Roos singing with hens

[aoxa]

LOL great video. Thats how it sounds here often at my house. Group eggs songs are hilarious and Im sure a little annoying for neighbors lol. I have 2 roosters that join in when the hens lay and egg.

I also learned the hard way that the group song could mean danger. When I hear the group egg song now I always go running fast to check on them. I wasn't aware that that group song also means they are scared until very early one morning I heard this group song and just ignored it for about 45mins. I finally went out to see what the all the commotion was for and it turns out something had murdered 4 of my young roosters.

It is very loud. I almost need headphones to stand it when they are all in the same building like that!

 

[scotter]

I don't believe my roosters behavior is one of fear or alarm. It's hard to tell from just the recording but the only noise they are making is the "honk". One of the roosters will actually sit outside the coop and casually honk at exactly the right time while scratching, pecking, dust bathing or other normal chicken stuff. I honestly think he is just compelled to participate. I have not seen my birds express panic or fear, if anything they are curious. Of my roosters only one, who is a recent addition, is at all skittish. The other two have been known to run dogs out of the yard. But maybe I'm wrong, I am new at this chicken thing, they might just bee alarmed at the rising sun

 

[Baby Corn]

I'm sure glad I found this thread. Thanks to those who posted examples, and educated me about the alarm call.

I just came in from closing the girls' door... Boy oh boy what an evening ordeal. We're chicken-sitting three stranger hens and tonight is the first night. I put them up in a separate cage, but put the cage in the coop. My roo deemed them enemy hens-of-doom-and-danger and sounded the alarm (which I thought was the egg song, too from watching youtube videos!), he wouldn't let any of HIS hens in to roost in the coop. Then several of my hens joined in the alarm/egg song, which I had never heard them do since none are laying yet.

I was really surprised, because I have been waiting, waiting, waiting to hear the egg song (my girls are all 5 months old today, no layers yet). And finally I hear them sing it, and they're all just flipping out over stranger-danger. Harumph...

I ended up having to move the cage full of strange hens to the shop. Then it took me another 30 minutes in the almost-dark to convince my birds the coop was safe, collect those who decided trees would do for a substitute bed, and find my poor white polish hen who got lost in the kerfuffle and was roosting 100 feet away on a roll of fencing wire.

 

[aart]

I had a pullet last night doing an alarm call...sounded just like the egg song.
She was outside in the run alone when everyone else had gone to roost....I thought she had laid an egg out there, but she was just alone and confused.

 

[centrarchid]

Egg song produced by larger flocks in confinement is an artifact of confinement. Bust the group up into smaller free-range flocks and the business of noise production around egg laying will greatly diminish. I still have similar problem in cockyard where if two hens start a commotion by fighting, the whole cockyard will start cackling in a manner that disorients you. The call is very similar to that stimulated by owl nearby. My dogs can distinguish cause by sound alone but I can not. The rowdiness in the henhouse for me is aggravating as it dulls my sensitivity to real threats that can then only be determined by hearing more extreme distress calls or by looking in to see how birds are doing. It is very important to me to be able to determine rapidly from a distance if something is truly wrong so I can intervene.