The welsummer that won’t shut up, feed related?

[Alohacayo]

I'm sorry, I don't mean to laugh, but I have been cracking up since the beginning of this thread! I feel your pain as I too am the proud owner of a Welsummer. I think they are just hard wired to walk around talking smack about everything, lol! Piper starts out her mornings as soon as the pop door opens griping, if my husband has treats, she's all up in his business chirping, cooing, BAAAAWKAKKK...which translates into give it to me now! She will follow me around the yard, in the run, and coop griping the whole time. She literally has something to say about everything all day long But alas I love her and her "individuality". But I don't think I'd ever get another one as long as she's alive, 1 is enough

PLEASE LAUGH.

It’s about the only thing that kept me sane with her. My parrots were loud and sometimes annoying (the opera/sewing machine Rhonda mentioned above) but omg this chicken…

I never, in my wildest thoughts, thought a chicken could make the noises she makes. Bc she’s been doing it since about a 4mo old, it is literally why my 73yo mom named her after my sister. The rending of garments, torture noises are the soul of my sister as a teenager.

So, yes, laughing is absolutely allowed.

If I was out in the middle of nowhere, she’d be fine, and I’d recommend the variety to anyone (her egg laying is clockwork), but I’ll never get another welsummer for the “backyard/suburban” situation now. She’s friendly also, which helps.

 

[aliris]

OK: hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. Laughing a lot.

I have a "moaner girl". She's a Buff Orpington. She waddles around moaning. But I've noticed it's usually when she's got an egg that needs to come out. All my flock went dormant for a few months in the winter (there are 4 total) but all have started laying again except the moaner-girl.

My "mouthy martha" is a Rhode Island Red. My goodness that thing is noisy as can be, and with the UGLIEST voice ever. She is just ugly. I know she doesn't mean it but somedays....

Mostly what I want to say is YES - the greens. I noticed this long ago: greens shut them up. Not forever, but sometimes for hours. Especially when the noise is setting in early in the morning. Other days the noise comes from egg-laying squabbles. Despite having numerous places to lay then insist all on laying in the same damn box. Insist on it; it's just ridiculous. And some of them will wander around groaning or morning or this special call which doesn't even have a name, but it's her I-can't-hold-onto-this-thing-one-second-longer-will-you-get-out-of-there-now-already noise.

So that I-gotta-go noise isn't the same as the raise-the-dead hollers that I've also come to associate with greens-deficit. And mine are fairly picky about their greens which is pretty annoying. I've seen people talk about feeding kale - mine aren't interested. What they like is the green part of romaine. They'll take the crunchier white part, but it's the green part they like the best. Believe it or not, they also like cape honeysuckle leaves. But other lettuces: nope. I actually buy my chickens big bags of romaine lettuce from costco (we're also in SoCal, in the City).

I have no idea how general this is, but there is at least one other flock out here that is very definitely associated with raucous cries absent their lettuces. And they don't much like red or green lettuce. Their absolute favorite, however, is whatever lettuce I've just planted in the garden. I swear they spend all day long staring through the fence at the young lettuces, plotting how to eat it. And should one of them find a way out of their run they make an absolute _bee line_ to it and scarf it down. So annoying!

I hear you in your exasperation with the noise. It does seem like it may be a "hole" to fill in a flock, just something someone's gotta do, be the noisiest. My super-noisy RIR was injured for a time and the Australorp seemed to take over being really noisy instead. :-/

One last thing: my noisy RIR was attacked in October or so and soon thereafter everyone started molting and stopped laying and they all got SO much quieter. It was blissful. Their crests also got very pale. Then all that started heating up, the crests got redder, the injuries healed up and the laying started back up and lo and behold, what I thought was maybe just quiet maturity is all gone as if none of that placid period had ever been. I think at the end of the day, these poor creatures experience mega-PMS all day every day while laying and it's just enough to make you want to scream constantly. =0.02

 

[Auntiejessi3]

OK: hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. Laughing a lot.

I have a "moaner girl". She's a Buff Orpington. She waddles around moaning. But I've noticed it's usually when she's got an egg that needs to come out. All my flock went dormant for a few months in the winter (there are 4 total) but all have started laying again except the moaner-girl.

My "mouthy martha" is a Rhode Island Red. My goodness that thing is noisy as can be, and with the UGLIEST voice ever. She is just ugly. I know she doesn't mean it but somedays....

Mostly what I want to say is YES - the greens. I noticed this long ago: greens shut them up. Not forever, but sometimes for hours. Especially when the noise is setting in early in the morning. Other days the noise comes from egg-laying squabbles. Despite having numerous places to lay then insist all on laying in the same damn box. Insist on it; it's just ridiculous. And some of them will wander around groaning or morning or this special call which doesn't even have a name, but it's her I-can't-hold-onto-this-thing-one-second-longer-will-you-get-out-of-there-now-already noise.

So that I-gotta-go noise isn't the same as the raise-the-dead hollers that I've also come to associate with greens-deficit. And mine are fairly picky about their greens which is pretty annoying. I've seen people talk about feeding kale - mine aren't interested. What they like is the green part of romaine. They'll take the crunchier white part, but it's the green part they like the best. Believe it or not, they also like cape honeysuckle leaves. But other lettuces: nope. I actually buy my chickens big bags of romaine lettuce from costco (we're also in SoCal, in the City).

I have no idea how general this is, but there is at least one other flock out here that is very definitely associated with raucous cries absent their lettuces. And they don't much like red or green lettuce. Their absolute favorite, however, is whatever lettuce I've just planted in the garden. I swear they spend all day long staring through the fence at the young lettuces, plotting how to eat it. And should one of them find a way out of their run they make an absolute _bee line_ to it and scarf it down. So annoying!

I hear you in your exasperation with the noise. It does seem like it may be a "hole" to fill in a flock, just something someone's gotta do, be the noisiest. My super-noisy RIR was injured for a time and the Australorp seemed to take over being really noisy instead. :-/

One last thing: my noisy RIR was attacked in October or so and soon thereafter everyone started molting and stopped laying and they all got SO much quieter. It was blissful. Their crests also got very pale. Then all that started heating up, the crests got redder, the injuries healed up and the laying started back up and lo and behold, what I thought was maybe just quiet maturity is all gone as if none of that placid period had ever been. I think at the end of the day, these poor creatures experience mega-PMS all day every day while laying and it's just enough to make you want to scream constantly. =0.02

 

[Alohacayo]

I had to put Carla-the-mouth in chicken jail again last Friday. We were going to be gone all day and she started winding up around 9am… she goes quiet (mostly, thankfully) if she’s in the kennel in the laundry room… center of the house so no one else can hear her wailing. (The kennel is 34”x48”, with a roost and a nest box/food/water, so more like a chicken resort.)

Yes, it does seem like it’s sort of egg related- after an hour or so in jail, she’s usually laid an egg (but she doesn’t really stop complaining). But most days she just bakkk-kaaaks once or twice. The eggs are cookie cutter 58g & only misses maybe one day every two weeks.

Mine are young- the welsummer & cream legbar, are 10 months, the two polish (still not laying yet) are 7/8 months. The mouth never skipped more than a day since she started laying, the CL did take a hiatus with just an occasional egg btw Nov-mid January. No molt yet. The week the CL started laying just abt every day and the silver polish started seriously scouting out the nest hut is when the mouth started up the moaning again.

Just before I put her back outside on Friday, the cream legbar made a noise after her egg- could best be described as a squelched squeak. Was the first noise I’ve actually witnessed her making.

Greens are still huge, they devour anything they can get a beak on. I’ve been hanging a full cabbage (lasts almost 2days), and they get the sprouts/fodder, some fermented feed and handfuls of spinach/baby greens. They eat it all. If it’s green it vanishes. Have not tried kale, bc I don’t like it so I don’t buy it. The sprouts/fodder is gone in minutes- currently using rye, sunflower, corn, brassicas, millets, I have a whole dang sprout factory going…but it does keep them busy and mostly very quiet.

No change in pellet consumption.

My biggest fear is if I do rehome her, one of the other 3 start up.

Thankfully I have great neighbors. And they have not complained, and honestly her ‘tortured human’ over the fence noise is probably not carrying much… but *I* can’t handle it. Hurts my head.

It’s interesting, based on the comments that very loud hens seem to be related to
1) good layers
2) greens consumption
3) molts & others laying patterns

(This sat in my folder for a while, so below is this week…)

After chicken jail last Friday, Carla-the-mouth was good all week. Until today.

Had an overgrown lemon tree pruned, so I’ve been in the yard all week cleaning up the pile of branches. Carla was quiet all week. Today was again very windy. Steady 30-35mph. Hot, 80°’s & dry. She complained loudly all day. She got loud enough this afternoon that I locked her in the nesting hut until dusk. She continued complaining until about an hour past sunset.

So far, her attitude/noise level seems to be connected to when it’s windy.

Bc it’s the SoCal desert, we get these seasonal winds that are hot and gusty.

Luckily, when it’s hot & windy, most of the neighbors are running their a/c, and have their windows closed.

Even the polish were complaining and still no eggs from them. I’ve noticed that when it’s breezy, they don’t forage as well.

It’s a horrible dilemma, bc she’s a great chicken when she’s quiet(er). The days she goes off though are enough to drive a person insane.

 

[ViciousLizardEaters]

She could be telling you when visitors come, this is not limited to dogs.

 

[aliris]

Well Santa Anas are well known to cause human malaise I see no reason not to expect the same of chickens. I notice my SoCal girls super-miserable on Tuesdays when the neighbor's gardener comes and burns fossil fuels in loud, inefficient single-stroke engines. They're very jumpy. I haven't correlated the Santa Anas with their noise but I'll try to pay more attention. Again, it seems completely reasonable to expect pressure and air-particulate issues to disturb chickens too. Maybe just plan on letting Ms Mouthy go to chicken resort whenever the winds do blow, just prophylactically? It may be better for her inside the house. Maybe she has chicken-allergies, haha. I find it interesting that the malaise is fairly diverse among humans - some react far more strongly than others; I think it's not crazy to expect the same in fowl.

Someone, perhaps on another thread, discussed "freezer camp" which I read about weeks ago and is still giving me nightmares. And yet I do honestly think about it. I hear you how hard it is to take the ugle-ugly chicken-noises from some of them. But I definitely think it's in part a flock-thing, that were, say, one to be removed another would fill in. Maybe not to the extreme or so unbearable. But they're communicating and calling as a group, so there's something of a "group-punishment" element to meting out "consequences" to one alone.

Its also clear to me they have their own internal society so when I try to interere, say, in moving one along from the solitary laying box they all insist on using despite having bazillions of other options, even though the one is hoarding and causing untold problems, they've got their internal justice-structure and all don't appreciate the interference. It's quite amusing.

I'm hoping the slooooooow progress of a new chicken palace might help things but we'll see, perhaps not. they just operate as a unit and I swear they PMS as a unit. It helps me to find sympathy by thinking of them as one giant unti experiencing the day in and day out more mega-PMS misery of them all. I think laying eggs must actually not be a terribly comfortable thing, though perhaps that's just anthropomorphizing.

 

[Alohacayo]

Well Santa Anas are well known to cause human malaise I see no reason not to expect the same of chickens. I notice my SoCal girls super-miserable on Tuesdays when the neighbor's gardener comes and burns fossil fuels in loud, inefficient single-stroke engines. They're very jumpy. I haven't correlated the Santa Anas with their noise but I'll try to pay more attention. Again, it seems completely reasonable to expect pressure and air-particulate issues to disturb chickens too. Maybe just plan on letting Ms Mouthy go to chicken resort whenever the winds do blow, just prophylactically? It may be better for her inside the house. Maybe she has chicken-allergies, haha. I find it interesting that the malaise is fairly diverse among humans - some react far more strongly than others; I think it's not crazy to expect the same in fowl.

Someone, perhaps on another thread, discussed "freezer camp" which I read about weeks ago and is still giving me nightmares. And yet I do honestly think about it. I hear you how hard it is to take the ugle-ugly chicken-noises from some of them. But I definitely think it's in part a flock-thing, that were, say, one to be removed another would fill in. Maybe not to the extreme or so unbearable. But they're communicating and calling as a group, so there's something of a "group-punishment" element to meting out "consequences" to one alone.

Its also clear to me they have their own internal society so when I try to interere, say, in moving one along from the solitary laying box they all insist on using despite having bazillions of other options, even though the one is hoarding and causing untold problems, they've got their internal justice-structure and all don't appreciate the interference. It's quite amusing.

I'm hoping the slooooooow progress of a new chicken palace might help things but we'll see, perhaps not. they just operate as a unit and I swear they PMS as a unit. It helps me to find sympathy by thinking of them as one giant unti experiencing the day in and day out more mega-PMS misery of them all. I think laying eggs must actually not be a terribly comfortable thing, though perhaps that's just anthropomorphizing.

The winds & need to lay (so far) seem to be her biggest triggers. She also is much quieter, even if it’s still windy, for 24-72 hours after a few hours in jail.

It’s been about once a week since early January, but always has been when it is windy.

Today was another example; winds were steady 20mph with gusts of 35+. She also was apparently in need of an egg laying, bc within about 20min of being moved to the chicken condo there was an egg.

She was also very growly all day. Does not seem to be broody… (I’ve raised parrots in my previous life, so pretty sure I should be able to spot that).

Once she was in the condo at abt 10a, she spent until 430p mumbling under her beak. Kept it up even after I put her back outside & until she went to roost.

Growling would be fine. The tortured ghost noises simply aren’t acceptable.

I’m still good with the neighbors, apparently so far they can’t or don’t really hear her, but unfortunately *I* do and it drives me up a wall.

I’m really trying to hold out until she’s past 12 months old, hoping whatever is prompting her to get so obnoxious will settle down.

Still no polish eggs. But both are squatting if you get within 2’ of them.

They aren’t called the devil winds for no reason…

It really would be a project on the level for someone like Whiting to breed for backyard/quieter chickens- with the explosion of interest in really small flocks kept on very small footprints, that need to be quiet…and honestly, bc someone keeping an <10 flock usually isn’t as cost conscious about the per chick/egg cost, the premium charged should be worth it.

 

[aliris]

Completely agree about breeding for blandity. Not necessarily for placidity just quiet. And same here, I worry about the neighbors who, for the most part aren't really even hearing.

The devil winds were really bad here this past week. And the birds and the moans were bad. I wonder if they fare better indoors when they blow?