the message and run in peeping excitedly. Mother hens advertise a suitable food source with a rapid kuk-kuk-kuk-kuk-kuk-kuk while picking up and dropping food pieces. Photo by TawsifSalam/Wikimedia CC BY-SA 4.0*. Chicken noises: Mother hen calls her chicks to her side and to food sources. Fear calls are high pitched and quavering. Their peeps escalate into rising trills when excited and falling trills when frightened. Their regular chatter is a dipping and rising peep which serves to keep them together. Chicks’ peeps have a rising tone when happily feeding. ![]() Chicks will peep with a falling tone if they are apart from her, to which she responds immediately. As the mother hen settles, she purrs to attract the chicks to settle with her. This call appears to rally the chicks safely at her side. ![]() These communications keep chicks together with the parent that will protect and care for them.Īs a mother or broody hen walks, she rhythmically clucks with soft, brief, repetitive notes: cluck-cluck-cluck. When a broody hen hatches chicks she makes quiet, low rumbles, which may help chicks to identify her after they hatch. In the nest, unhatched chicks make clicking sounds to synchronize development and hatching. In fact, these vocal qualities are common to many animal species’ calls, and they can help us to form an instinctive feeling for what these chicken noises mean.Īlthough there are probably many subtle signals we have not identified yet, most flocks appear to typify the following calls. White noise is designed to repel or warn. Wavering notes signal disturbance or distress. A sudden explosion of sound also indicates urgency. Urgency or excitement is portrayed by the rapidity and irregularity of repetition. Rising pitches generally indicate pleasure, whereas falling pitches signal distress, especially in chicks, whose calls alert their mother to attend to their needs. In this way, group chatter remains private to the flock, avoiding eavesdropping by predators, while warnings are heard by the whole flock, even though the caller, usually the rooster, puts himself in some danger by giving the call. Brief, quiet, low notes are generally used for contented, communal calls, while loud, long, high pitches indicate fear, danger, or distress. Tell-Tale Features of Chicken Noisesįor a rough guide to how your birds are feeling and what their intentions are, you can listen out for certain qualities in chicken noises. Secondly, there are intentional signals that poultry give according to which other chickens are in earshot. Firstly, the features of these calls are molded by the emotions experienced by the caller. Researchers have studied the calls of both domestic and wild fowl and identified 24–30 different calls and their apparent functions. Indeed, chickens’ calls and behavior are still very similar to that of their wild cousins. Red Jungle Fowl hen and chicks by Hunter Desportes/flickr CC BY 2.0*. From a hen’s perspective, it made sense for her to choose the best rooster, who would make the effort to protect and feed her, before allowing him to father her offspring. As a rooster can inseminate many hens, it made sense for him to protect his flock and give warnings of danger, as well as finding them food that would nourish his future progeny. In the thick undergrowth, their quiet burbling chatter enabled them to keep in contact and communicate their findings even when their vision was obscured. As prey animals they needed to stay together for safety in numbers. Domestic chickens descended from Red Jungle Fowl in Southeast Asia.
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