Chicken Chatter

Tuesday, September 1, 2020

Hens are always talking amongst themselves. All those clucks and squawks means something, and while some of the meanings are obvious – the explosive squawking of a bird running away in panic, for example – others are more subtle. Chicken talk is a fairly complex affair involving visual, vocal, olfactory and tactile senses combined to convey numerous intentions, messages and details amongst chickens.

Here are ten ways in which you can eavesdrop on the chicken chatter and brush up on the bantam banter.

1)  A calm, gently rising borrrrb


2)  The cluck-cum-squawk


3)  The ‘squawk bomb’ 


4)  Cackling


5)  Buk-buk-buk (but with no badaaak!)


6)  Growling


7)  Chick-chat


8)  Crowing


9)  Help!


10)  Buzzing


Chickens emit two types of alarm or warning calls. Each produced in response to a specific type of danger.

Arial Alarm Calls

A series of low-intensity short narrow banded whistles or screeches

These are used when a chicken identifies a predator like a hawk approaching from overhead. They happen in the company of other chickens and often whilst the caller attempts to hide. Even when hens are played a recording of an aerial call they run for cover. Crouching and looking upward as they would in a natural environment when threatened by a hawk or overhead predator.

Ground Alarm Calls

Loud repeated and conspicuous ‘pulsed broad-band cackles"

Loud repeated and conspicuous ‘pulsed broad-band cackles' directed as much at the predator as at other chickens. These are emitted in response to threats at ground level like cats, dogs, stoats etc. When hens are confronted by a ground alarm call, they take on an unusually erect ‘alert’ posture(s). They become more active in scanning back and forth and looking for a presence of a ground predator.

Depending on the size of the treat the call is escalated, so each alarm call is meaningful rather than being just an internal response to fear. They transmit quite specific information that is understood by their receivers. It now appears that that the cognitive process involved in representational thinking in chickens are similar to those required for associative learning in humans. In other words chickens are pretty smart and we need to listen more carefully to what they are telling us! 

Chicken Talk Analysis

The German ‘fowl linguist’ Eric Baeumer suggested in 1964 that domestic chickens ‘spoke an international language made up of 30 basic sentences’ or calls. Over 60 years he recorded hours of ‘chick talk’ later isolating individual sentences and matching these to certain behaviours. Half a century on, avian specialists now accept that wild and domestic fowl produce about 30 distinct forms of vocalisation, including territorial, location, mating, laying and nesting, submission, distress, alarm and fear, food and contentment calls. It now appears that that the cognitive process involved in representational thinking in chickens are similar to those required for associative learning in humans.

There is no time like NOW to start listening to your Chickens!

With this knowledge of chook chit-chat, you will be able to tell what your girls are talking about, even if you can’t actually see them. It’s an all-day, non-stop conversation! What out for those alarm calls tho!

Thanks to Omlet for th Chicken Sounds and What They Mean - Omlet Blog 2020