Not to worry. My girls (all 20+ of them) made the so called egg song for at least a couple of weeks before I got an egg from one of them. Then it was and egg here and egg there for another week or so. Then JACKPOT!!! I had 19 eggs in one day and it has been going that way pretty much every day since. By the way, the egg song is really a cry for help. Translated into English it is "...OMG, get this thing out of me, give me some pain pills..."
Quote: Not while actually squeezing the egg out, but just before or after....sometimes after they get out of the nest or as they get out of the nest or as they are on their way to the nest.
Tho I did see a pullet let out quite a loud drawn out squawk when her first double yolker was making it's way out.
OK, OK it's not the 'egg song'.... it's an alarm call....the singing about an egg laid is just a anthropomorphication that humans attribute to chickens
Not while actually squeezing the egg out, but just before or after....sometimes after they get out of the nest or as they get out of the nest or as they are on their way to the nest.
That's still not 'while laying' though.
Tho I did see a pullet let out quite a loud drawn out squawk when her first double yolker was making it's way out.
Yes, sometimes they do cry out in pain, I generally find that's due to low cal-mag levels, but doubleyolkers can be massive... Poor things. I ended up culling out that trait, too dangerous.
OK, OK it's not the 'egg song'.... it's an alarm call....the singing about an egg laid is just a anthropomorphication that humans attribute to chickens
It's not an anthropomorphic projection, I reckon, I am pretty sure we bred it into them over generations by doing such things as hurrying up to check nests as they are exiting them and other such disruptive behaviors like raiding the nests in front of them. I believe it's a modified alarm call, or instinct, which is now repeated even when they're not distressed. It is still their favorite noise to make when distressed though.
I expect some genuinely do enjoy their little ruckus, and some don't even know why they do it (maybe the pain of laying) but I don't enjoy that trait so eradicated it. What's cute with five hens is insane with 100, plus roosters, who also love to sing the 'egg song'. Vocal habits are very heritable.
I actually bred it into mine initially by keeping one hen who would scream that noise at me if she saw me near the nest; I responded by leaving her in peace, which only reinforced her habit. Over the next few generations, it became a serious issue, all her offspring did the same, until I had enough of the raucous cacophony all day every day and culled that trait out --- since then it's not resurfaced once.
In the earlier days, before culling against traits such as possessed by panicky/overly vocal sorts like the aforementioned hen and her offspring, most times a hen of mine made that noise around the nest it was due to being disrupted or watching her clutch be desecrated; I ended up collecting eggs at night for a bit, lol, because of the amount of hens I had laying in only a few nests meant there was always someone coming to deposit her egg during the day, and when they saw me stealing eggs they made that alarm call, and some would then go lay elsewhere.
Clearly a bit of distress at seeing their future babies stolen, lol.
If chooks made this 'egg song' in the wild, obviously, they'd draw predators to the nest and fail to pass on their genes. Some birds do sing egg songs, but they do it either far from the nest, or in species where they nest in very high and inaccessible places, not ground-nesting birds like chooks.
Best wishes.
