Chicken Types, Characteristics & Uses

Chickens are gregarious birds and live together as a flock. Chickens will sometimes attempt flight simply to explore their surroundings, however, they will especially fly in an attempt to flee when they perceive danger or pursued by a predator. Hens lay eggs that range in color from white to pale brown and other pale colors depending on the breed. The rooster is larger and more brightly colored than the hen, he also has a larger comb on top of his head. Roosters can usually be differentiated from hens by their striking plumage, marked by long flowing tails and bright pointed feathers on their necks.

Under natural conditions, most birds lay only until a clutch is complete; they then incubate all the eggs. Wild junglefowl can fly, whereas domestic chickens and their flight muscles are too heavy to allow them to fly more than a short distance. If the eggs are not fertilized and do not hatch, the hen will eventually grow tired of being broody and leave the nest.

Use by humans

Middle Eastern chicken remains go back to a little earlier than 2000 BC in Syria. Chicken remains have been difficult to date, given the small and fragile bird bones; this may account for discrepancies in dates given by different sources. Chickens reached Egypt via the Middle East for purposes of cockfighting about 1400 BC and became widely bred in Egypt around 300 BC. Re-examination of bones from over 600 sites, and dating of those from 23 sites, identified the earliest probable chicken bones as from central Thailand, at Ban Non Wat, some 3,250 years ago.

Specialized breeds such as broilers and laying hens have been developed for meat and egg production, respectively. In the United States alone, more than 8 billion chickens are slaughtered each year for meat, and more than 300 million chickens are reared for egg production. More than 50 billion chickens are reared annually as a source of meat and eggs. An early study proposed that a single domestication event of the red junglefowl in present-day Thailand gave rise to the modern chicken.

• Chickens are capable of mobbing and killing a weak or inexperienced predator, such as a young fox.
• The rooster is larger and more brightly colored than the hen, he also has a larger comb on top of his head.
• Chickens have a communal approach to the incubation of eggs and raising of young.
• There are many different breeds that come in a variety of colors.
• Fertilized embryos develop quickly, and chicks hatch approximately 21 days later.

Reproduction and life-cycle

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The body is round, the legs are unfeathered in most breeds, and the wings are short. Chicken can mean a chick, and this was historically the meaning of the word chicken, as in William Shakespeare’s play Macbeth, where Macduff laments the death of “all my pretty chickens and their dam”. Check out more animals that begin with the letter C Some breeds, such as the Cochin, Cornish and Silkie, regularly go broody and make excellent mothers.

Skeletons of birds in the Gallus genus were used as grave goods at the site, confirming domestication. Genomic studies estimated that the chicken was domesticated 8,000 years ago in Southeast Asia and spread to China and India 2,000 to 3,000 years later. Fertile chicken eggs hatch at the end of the incubation period, about 21 days; the chick uses its egg tooth to break out of the shell.