Poultry Sounds

Here's a silly song to celebrate National Poultry Day, March 19th. Poultry is any domestic fowl used for meat, eggs, feathers, or work (carrier pigeons or guard animals). We list a few examples in this song, but the list is not exhaustive. Of course, this tune can be performed any time, not just for National Poultry Day.

The silly words and animal sound effects are enough to encourage your students to sing it, but the main reason to perform the song is so they can imitate poultry – chickens, turkeys, ducks, emus, etc. At measure 13 both times, they will have a chance to strut their stuff (pun intended) for four bars. At bar 26 they can make sounds until the end of the song or until you give them a cut-off. In addition, there are also poultry kid solos at measures 19 and 21. You can choose any sound you like for those bars. (It's worth noting that the banjo plays loose renditions of "Go Tell Aunt Rhody" and "Turkey In The Straw" in those bars. See what we did there?)

We've given it an old-timey, folksy feel to elicit images of a barnyard and simpler times. On our recorded tracks, a 12-string guitar plays the melody to assist your youngsters. And if you don't know what an ostrich or a pheasant sounds like, we've got you covered! Below are examples of poultry and the sounds they make.

Poultry Sounds - Kid FX

• Turkeys - gobble, and sorta chirp
• Chickens - bok bok bok
• Pigeons make a cooing sound. Coo-ooh, coo-ooh (with glottal)
• Duck - quack quack (nasal)
• Pheasant - Eh-eh! (long short, low high, glottal)
• Emu - hollow thumping, snoring oinking at the back of your throat, hissing
• Rooster - crow (cock-a-doodle-doo!)
• Ostrich - sounds like you're speaking into a plastic bottle – whoo, whoo, whooooo! (like a bass slide) Can also chirp, bark, and hiss.

Can your students think of any poultry sounds not mentioned here?