chrismahon
Well-known member
Now that Spring has arrived we are spending late afternoons in the chicken enclosure watching and listening to them. Our TNN cock Jean-Claude and our Wyandotte cock Zebedee have the clearest outlook to the surroundings. Their alarm calls are universally recognised and send all the hens running for cover, including the neighbour's Black Gascones. The obvious alarm call is for ground based predators or if anything upsets them, like a feeder falling over! Anyone who has a cockerel will have heard that. The interesting call is for predators in the sky.
We have 10 red kites arrived recently, to add to the resident pair of black winged kites and the numerous buzzards. We also have highly manoeuvrable sparrow hawks and unfortunately a few magpies. Quite often our cockerels emit a high pitched wail and if we look high up we can see either kites or buzzards circling. But the cockerels will emit a lower pitched wail as well and this we now realise is for a predator lower in the sky. In fact a blackbird skimming the ground gets the lowest pitch and magpies skimming the trees a higher one. So the pitch of the wail is indicating to the hens where in the sky the predator is.
Worth mentioning is that the equivalent noise from a hen is a cross between a growl and a purr. So if a hen spots a predator that's how she tells the cock. But no-one moves until the cock has confirmed it and raised the alarm, the hens just stand still in the meantime.
Another thing we have noticed is that TNN Jean-Claude will raise the standard alarm if any of his hens are squabbling. That's not just the three that he lives with but the four TNN youngsters he had around his previous coop AND the three new Marans that he bonded with. So it's not breed related but voice related -he recognises them even though they are out of his sight! He will not respond to any other hens immediately unless they persist, at which time all the cocks and the hens start and raise a real racket- sufficient to scare some animals away notably the visiting ferel cat and an extremely large hare.
We have 10 red kites arrived recently, to add to the resident pair of black winged kites and the numerous buzzards. We also have highly manoeuvrable sparrow hawks and unfortunately a few magpies. Quite often our cockerels emit a high pitched wail and if we look high up we can see either kites or buzzards circling. But the cockerels will emit a lower pitched wail as well and this we now realise is for a predator lower in the sky. In fact a blackbird skimming the ground gets the lowest pitch and magpies skimming the trees a higher one. So the pitch of the wail is indicating to the hens where in the sky the predator is.
Worth mentioning is that the equivalent noise from a hen is a cross between a growl and a purr. So if a hen spots a predator that's how she tells the cock. But no-one moves until the cock has confirmed it and raised the alarm, the hens just stand still in the meantime.
Another thing we have noticed is that TNN Jean-Claude will raise the standard alarm if any of his hens are squabbling. That's not just the three that he lives with but the four TNN youngsters he had around his previous coop AND the three new Marans that he bonded with. So it's not breed related but voice related -he recognises them even though they are out of his sight! He will not respond to any other hens immediately unless they persist, at which time all the cocks and the hens start and raise a real racket- sufficient to scare some animals away notably the visiting ferel cat and an extremely large hare.
I've never had to deal with aerial predators, so posts like this are good reference points for me.
