why the egg song? wouldn't it attract predators?

[allpeepedout]

An older thread on this topic talks about wild junglefowl behavior, using egg song to find the flock or draw predators away (this latter one doesn't make sense to me). Googled and there is evidence of chicken domestication going back to 7000 BC, so this is a very tweaked crittter. Maybe the egg song is just joy d'vivre or boasting. Express yourself, girls!

 

[7L Farm]

Here's what I've observed. Chicken lays the egg sings the song sometimes on the nest, sometimes off. My roo hears her & runs to the coop & he immediately wants to mate her. I guess the roo wants to make sure her eggs are always fertile. It kinda offends me because the poor girl just layed an egg & he is trying to mate her right after the egg is layed. He then escorts her back to the flock. I've noticed them singing this song even when they haven't layed & the roo will run over & make sure she's ok. Its a distress call is my guess.

 

[NottinghamChicks]

Mine are all quiet layers, it's the other girls that do all the noise when one is in the nest box

 

[momtotnt]

I too noticed the song *before* one of my hens lay. I've only experienced a song once while in the nest. They are quiet most of the other times. Surely different breeds have different characteristics. I wonder if the number of hens and/or presence of a rooster makes a difference as well?

 

[Celtic Chick]

Fred's Hens :

Since they make the same noise when they get scared or frightened, it is hard to say. I only know this. Out of our dozens of laying hens, the only time you get that call is following the laying of a big egg that they've really had to work on to get out. Otherwise, they lay it without much ado. That's all I know, and it isn't much.

My girls mostly "sing" before they lay, and I agree that they will also do so after laying a big one, so my theory is this: Are they really "singing"? Would you? Think of all those lovely things you said during your pregnancy and while giving birth. That is what they are saying, in my humble opinion.