Green’s Dictionary of Slang

cackler n.²

1. a hen.

1621		Jonson Gypsies Metamorphosed 4: Where the Cacklers but no Grunters / Shall vncasd be for the Hunters.
1671		‘L.B.’ New Academy of Complements 205: The nineteenth is a Prigger of Cacklers [...] He steals their Poultrey, and thinks it no sin.
1712		‘Black Procession’ in Farmer Musa Pedestris (1896) 39: The nineteenth’s a prigger of cacklers who harms, / The poor country higlers, and plunders the farms.
1728		Defoe Street Robberies Considered 31: Cacklers, Poultry.
1733		Laugh and Be Fat 1: Leaving his pretty House-keeper to prepare the Cacklers.
1749		Life of Bamphylde-Moore Carew ‘Oath of the Canting Crew’ 249: No dimber damber, angler, dancer, / Prig of cackler, prig of prancer.
c.1786		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue ms. additions n.p.: Cacklers = Hen a Hen roost Cant.
1790		Banquet of Wit 47: A rich old bachelor [...] had ordered [...] a couple of fowls to be got ready for his dinner [...] leaving his pretty house-keeper to prepare the cacklers.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1859		Stirling Obs. 3 Mar. 3/2: Nabbing ‘Cacklers’ [...] Jane leckie, her daughter, and fanny Monteith were charged with the theft of three common fowls or hens.
1880		Leeds Times 4 Sept. 3/1: A Raid Amongst the ‘Cacklers’ [...] a gang of youthful desperadoes [...] charged with breaking into a hen-roost.
1884		C.F. Lummis letter 13 Nov. in Byrkit Letters from the Southwest (1989) 90: He had a venerable old cackler in his jaws when I killed him.
1900		Bulletin (Sydney) 4 Aug. Red Page/1: Hodgkinson’s captain, who had a weakness for eggs and poultry, had the waist of his vessel lined with hencoops full of cacklers.
1915		S. Ford Torchy, Private Sec. 70: He inspects the cacklers. And, believe me, they was the fanciest poultry specimens I’d ever seen.
1944		J. Archibald ‘Downed on the Farm’ in Ten Detective Aces Nov. 🌐 Me and Snooty eat [...] a pair of wings. We are quite sure the cacklers that once owned them were hatched out just after Dewey took Manila.

2. a goose.

1761		Scots Mag. 1 June 319/2: No watchful dogs the dusky welkin rend, / No cacklers, wiser than dogs attend.
1836		Inverness Courier 9 Mar. 2/4: As spring approaches the cacklers [...] wing their way to the far Highlands, where they breed.
1866		Sportsman 4 Sept. 2/1: Notes on News [...] [W]hile public worship was going on [a] goose waddled in [...] the unwelcome cackler’s presence fairly put the precentor out of countenance.
1870		Fife Herald 24 Nov. 3/6: The owner [...] kept watch on his cacklers and discovered that a fox was the depredator.
1883		Mid-Sussex Times 23 Jan. 4/3: Goose Supper [...] a goodly number of the friends [...] sitting down to the admirably prepared defunct cacklers.

3. (US Und.) an egg.

1931		Irwin Amer. Tramp and Und. Sl. 45: Cackler. – An egg.
1934		G. & S. Lorimer Stag Line 166: What’ll it be: grunt and a couple of cacklers?
1962		Ragen & Finston World’s Toughest Prison 793: cackler – An egg.

In compounds

cackler’s ken (n.) [ken n.¹ (1)]

(UK Und.) a hen roost.

1703		Hell Upon Earth 5: Cacklers-Ken, a Hen-roost.
1708		J. Hall Memoirs (1714) 11: Cackler’s-ken, a Henroost.
1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue (3rd edn).
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.