Chicken are pretty fast. The chicken can travel up to 9 miles per hour when it wants to.
The largest ever recorded chicken egg weighed nearly 12 ounces, and measured 12.25 inches around.
Chicken language has real meanings. The birds give different alarm calls depending on which type of predator is threatening them.
There are more chickens on Earth than there are humans.
Chickens can cross breed with turkeys. The result is called a ‘Turkin’.
There are four cities in the United States that have the word “chicken” in their name: Chicken, Alaska; Chicken Bristle, Illinois; Chicken Bristle, Kentucky; and Chicken Town, Pennsylvania.
The greatest number of yolks ever found in a single chicken egg was nine!
Chickens experience REM (rapid eye movement) sleep. (I wonder what they dream about?)
A chickens’ body temperature normally runs at 102-103 degrees F.
A rooster takes 18-20 breaths a minute, a hen 30-35.
There are over 150 varieties of domestic chickens.
Chickens are not capable of sustained flight.
It takes a hen 24-26 hours to lay an egg.
The Latin name for chicken is Gallus Domesticus.
Chickens come in an infinite variety of colors and patterns.
Chickens lay different colored eggs, from white, to brown, to green, to pink, to blue.
A chicken can have 4 or 5 toes on each foot.
Grocery store chickens are 5-8 weeks old.
A chicken takes 21 days to hatch.
Chickens were domesticated about 8000 years ago.
Americans consume 8 billion chickens a year.
All domestic chickens can be genetically traced to Gallus Gallus, The Red Jungle Fowl.
It takes 4 lbs.+ of feed to make 1 dozen eggs.
The chicken was once considered a sacred animal symbolizing the sun.
Breeds were developed to provide plumage for ceremonial costumes.
The first Poultry Exhibition was held in the United States on November 14, 1849. There were 219 exhibitors, 1023 birds, and over 10,000 visitors.
One trait, called Melanosis, causes chickens’ bones, ligaments, skin and tendons to be colored BLACK.
In 1925, hens laid an average of 100 eggs a year. In 1979, the World Record was set by a White Leghorn who laid 371 eggs in 364 days!!!
A hen lives an average of 5-7 years, but can live up to 20 years. She’ll lay eggs her entire life, with production decreasing every year from year one.
An egg starts growing into a chick when it reaches a temperature of 86 degrees F.
The chicken is the closest living relative of the tyrannosaurus-rex.
In Gainesville, Georgia, (the chicken capital of the world), a local ordinance makes it illegal to eat your chicken with a fork.
The waste produced by one chicken in its lifetime can supply enough electricity to run a 100 watt bulb for five hours.
China has the most people in the world, *and* also has the most chickens. There are over 3,000,000,000 chickens in China! (The United States has only 450 million.)
The longest recorded distance flown by any chicken was 301.5 feet.
The record for laying the most eggs in one day was seven.
There are more chickens in the world than there are of any other domesticated bird. In fact, there’s more than one chicken for every human on the face of this earth.
Chickens can fly, but not for long. The longest recorded flight of a chicken is only thirteen seconds.
A chicken will lay bigger and stronger eggs if you adjust the lighting in their cages to make them think each day is 28 hours long, instead of 24.
Chickens eggs come in colors sometimes, (other than white and brown). Some breeds lay eggs in shades of blue or green. Ready-made Easter Eggs!
The fear of chickens is called ‘Alektorophobia’.
