The second part of the chicken series continues from the first with basics, but will touch on some other stuff.

One thing I left out in the first part of the chicken series are the two sounds I've heard from mine that aren't in their list of documented sounds. The first one is well known, but not listed for some reason I don't understand, except maybe for them not wanting to acknowledge it. This sound is a sound made only by young females that are not old enough to mate and it means something like 'I'm not old enough'. If you lightly pinch them in the back of the neck or when a male does accidentally tries to mount a juvenile, you will hear this screeching sound and it will be combined with them ducking their head down and attempting to dismount whatever is on their back.

The second sound is way more complicated and means something like 'Holy cow, you're alive!'. I've only heard it once and it was tied to a specific event. I had some young chickens that were about two months old being attacked in their cage at the same time that I had to go in and out of town because of a family emergency and couldn't properly see to them. On the last night they were attacked, the last four were torn apart by raccoons (literally horror show stuff) before I headed out of town for the last time and for three weeks. When I finally got back home, the first thing I did was go look in on my adult Heritage RIRs (the only ones to have made it because of the attacks) and all three looked at me and made a really complicated and multi-toned call that was combined with their eyes widening. I can't even attempt to describe the noise, it didn't sound like a chicken noise at all, and never heard it before that night or since or seen anything like it mentioned. I can only figure that they thought the raccoons had got me also.

On the subject of recognition. Chickens can recognize up to 100 faces. I would assume that the Heritage breeds are also better at this than the Production breeds, considering their other differences, but maybe not. At any rate, this 100 faces includes everything around the birds. You, your family, your pets, other livestock, other chickens, neighbors, visitors, mail people, and so forth. Anyone they don't recognize makes them nervous and they'll move away from that person if they approach. However, they recognize people fairly quickly like they train quickly and it won't take them long to ignore visitors unless they throw treats out.

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