Media release

From: The Royal Society

• Mother's cluck – Chicks that hear motherly clucking sounds before hatching are more social. Incubated chick eggs were raised in silence or played maternal cluck calls once an hour over the last week of incubation. When the chicks hatched, those that had been exposed to clucking were three times more likely to explore another group’s enclosure. The results indicate that hearing cluck sounds pre-hatching could affect chicks’ social behaviour. Royal Society Open Science

Exposure to calls before hatching affects the post-hatching behaviour of domestic chickens

Royal Society Open Science

Little is known about how sounds experienced in the egg affect bird social behaviour. We investigate how exposure to cluck calls during the last week of incubation affects the behaviour of domestic chickens at 3–5 days and 17–21 days old. At 3–5 days old, we found that pre-hatching experience of hen calls reduced the likelihood to move in response to three playback stimuli in a novel environment. At 14–21 days old, chicks exposed to cluck calls before hatching were three times more likely to enter another group’s enclosure than control chicks, indicating potential long-term effects.