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Peep! About twenty-four hours before a chick is ready to hatch, it
starts peeping to notify its mother and siblings that it is ready to
emerge from its shell. This activity, which biologists call "clicking,"
helps to synchronize the hatching of the baby chicks. A communication
network is established among the chicks, and between the chicks and
their mother, who must stay calm and unruffled for as long as two days
while all the peeping, sawing, and breaking of eggs goes on underneath
her. Since some of the chicks may have aborted in the shell during
incubation, the peeps inform her how long she needs to continue sitting
on the nest.
Peeps and clucks. As soon as all the eggs are hatched, the hungry mother
and her brood go forth eagerly to eat, drink, scratch and explore.
The chicks venture away from their mother, communicating back and forth
all the while by peeps and clucks. The hen keeps track of her little
ones by counting the peeps of each chick and noting the emotional tones
of their voices.
When a chick becomes separated from its mother, it gives a distress
call, and the mother hen dashes out to find it and, if the chick is in
danger, to deliver it-hopefully-from the hole in the ground, tangled
foliage, or threatening predator.
Nesting calls. When a hen is ready to lay an egg, she gives a
pre-laying, or nesting, call, inviting her mate to join her in finding a
nest site.
Together, the hen and rooster find and create a nest by pulling and
flinging around themselves twigs, feathers, hay, leaves and loose dirt,
after they have scraped a depression with their beaks and feet. But
first comes the search.
Primeval grumbling growls and gentle squawks. When the rooster finds a
place he likes (under a log, perhaps), he settles into it and rocks from
side to side, while turning in a slow circle and uttering primeval
grumbling growls which may or may not convince the hen that this is the
place. She may accept it, or they may look for another site.
Throughout the search, the hen squawks gently with her beak open,
followed by a series of short squawks of diminishing intensity, to keep
the rooster coming back to her while she is away from the protection of
the flock.
Egg cackles. Upon laying her egg, the hen gives out an egg cackle to announce
her happy accomplishment. This brings the rooster quickly to her side, and together they rejoin the flock.
To human ears, the egg cackle resembles the chicken's cry of alarm, but
to the birds there is a clear difference. A hen with chicks will
continue feeding during the egg call, but will dart for cover when the
alarm call goes out.
The "come over here" squawk. Often I have heard one of our hens call out
to her rooster partner: "I'm all alone. Get over here!" Our normally
quiet hen, Petal, raises a ruckus if her adored Jules is out of her
sight for long, even if she has not just laid an egg. Her otherwise
demure little voice becomes SQUAWK, SQUAWK, SQUAWK. Jules lifts
". . . comfortable sounds, chirps and a sweet singing that is full of
contentment."
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his head up, straightens up, mutters to himself in what can only be
described as Chicken Talk, and does an about-face. Off he goes to
comfort Petal. Silence.
Karen Davis with Violetta.
Photo by Ken Lambert
Cock-a-doodle-doo. Why do roosters crow? Remember that chickens are
originally from the jungle. Their wild relatives have lived in tropical
forests for tens of thousands of years. Perched in the trees, and
sensitive to infrared light, roosters see morning light at least
forty-five minutes before we do.
They also have very keen ears, a distinct advantage when living amid
dense foliage. It can be difficult to see a predator and keep track of
one's flock when the sub-flocks are constantly moving from place to
place while feeding.
Through their crowing, every rooster can recognize the crow of at least
thirty other roosters, probably more. As the protectors of the flock,
roosters are always on the lookout.
A shrill cry. If a rooster spots danger, he sends up a shrill cry. The
other roosters echo the cry. Thereupon, the whole flock will often start
up a loud, incessant, drumbeating chorus with all members facing the
direction of the first alarm, or scattering for cover in the opposite
direction.
All clear? All clear! When it looks safe again, an "all clear?" query
goes out from the rooster, first one, followed by the others, in their
various new places. Eventually, the "all clear' crow is sent up by the
bird who first raised the alarm, and a series of locator crows confirms
where every other rooster and his sub-flock are at this point.
The "here's food" song! The finding of food elicits another kind of
vocal communication within the flock. Roosters love to find food and
call their hens to the feast while they play deferential host at the
banquet. The speed and intensity of the "here's food" song varies
according to the type of delicacy and the amount.
According to a biologist, "Two or three kernels of corn elicit about
half the intensity and speed between song peaks that several bugs will
be granted. When the hens hear this song they and the chicks come
running to check out what the rooster has found to eat." Soon the good
news is excitedly clucked to everybody to come join the party. Hens call
their chicks to food in a similar clucking voice.
Soft trills and peeps. My first chicken was a crippled hen named Viva.
She touched me deeply with her soft trills and peeps that seemed to come from somewhere in the center of her body, as her tail pulsed at precisely the same time.
The piping voice of woe. In addition to their other vocal language,
chickens have a piping voice of woe and dreariness whenever they are
bored or at a loose end.
Occasionally, one of our hens has to be kept indoors for a while,
perhaps because she is recovering from an illness or because she is a
newly rescued hen who has not yet joined the flock outside. Wearily, she
will wander about the rooms, fretting, or tag disconsolately and
beseechingly behind me, yawning and moaning like a soul in the last
stages of ennui.
A huddle of peace and well-being. As boisterous as chickens often are in
the resurgent dramas of their daily life, there is a stillness in them
which includes singing, often at the end of a busy day as they settle
down on their perches for the night.
The historian Page Smith says of the hen in The Chicken Book that she is
"rich in comfortable sounds, chirps and chirrs, and, when she is a young
pullet, a kind of sweet singing that is full of contentment when she is
clustered together with her sisters and brothers in a huddle of peace
and well-being, waiting for darkness to envelop them."
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United Poultry Concerns, Inc.