Understanding the chicken’s squawk

Translating poultry-speak could help farmers breed healthier birds in a more eco-friendly way

Mirror Bureau

Posted On Tuesday, May 22, 2012 at 08:37:39 AM

Chickens can’t speak, but they can definitely make themselves heard. Most people who have visited a poultry farm will recall chicken vocalisation — the technical term for clucking or squawking — as a memorable part of the experience. • Researcher David Anderson analyses chicken vocalisations digitally for clues that may help engineers and poultry scientists better control environmental conditions for the birds Researchers now believe that such avian expressiveness may be more than idle chatter. A project being conducted by the Georgia Tech and the University of Georgia are investigating whether the birds’ volubility can provide clues to how healthy and comfortable they are. And that could be valuable information. “Many poultry pros swear they can walk into a grow-out house and tell whether a flock is happy or stressed just by listening to them vocalise,” said Wayne Daley, the lead researcher. “The trouble is, it has proved hard to pinpoint exactly what it is that they’re hearing.” Nevertheless, scientists are convinced that poultry farmers are detecting something real. Recent research indicates that it is possible to differentiate how the birds react to various conditions based on their vocalisations. “The behaviour of chickens is one of the best and most immediate indicators of their well-being,” said Bruce Webster, who is part of the project. “Chickens are vocal creatures and produce different types of sounds at different rates and loudness depending on circumstances.” “If what farmers hear and sense can be defined and quantified, sensors to detect cues from the birds themselves could really make a difference in providing real-time data on house environment, bird health, and comfort,” said Michael Lacy, from the University of Georgia. The industry has guidelines covering temperature, air quality and stocking density. Nevertheless, costly problems can still crop up — control systems malfunction, or ideal levels can turn out to be problematic. “That’s where being able to judge the flock’s behaviour can be so important,” Daley said. “Your temperature sensors might say that things are fine, but the birds could be telling you that they think it’s too warm or other changes have occurred to make the conditions less ideal.” From a professional’s viewpoint, the flock’s opinion is the definitive one. Chickens take only six weeks to go from hatching to full weight; stressful conditions can retard their growth, reducing their market value. The research team has conducted several experiments in which they have exposed flocks to mildly stressful environmental changes. For example, temperature or ammonia levels might be increased from their initial settings for a few hours, then returned to the original level. The researchers have recorded the flocks’ vocal reactions, with videos. To date, more than 4TB of audio data has been gathered. To decode mass vocalising, the researchers are extracting particular features of the sound, such as speed, volume, pitch and other qualities. Then he’s utilising machine learning — in which computers recognise complex patterns in data and make decisions based on those patterns — to analyse the extracted features that may convey specific meanings.