Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2024 Jun;103(6):103758.
doi: 10.1016/j.psj.2024.103758. Epub 2024 Apr 16.

Acoustic features and morphological parameters of the domestic chickens

Sabah Mushtaq Puswal  1 , Wei Liang  2
Affiliations

Acoustic features and morphological parameters of the domestic chickens

Sabah Mushtaq Puswal et al. Poult Sci. 2024 Jun.

Abstract

Acoustic characteristics reflect male quality and play a role in female mate choice. Thus, the frequency of vocalizations and temporal characteristics are often related to body size within and across species. However, it is less clear whether acoustic features can reveal information about individual quality in the domestic chicken (Gallus gallus domesticus) populations. Here, we investigated the relationship between morphological parameters and acoustic features in male and female free-ranged domestic chickens in Liuzhi, Guizhou, southwest China, and further examined whether acoustic characteristics correlate with internal organs, including the heart, liver, testis, and spleen in male chickens, and whether the cackling call of females indicates body size and mass. We found that both male and female chickens differ significantly in their morphological parameters; however, based on acoustic parameters, they only differ in high frequency. Morphological parameters displayed no relationship with the frequency and duration of calls in both male and female chickens. Furthermore, none of the frequency or temporal parameters of the calls we studied were related to the internal body parameters of males.

Keywords: acoustic feature; cackle; domestic chicken; internal body parameter; male quality.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Spectrograms of the calls of domestic chickens. X-axis represent time in seconds while Y-axis shows frequency in hertz. (a) the male chicken call and (b) cackling call of the female chicken.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Relationship between morphological parameters and the high frequency of calls in male chickens. The X-axis indicates the frequency in Hz, and the Y-axis represents the body parameters of male chickens. The line indicates the linear regression between two variables, and the shaded grey area represents the 95% confidence interval.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Relationship between morphological parameters and the high frequency of calls in female chickens. The X-axis represents the frequency in Hz, and the Y-axis shows the body parameters of female chickens. The line indicates the linear regression between two variables, and the shaded grey area represents the 95% confidence interval.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Asmara I.Y., Garnida D., Partasasmita R. Crowing characteristics of Pelung chickens at different age and body weight. Biodiversitas. 2020;21:4339–4344.
    1. Asmara I.Y., Garnida D., Partasasmita R. Duration and volume of crowing of Pelung chickens of west Java, Indonesia. Biodiversitas. 2020;21:748–752.
    1. Aubret F., Bonnet X. Influence of body reserves and eye opacity on foraging behaviours of tiger snakes. J. Exp. Zool Part A: Comparat. Exp. Biol. 2005;303:1075–1084. - PubMed
    1. Austin V.I., Dalziell A.H., Langmore N.E., Welbergen J.A. Avian vocalisations: The female perspective. Biol. Rev. 2021;96:1484–1503. - PubMed
    1. Balebail S., Sisneros J.A. Long duration advertisement calls of nesting male plainfin midshipman fish are honest indicators of size and condition. J. Exp. Biol. 2022;225 - PubMed