Chicken Talk

Many people probably think hens just make sounds like “cluck cluck” or that roosters say “cock-a-doodle-do”. However, if you have pet chickens, you know that they make all kinds of sounds. If you spend enough time around any animal, you might even start to understand what the vocalizations mean.

I’ve raised poultry including chickens, turkeys, and ducks for many years and had fun reading the book How to Speak Chicken by Melissa Caughy. She talks about the different chicken vocalizations as well as all sorts of fun facts about chickens. By connecting the sound to the circumstances at the time, you can also determine what the sounds might mean.

Here are a few examples:
“buh-dup” is usually a greeting heard commonly among the flock membes
“grrr, buk, buk, buk, buk, buk, buk, BUKGAW” is an alert for danger, starting out low and ending with a loud yell

For an even better understanding, you really need to hear the sounds. Here are a couple of sites that include chicken vocalizations and explanations:

Tilly’s Nest by Melissa Caughy: Chicken Language: Listen to Common Chicken Vocalizations

Scientific American: Fowl Language: AI Decodes the Nuances of Chicken “Speech”

And there are lots of YouTube videos, like this one:

English Country Life: Chicken Communication: Calls, Body Language & What They Mean