![]() Over the past five years, engineers and poultry scientists at The University of Georgia and Georgia Institute of Technology have been collaborating to help farmers like Mitchell make better use of the information latent in chicken chatter. If he had only been able to eavesdrop on the flock, he might have known much sooner that something was amiss. He soon discovered that an automated lighting system had failed and the lights had not switched off the night before the chickens were sleep-deprived. Instead of making the usual ruckus, the birds were murmuring and shuffling lethargically. One morning many years ago Mitchell entered a chicken house and found it oddly calm and quiet. And they have a distinct warning for terrestrial threats: The repetitive clucking most people associate with chickens is in fact a ground predator alarm call. When a hen lays an egg she celebrates with a series of staccato clucks, like drumbeats, culminating in a loud “buck-caw!” If chickens detect an aerial predator-say, by spotting the shadow of a hawk or eagle-they produce a short, high-pitched shriek. In the evenings when they’re preparing to roost, the chickens are much more mellow, cooing softly. ![]() “When I hear that, I know they are pretty healthy and happy,” Mitchell says. They are usually noisiest in the morning-a robust concert of clucks, chortles and caws. Mitchell says the birds have “patterns of speech” that reveal a lot about their well-being. He oversees the care of about a million of them on Wilcox Farms properties in Washington State and Oregon. ![]() Chickens are loquacious creatures, and Kevin Mitchell would know. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |