Chickens are such uniquely wonderful pets. They’re quirky, full of personality, and really easy to care for. But after having backyard chickens for a year, I’ve made a list of some of their weird mannerisms and behaviors. I call these habits “chicken-isms” and they’re worth reading about! Here’s my ultimate list of weird and hilarious chicken behavior!
Thanks to all of my peeps in the San Antonio Backyard Chicken Facebook group. You’re all brilliant and wonderful hearts!
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We Don’t Need No Man!
Female chickens, called hens, are born with all of their eggs. This is the same as other species, including humans. The difference is that a hen will lay an egg approximately once a day when she matures, without the presence of a male. You need a rooster to have fertilized eggs (aka baby chicks), of course, but you don’t need a rooster to get edible eggs!
And if you need to get caught up in chicken lingo, you can read my article about chicken terminology here.
Fresh Eggs Don’t Need Refrigeration
Not so much a weird chicken behavior as much as just an FYI: A fresh chicken egg does not need to be refrigerated! They are counter-safe for up to two weeks. Once they’re washed, however, pop them in the fridge. A new chicken owner can always mark the eggs with the date they were laid to help with confusion. I use my little egg carousel. It’s cheap and makes for a nice presentation, and you always get eggs in the right order with oldest first!
Three Birds, One Box
You may have seen in my YouTube videos that my birds fight over one single nesting box. (This is where chickens go to lay their eggs.) We have three boxes, and three birds. But that doesn’t matter. Insert eye roll here.
Chickens Make Eggcellent Midwives
My chickens encourage each other when they’re laying eggs. It’s been so hilarious to see one of them clucking and pacing back and forth like a nervous midwife waiting on the birth of a child. And when the egg is laid, the chickens literally cheer each other on, like “Dang girl high five, that was awesome!”
Did you know? There are hundreds of breeds of chickens, depending on the climate and the purpose (e.g. meat bird, great layer, snow resistant, etc.). A frizzle is a chicken who has feathers that flip out, a silkie is a chicken who has down-like feathers, and a bantam is a tiny version of another breed! Be sure to research what breeds would be good for where you live, and can satisfy what you want a chicken for.
We have a gold sex-link named Lollipop, a silver-laced Wyandotte named Dottie, and a black sex-link named Calypso. (Sex-linked chickens are ones who can be sexed, or identified as male or female, shortly after hatching.)
The Egg Song is Real
If you think that hens are quiet and roosters are the loudmouths, you’re wrong! Hens have a special call known as the egg song, which is what they do around the time they’ve laid an egg. Like my previous chicken-ism, this is basically like “Woo look at me I laid an egg, I’m amazing!” It’s a call that can almost sound like that of a rooster to an untrained ear. It’s like a “CluckcluckcluckcluckBAGOCKcluckcluckcluckcluckBAGOCK.” (I hope you appreciate me spelling it out like that!) You can briefly hear it in the video below, but notice my girls stop as soon as they realize they have an audience! Chicken behavior is weird, y’all.
Pecking Order is Real, Too
Whether or not you have a rooster around, your chickens will establish a pecking order, literally. If no male is present, a hen will become the alpha female; other chickens will peck as they grow into full-size adults to determine the heriarchy. Out of our three hens, my biggest hen Calypso is definitely the alpha female – she keeps an eye on things when the girls are foraging, watchful for predators and listening for strange sounds, and she also gets dibs on snacks. She goes into the coop for the night first, and is first to emerge in the morning. It’s cool to see her always overseeing things, keeping tabs on her “sisters”, leading them and herding them to safety. Lollipop, our smallest girl, is the bottom of the pecking order.
It can seem cruel, but the chickens don’t really intend to hurt each other. This is just what they do. Ahh, nature.
You Can Train Your Chickens… Kind Of
Chickens aren’t exactly the brightest crayons in the nature box, but they are intelligent enough to be trained. You can teach your chickens simple tasks like their names, to come to you, or to head to bed. Once they’re full grown, teach your chickens where to lay their eggs by placing some dummy (fake) eggs in the nesting boxes. I did not do a fantastic job of training my pullets to roost, so I have to work with my adult birds at that now too.
I mean, your chickens will never clean up their own poop or do anything particularly useful, but they aren’t necessarily as dumb as people think. Necessarily. I call it “selective intelligence.”
Remember that I have a ton of chicken videos on YouTube, and I’m always looking for suggestions and ways to help people! Fall in love with these silly wonderful yard birds just like we have!
Sunlight is the Key!
Your chickens really should have some natural sunlight to encourage them to lay every day, and they will be up with the sun! Once you’ve trained your birds, they’ll also know to go to bed once it gets dark. Nocturnal predators and all that.
You can put artificial lighting into the coop to encourage your birds to lay more during the winter months, but the risk of electrical fires – and overheating – scared me too much. We just let our birds go with the flow! Natural chicken behavior will allow them to lay pretty much daily for the first few years of life.
The Chicken Bow
This is one of my favorite funny chicken behavior traits. Pullets (female chickens who aren’t fully mature) and young hens will start to do a chicken bow when a human comes close. It looks like a squat where they get low, spread their wings a bit, and stick their neck out. This means that they’re almost ready to start laying! Hens will continue to do their chicken bow indefinitely. This happens when they see someone they regard as the alpha male – a person or a rooster – and instead of try to run away, they choose to just “get it over with” and bow. A bowing chicken is much easier to pick up, too.
Spring Chickens
This expression is used to mean a youngster, and it rings true for our friendly backyard poultry. A spring chicken is a bird who is less than a year old. Some things will be significant with such a young chicken: they will not molt in their first year of life, and a hen will probably lay every day rain or shine. Older birds will go through a molt usually once a year, where their body slows down a bit – and, you guessed it, their feathers fall out! Chickens who are older than a few years will also slow down the frequency of their laying, too.
Did you know? Most of the chicken we consume is actually young roosters, since they’re not considered as useful or as necessary. Older chickens are not usually eaten (at least commercially).
… And Chicken Molting
I haven’t personally experienced a chicken molt yet, but I know it’s coming. Chickens who are older than a year will usually go through a molt once a year. This is when a majority of their feathers fall out to make way for new growth. Your yard will likely be full of old feathers, and your chickens will look, well, ridiculous. Keep an eye on your birds to ensure that this is a normal molt and not anything like parasites, but don’t worry. It’s normal and they’ll be back to their silly chicken behavior soon!
A Dust Bath Solves Everything! (Almost)
Most chickens (except silkie and some frizzle breeds) have water-resistant feathers, and don’t particularly like getting wet. What they do love is a great dust bath! A dust bath can literally be a piece of earth where the chickens have scraped foliage away, or it can be a man-made space. Chickens get down and dirty in the dust and sand, shaking and rolling around. This helps them with growing new feathers (and the resulting itchiness – think of a healing sunburn), as well as get rid of any parasites.
Feathers Are Pretty Cool
Chickens with standard feathers have to use strategies to keep their bodies temperature controlled. A chicken who is cold will fluff up their feathers, making air pockets between the layers which will warm up with their body heat. Like I mentioned before, feathers are also pretty waterproof. A dust bath helps chickens to stay cool. Remember that a silkie chicken doesn’t have as much control so they need to be monitored more closely when your area is particularly hot or cold.
A Panting Chicken is Too Hot
Chickens can’t sweat like some other animals, so they resort to another method to cool down: panting. A panting chicken needs to get into the shade with some cool water as soon as possible! When it starts to get hotter here in south Texas (for us with shade that means about 90F), I check on my birds frequently and give them icy water or a cold treat as needed. This is a chicken behavior that’s really helpful to us worrying parents!
Did you know? Chickens can have all sorts of treats, from cooked eggs to most fruits and veggies, even grains! Take some frozen or canned veggies and put in muffin cups with water, then freeze to make some icy treats for summer! Just please never any citrus, onions, rotten or moldy food.
Chickens Can Float!
It makes sense that a bird, who has hollow bones and who is mostly feathers and fluff, would possibly float in water. But have you seen a floating chicken? It’s magical! (This video isn’t mine but it cracks me up!) Also notice that as he drops water on the chicken’s back, it just rolls off. Waterproof feathers for the win!
But How Do Chickens Pee?
The short answer is, they don’t! Hens only have one place where everything goes in or out, from defecating to laying eggs. This is called the vent and can be inspected if you rub and scratch the base of your chicken’s tail, much like a cat arching their back when you scratch them. A chicken’s droppings usually are in two colors: white and a darker color like brown or army green. The white, or urates, is the equivalent of urine in other animals. The darker color is the solid waste, or poop, which is made up of what the chicken has digested. To an extent, this is a chicken behavior which rings true for all birds.
Speaking of Digestion…
Chickens have a crop, which is an extra step in their digestive process that we don’t have! If you follow an imaginary line from your chicken’s mouth, to their throat, down their esophagus, you’ll get to a little sac called the crop. This is like a “holding area” where early digestion occurs, and can be felt on your bird’s breastbone. Remember that chickens don’t have teeth!
Chickens need grit, or small pebbles and the like, to help break food down in the crop before it continues down the digestive system. Otherwise it can get blocked up and cause a condition like sour crop or an impacted crop, which can be fatal.
Flock Mentality Can Be Brutal
Chickens are omnivorous to an extent, but they’re quite aware that they are very much prey on the circle of life. That means that they’re always watching their backs, looking and listening for threats. And they know that a weak bird is more likely to get picked off. What does that mean for chicken owners? You need to check your birds carefully, like when they’re roosting at night, to ensure that they’re not trying to hide an injury. Chickens do not want to show that they’ve been hurt because they can be picked on by the others in the flock, and they’d be first to get hunted. So they’ll mask or downplay anything from a twisted leg to a blinded eye, even though it’s a rather tragic chicken behavior. Be watchful, my friends!
Did you know? Different breeds of chickens lay different colored eggs, from white to cream to browns, even pinks and greens and blues!
Chickens Have Their Own Personality
You may think that a silly bird-brain wouldn’t peck their way into your heart, or have much of a personality. But you would be so very wrong! Each of my girls have distinct personalities: from being sassy and loud-mouthed and a lover of treats, to sweet and cuddly yet submissive, to aloof and independent. A lot will depend on how much they’re handled as chicks, and some depends on the breed, but trust that each of your birds will be unique. This is probably my favorite chicken behavior!
We love our weird birds and their silly chicken behavior! I hope that this has helped shine a light on the real day-to-day chaos and laughter of having backyard chickens. I have a lot of content to help real people decide if backyard chickens might be right for them, both here on my website as well as on my YouTube channel.
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