How To Tell If You’re Raising Happy Chickens

Happy Chickens will thrive. Unhappy chickens will have a hard time adapting to new situations, staying safe, and mustering the will to live (yes, chickens can get depressed). It’s important that you pay attention to the mood of your chickens because it will have a big impact on their health.

Happy chickens will display certain characteristics. You can tell your chickens are happy if they are:

• Running around
• Making a purring noise
• Eating regularly
• Socializing with other chickens in their flock

Chickens that display these characteristics are not under any significant stress in their lives. This means they are well cared for. Happy chickens are active, hungry, and social. They will not be solitary. As long as they’re healthy they will stay happy. While the trill sound they make is particularly indicative of happy chickens, they will also make a variety of other clucks, coos and squeals. These noises are their way of communicating with the flock. Being vocal is a sign of busy, social and joyful chickens as long as the sound isn’t short, high pitched, and alarming.

Are My Chickens Unhappy?

Unhappy chickens will display the opposite characteristics of what was above described. An unhappy chicken will be:

• lethargic
• Isolated
• Not vocal
• Low egg production
• Aggressive towards other hens

It’s pretty easy to tell when you have an unhappy chicken. If you’ve gotten to know your chickens, you will likely be able to tell if something is wrong just like if they were a person. Something will seem off. Most of the time unhappy hens are less vocal. However, if they are afraid, they could be more vocal. The short, sharp, repetitive, chirp chickens let out (as mentioned earlier) acts like an alarm. It’s the chicken’s way of saying “DANGER! DANGER!” It’s worth checking out if you hear it. It could mean there is a predator nearby.

Just like happy chickens are healthy chickens, unhealthy chickens are almost always unhappy. Stress, illness, wounds, and unmet needs are important factors to look at when trying to raise happy birds. All of these affect the overall health and therefore overall mood of your chickens.

How Do I Keep Chickens Happy?

The best way to keep your chickens happy is to take good care of them. The needs of a chicken are fairly simple. They fall into one of three areas: social health, physical health and mental health. The diagram below gives some examples of what each of those look like.

Social Health

Chickens are very social creatures and they need buddies so they don’t get lonely. A flock of chickens has a pecking order. An established pecking order is very good for the social health of the flock. A rooster will help with this pecking order. If your flock lacks a rooster, an alpha hen will take on the characteristics of a rooster. Depending on the size of your flock, multiple alpha hens may become rooster surrogates. Either way, the position will be filled.

Sudden deaths could cause your chickens to fret. Especially if the chicken was higher up in the pecking order. Some people have found that if they sell a rooster who has been with the flock for a while, the hens will seem sad. This is likely a response to a sudden change in the pecking order. The best way to handle these situations is to go slow. Chickens don’t like sudden change.

Physical Health

Physical health encompasses the practical needs of your chickens. Are your chickens getting enough food? Do they have access to clean water? Do they have enough space to move around? Access to the outdoors? Wounds and illnesses that cause the chicken discomfort or cause it to have a lower quality of life will also hinder its ability to be joyful. Certain health issues can be avoided by picking a healthy breed that is resistant to common diseases. The way the certain breeds are built can have health consequences as they gets older as well. Most of the popular breeds are pretty hardy.

Mental Health

The mental health of chickens is mainly about keeping them safe and stress free. Predator pressure is an issue almost anywhere you live. Chickens are pretty close to the bottom of the food chain. There are a lot of animals that would love to have them as a snack. Predators can cause stress on hens and roosters as they try to run and/or fight them off.

Food scarcity is also stressful for your birds. If you are running them on pasture and feeding them off the land, you’ll need to watch them and make sure they can get to the food. Don’t let them pick the land dry! This can cause fights among your chickens as they become more and more food aggressive. These fights could end up being fatal for some of them. If you notice this behavior or that they have eaten everything there is to eat on your property, add supplemental feed.

Summary

You can tell if your chickens are happy if they are doing the following things:

• Running around
• Making a purring noise
• Are eating regularly
• Socializing with other chickens in their flock

Not-so-happy chickens will be:

• lethargic
• Isolated
• Not vocal
• Producing less eggs
• Aggressive towards other hens

The way to make (or keep) your chickens happy is to fulfill their social, physical, and emotional needs. That means keeping them safe and healthy and exposed to other chickens. If you need to make any changes to the flock, make them slow. Chickens hate sudden changes.

This post mainly focused on hens. Roosters also have a lot to say. They are often louder than hens. Rooster noises can tell you a lot about what they’re thinking. For more information on why roosters make the noises they do, check out my post 5 Common Reasons Roosters Crow.

Are there other ways you can tell if your chicken is happy? Comment them down below!