Weird question - do chickens learn to mimic words?

[DuckWhisperer06]

I've been trying for two days! Every time my camera comes out the chickens stop what they're doing.

Same here, lol!

 

[Duck_life]

I'm glad I'm not insane, ha! I have cockatiels who sometimes mimic me, but not very well. She's the only one who has an ounce of a brain in the lot. Since the factory also forgot to install an "off" button for her chirping, I figured I was missing something. It does seem like she likes to say her name, though. After cooing at her for a week she's taken up sitting on my arm and perching to coo back. Her head feathers always make her look so grumpy, though. Like she hates you while she happily chirps.

I have 2 cockatiels that whistle at me when i talk to them, and my ducks i say hi in the morning they go insane hissing (they are muscovy drakes)

 

[Fishkeeper]

It's entirely possible they're trying to mimic you, yes. Social animals try to communicate, after all, so if they think something has meaning they might go for it. They can learn their names or words that signal food, after all, it's not that much more of a stretch to think they might try to make the sound.
Regardless of mimicry, animals can absolutely try to communicate in one way or another when they see you as part of their group.

 

[RhodeIslandRed5]

I have one weird girl I call Crybaby. I gave her the name when she was an itty bitty fuzzball and she'd peep constantly when snuggling with her sisters. Now the name still fits because she tries her hardest to get away from me when I reach for her and SCREAM her head off when touched or especially caught. Then after I hold her or carry her while babytalking her, she'll chirp in response. Strange.

 

[RhodeIslandRed5]

If my chickens could talk, they'd probably tell me to go away.

 

[Tatuana]

I went out to try really hard to get her on video for y'all. The end result is she's now using that "Door-bell" chirp ALL OVER.... When she's too far to record. It now seems to be her favorite "smirking" chirp.

 

[legojenn]

When I'm home in the evenings and weekends, I let the birdlies into the back yard, but if I leave my property, I'll herd them back into their run. They're generally compliant, but I swear that they're clucking profanity at me.

 

[Mvan42]

If my chickens could talk, well I don’t want to know what they would say. Probably yell telling me to let them out of their run and into the yard earlier then I do. I walk by and they are all going crazy wanting out. Lol.

This is interesting...

 

[sealer39]

I don’t know about mimicking, but after I collected the eggs yesterday and turned around to go back to the house and I could have sworn I heard one of the hens yell, “THIEF!”

 

[Fishkeeper]

Now, that's just getting into pattern recognition. We have brains that try their best to find meaning in everything. Like how you look at clouds and see things in them. Probably the chicken did make a noise a lot like a word, but I don't think it was intentional.
And the reason I say that is, how would a chicken know both how to pronounce "thief" in English, and what it means? Plus, I don't think they have any sense of ownership over their eggs, certainly not when they aren't broody. If you don't collect eggs from non-broody hens, they'd just lay there and rot.