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Tuesday May 17 2011 10:18 am

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

Chicken : or Rooster (m), Hen (f)The chicken (Gallus gallus domesticus) is a domesticated fowl, a subspecies of the Red Junglefowl. As one of the most common and widespread domestic animals, and with a population of more than 24 billion in 2003, there are more chickens in the world than any other species of bird. Humans keep chickens primarily as a source of food, consuming both their meat and their eggs. The traditional poultry farming view of the domestication of the chicken is stated in Encyclopaedia Britannica (2007): ‘Humans first domesticated chickens of Indian origin for the purpose of cockfighting in Asia, Africa, and Europe. Very little formal attention was given to egg or meat production. . .’ Recent genetic studies have pointed to multiple maternal origins in Southeast, East, and South Asia, but with the clade found in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East and Africa originating in the Indian subcontinent. From India the domesticated fowl made its way to the Persianized kingdom of Lydia in western Asia Minor, and domestic fowl were imported to Greece by the fifth century BC. Fowl had been known in Egypt since the 18th Dynasty, with the ‘bird that lays every day’ having come to Egypt from the land between Syria and Shinar, Babylonia, according to the annals of Tutmose III. In the UK and Ireland adult male chickens are primarily known as cocks, whereas in America, Canada and Australia they are more commonly called roosters. Males under a year old are cockerels. Castrated roosters are called capons (surgical and chemical castration are now illegal in some parts of the world). Females over a year old are known as hens, and younger females are pullets. In Australia and New Zealand (also sometimes in Britain), there is a generic term chook ( /ˈtʃʊk/) to describe all ages and both sexes. Babies are called chicks, and the meat is called chicken.’Chicken’ originally referred to chicks, not the species itself. The species as a whole was then called domestic fowl, or just fowl. This use of ‘chicken’ survives in the phrase ‘Hen and Chickens’, sometimes used as a British public house or theatre name, and to name groups of one large and many small rocks or islands in the sea (see for example Hen and Chicken Islands). Chickens are omnivores. In the wild, they often scratch at the soil to search for seeds, insects and even larger animals such as lizards or young mice. Chickens may live for five to ten years, depending on the breed. In commercial intensive farming, a meat chicken generally lives six weeks before slaughter. A free range or organic meat chicken will usually be slaughtered at about 14 weeks. Hens of special laying breeds may produce as many as 300 eggs a year. After 12 months, the hen’s egg-laying ability starts to decline, and commercial laying hens are then slaughtered and used in processed foods, or sold as ‘soup hens’. The world’s oldest chicken, a hen, died of heart failure at the age of 16 according to the Guinness Book of World Records. Roosters can usually be differentiated from hens by their striking plumage of long flowing tails and shiny, pointed feathers on their necks (hackles) and backs (saddle) which are typically of brighter, bolder colors than those of females of the same species. However, in some breeds, such as the Sebright, the rooster has only slightly pointed neck feathers, the same color as the hen’s. The identification must be made by looking at the comb, or eventually from the development of spurs on the male’s legs (in a few breeds and in certain hybrids the male and female chicks may be differentiated by color). Adult chickens have a fleshy crest on their heads called a comb or cockscomb, and hanging flaps of skin either side under their beaks called wattles. Both the adult male and female have wattles and combs, but in most breeds these are more prominent in males. A muff or beard is a mutation found in several chicken breeds which causes extra feathering under the chicken’s face, gi

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