Pullet "Moos" Like a Cow... What's Up With That??

[speckledhen]

I am stumped. Thought I'd heard it all, but now, I have a Delaware pullet, 20 weeks old, just began laying, who has this really weird call, almost like a cow, but soprano, that ends with a wild moaning note that really sounds like a heifer calling! She did it before she laid her first egg a few days ago and I thought, okay, she was hormonal, but nope...she does it even after she's popped out her egg of the day, many times a day, sitting, standing, walking, just stretches out her neck to get volume and moos. It's the oddest call I've ever heard a chicken make!

Seem at all familiar to any of you? I'm hoping to soon get a digital voice recorder so I can make a file to put on here.

So, is she unsettled for some reason? Going broody already? Just a strange little girl?

 

[FalcoSparverius]

Ours peeped all the time as a chick, got squekey and raspy, then sounded exactly like a cat, and now slightly resembles a donkey.

 

[Katy]

I have one hen that makes a really weird sound too.....kind of a drawn out moaning sound. She's several years old and has always done it. I don't really even notice it anymore, but when she first started I thought somebody was wringing her neck!!

 

[speckledhen]

Yes, that sort of describes it, a drawn out moaning sound, with a sort of wail at the end. It really reminds me of the cows I remember from my childhood on Granddaddy's farm.

 

[FalcoSparverius]

Mine with the weird noise is a Barred Plymouth Rock. Maybe it's the breed?

 

[Enchanted Sunrise Farms]

i would love to hear a recording of that sound. Our bantam Faverolles just started laying (well, one did). There is one or more of them that makes this long "AaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAh". Almost like a woman screaming, a long drawn out scream. Not sure why.

 

[speckledhen]

Not one of my other 40-something hens ever made a sound remotely like this, none of them, not even the other Delawares. I've got to get that digital recorder!