Expert: Julia Booth - 9/25/2009

Question
Do new born birds have a name that they are called?  Also, what do call a male and a female, in terms of identification of sex, e.g., chicken males are called roosters and the females are called the hens.

Answer
Generally a bird that has hatched from its egg but not left its nest is called a fledgling. Because 'to fledge' means to leave the nest. They can also be called a nestling. But this varies. Once they have fledged, they can be referred to as immatures. During the time period between that and adulthood, they are called juveniles. This is usually determined not just by biological age, but by how quickly they gain their adult plumage. Like in the cases of gulls, we might refer to them by age as well, like first year adult, second year adult. The reason being that their plumage will change over time.

In the case of ducks, the females are hens and the males are drakes. Babies are ducklings. In the case of geese, the babies are goslings, the female is the goose and the male is the gander. In the case of peacocks, the male is the cock and the female is the fowl. So it really depends a lot of the species. In the case of most birds, they are just called birds. Some refer to the females as hens.

Other words we use to describe the age of a bird are precocial and atricial, which specifically refers to the animal's physical independence. Here is a simplified explanation of that:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precocial



Hope this answers your question. If not, let me know.


Julia