Chicken
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| A Rhode Island Red hen | |
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A chicken (Gallus gallus) is a type of domesticated bird which is often raised as a type of poultry. It is believed to be descended from the wild Indian and south-east Asian Red Junglefowl.
With a population of more than 24 billion in 2003,[1] there are more chickens in the world than any other bird. They are used to produce two sources of food: their meat, and their eggs.
General biology and habitat
Chickens generally live five to eleven years depending on the breed [2]. Male chickens are known as roosters (in the U.S., Canada and Australia), cocks, or cockerels. Castrated roosters are called capons. Female chickens are known as hens. Young females are known as pullets. Roosters can usually be differentiated from hens by their striking plumage, marked by long flowing tails and bright pointed feathers on their necks.
However, in some breeds, such as the Sebright, the cock only has slightly pointed neck feathers, and the identification must be made by looking at the comb. Chickens have a fleshy crest on their heads called a comb or cockscomb, and a fleshy piece of hanging skin under their beak called a wattle. These organs help to cool the bird by redirecting blood flow to the skin. Both the male and female have distinctive wattles and combs. In males, the combs are often more prominent, though this is not the case in all varieties.
Domestic chickens are typically fed commercially prepared feed that includes a protein source as well as grains. Chickens often scratch at the soil to search for insects and seeds. Incidents of cannibalism can occur when a curious bird pecks at a preexisting wound or during fighting (even among female birds). This is exacerbated in close quarters. In commercial egg and meat production this is controlled by trimming the beak (removal of two thirds of the top half and occasionally one third of the lower half of the beak).
Domestic chickens are not capable of long distance flight, although they are generally capable of flying for short distances such as over fences. Chickens will sometimes fly to explore their surroundings, but usually do so only to flee perceived danger. Because of the risk of escape, chickens raised in open-air pens generally have one of their wings clipped by the breeder — the tips of the longest feathers on one of the wings are cut, resulting in unbalanced flight which the bird cannot sustain for more than a few meters.
Chickens are gregarious birds and live together as a flock. They have a communal approach to the incubation of eggs and raising of young. Individual chickens in a flock will dominate others, establishing a "pecking order," with dominant individuals having priority for access to food and nesting locations. Removing hens or roosters from a flock causes a temporary disruption to this social order until a new pecking order is established.
Chickens will try to lay in nests that already contain eggs, and have been known to move eggs from neighbouring nests into their own. Some farmers use fake eggs made from plastic or stone to encourage hens to lay in a particular location. The result of this behavior is that a flock will use only a few preferred locations, rather than having a different nest for every bird.
Hens can also be extremely stubborn about always laying in the same location. It is not unknown for two (or more) hens to try to share the same nest at the same time. If the nest is small, or one of the hens is particularly determined, this may result in chickens trying to lay on top of each other.
Contrary to popular belief, roosters do not crow only at dawn, but may crow at any time of the day or night. Their crowing - a loud and sometimes shrill call - is a territorial signal to other roosters. However, crowing may also result from sudden disturbances within their surroundings.
Recent studies [3] have shown that chickens (and possibly other bird species) still retain vestigial genes to produce teeth in the jaws, although these are dormant in living animals. These are a holdover from primitive birds such as Archaeopteryx, which were descended from theropod dinosaurs. (It has been suggested that chickens are related to Tyrannosaurus rex. [4])
Courting
When a rooster finds food he may call the other chickens to eat it first. He does this by clucking in a high pitch as well as picking up and dropping the food. This behavior can also be observed in mother hens, calling their chicks. In some cases the rooster will drag the wing opposite the hen on the ground, while circling her. This is part of chicken courting ritual. When a hen is used to coming to his "call" the rooster may mount the hen and proceed with the fertilization.
Going broody
Sometimes a hen will stop laying and instead will focus on the incubation of eggs, a state that is commonly known as going broody. A broody chicken will sit fast on the nest, and protest or peck in defense if disturbed or removed, and will rarely leave the nest to eat, drink, or dust bathe. While brooding, the hen maintains constant temperature and humidity, as well as turning the eggs regularly.
At the end of the incubation period, which is an average of 21 days, the eggs (if fertilized) will hatch, and the broody hen will take care of her young. Since individual eggs do not all hatch at exactly the same time (the chicken can only lay one egg approximately every 25 hours), the hen will usually stay on the nest for about two days after the first egg hatches. During this time, the newly-hatched chicks live off the egg yolk they absorb just before hatching. The hen can sense the chicks peeping inside the eggs, and will gently cluck to stimulate them to break out of their shells. If the eggs are not fertilized by a rooster and do not hatch, the hen will eventually lose interest and leave the nest.
Modern egg-laying breeds rarely go broody, and those that do often stop part-way through the incubation cycle. Some breeds, such as the Cochin, Cornish and Silkie, regularly go broody and make excellent maternal figures. Chickens used in this capacity are known as utility chickens.
Artificial incubation
Chicken egg incubation can successfully occur artificially as well. Nearly all chicken eggs will hatch after 21 days of good conditions - 99.5 °F (37.5°C) and around 55% relative humidity (increase to 70% in the last three days of incubation to help soften egg shell). Many commercial incubators are industrial-sized with shelves holding tens of thousands of eggs at a time, with rotation of the eggs a fully automated process.
Home incubators are usually small boxes (Styrofoam incubators are popular) and hold a few to 50 eggs. Eggs must be turned three to five times each day, rotating at least 90 degrees. If eggs aren't turned, the embryo inside will stick to the shell and likely will be hatched with physical defects. This process is natural; hens will stand up three to five times a day and shift the eggs around with their beak.
Chickens as food
The meat of the chicken, also called "chicken," is a type of poultry. Because of its relatively low cost among meats, chicken is one of the most used meats in the world. Nearly all parts of the bird can be used for food, and the meat is cooked in many different ways around the world. Popular chicken dishes include fried chicken, chicken soup, Buffalo wings, tandoori chicken, butter chicken, and chicken rice. Chicken is also a staple of fast food restaurants such as KFC, McDonald's, and Burger King. Chicken has a fairly neutral flavor and texture, and is used as a reference point for describing other foods; many are said to 'taste like chicken' if they are indistinctive.
Chickens as pets
Chickens can make good companion animals and can be tamed by hand feeding, but can sometimes become aggressive. Some have advised against keeping certain breeds around young children[citation needed], as the chickens can become territorial and violent. In Asia, chickens with striking plumage have long been kept for ornamental purposes, including feather-footed varieties such as the Cochin from Vietnam, the Silkie from China, and the extremely long-tailed Phoenix from Japan. Asian ornamental varieties were imported into the United States and Great Britain in the late 1800s. Distinctive American varieties of chickens have been developed from these Asian breeds. Poultry fanciers began keeping these ornamental birds for exhibition, a practice that continues today.
While some cities in the United States still allow chickens as pets, the practice is quickly disappearing.[citation needed] Individuals in rural communities commonly keep chickens for both ornamental and practical value. Some communities ban only roosters, allowing the quieter hens. Zoos sometimes use chickens instead of insecticides to control insect populations.
Chickens are generally low maintenance. The major challenge is protecting the birds from predators such as dogs, raccoons and foxes. Chickens are usually kept in a roost at night and a pen in the day (unless they are free-range). The floor is covered with bedding such as straw or wood shavings. A bird left out at night is likely to be killed by a predator.
Eggs from household chickens can be quite different from the commercial eggs. Fresh yolks are "perky" and float above the white. The yolk color is frequently a deeper color than the pale yellow of commercially raised eggs and can at times be almost orange.
Chickens in agriculture
In the United States, chickens were raised primarily on family farms until roughly 1960. Originally, the primary value in poultry keeping was eggs, and meat was considered a byproduct of egg production. Its supply was less than the demand, and poultry was expensive. Except in hot weather, eggs can be shipped and stored without refrigeration for some time before going bad; this was important in the days before widespread refrigeration.
Farm flocks tended to be small because the hens largely fed themselves through foraging, with some supplementation of grain, scraps, and waste products from other farm ventures. Such feedstuffs were in limited supply, especially in the winter, and this tended to regulate the size of the farm flocks. Soon after poultry keeping gained the attention of agricultural researchers (around 1896), improvements in nutrition and management made poultry keeping more profitable and businesslike.
Prior to about 1910, chicken was served primarily on special occasions or Sunday dinner. Poultry was shipped live or killed, plucked, and packed on ice (but not eviscerated). The "whole, ready-to-cook broiler" wasn't popular until the Fifties, when end-to-end refrigeration and sanitary practices gave consumers more confidence. Before this, poultry were often cleaned by the neighborhood butcher, though cleaning poultry at home was a commonplace kitchen skill.
Two kinds of poultry were generally used: broilers or "spring chickens;" young male chickens, a byproduct of the egg industry, which were sold when still young and tender (generally under 3 pounds live weight), and "stewing hens," also a byproduct of the egg industry, which were old hens past their prime for laying. [5]
The major milestone in 20th century poultry production was the discovery of vitamin D, which made it possible to keep chickens in confinement year-round. Before this, chickens did not thrive during the winter (due to lack of sunlight), and egg production, incubation, and meat production in the off-season were all very difficult, making poultry a seasonal and expensive proposition. Year-round production lowered costs, especially for broilers.
At the same time, egg production was increased by scientific breeding. After a few false starts (such as the Maine Experiment Station's failure at improving egg production[6], success was shown by Professor Dryden at the Oregon Experiment Station[7].
Improvements in production and quality were accompanied by lower labor requirements. In the Thirties through the early Fifties, 1,500 hens was considered to be a full-time job for a farm family. In the late Fifties, egg prices had fallen so dramatically that farmers typically tripled the number of hens they kept, putting three hens into what had been a single-bird cage or converting their floor-confinement houses from a single deck of roosts to triple-decker roosts. Not long after this, prices fell still further and large numbers of egg farmers left the business.
Robert Plamondon[8] reports that the last family chicken farm in his part of Oregon, Rex Farms, had 30,000 layers and survived into the Nineties. But the standard laying house of the current operators is around 125,000 hens.
This fall in profitability was accompanied by a general fall in prices to the consumer, allowing poultry and eggs to lose their status as luxury foods.
The vertical integration of the egg and poultry industries was a late development, occurring after all the major technological changes had been in place for years (including the development of modern broiler rearing techniques, the adoption of the Cornish Cross broiler, the use of laying cages, etc.).
By the late Fifties, poultry production had changed dramatically. Large farms and packing plants could grow birds by the tens of thousands. Chickens could be sent to slaughterhouses for butchering and processing into prepackaged commercial products to be frozen or shipped fresh to markets or wholesalers. Meat-type chickens currently grow to market weight in six to seven weeks whereas only fifty years ago it took three times as long.[9] This is due to genetic selection and nutritional modifications (and not the use of growth hormones, which are illegal for use in poultry in the US and many other countries). Once a meat consumed only occasionally, the common availability and lower cost has made chicken a common meat product within developed nations. Growing concerns over the cholesterol content of red meat in the 1980s and 1990s further resulted in increased consumption of chicken.
Today, eggs are produced on large egg ranches on which environmental parameters are well controlled. Chickens are exposed to artificial light cycles to stimulate egg production year-round. In addition, it is a common practice to induce molting through careful manipulation of light and the amount of food they receive in order to further increase egg size and production.
On average, a chicken lays one egg a day, but not on every day of the year. This varies with the breed and time of year. In 1900, average egg production was 83 eggs per hen per year. In 2000, it was well over 300. In the United States, laying hens are butchered after their second egg laying season. In Europe, they are generally butchered after a single season. The laying period begins when the hen is about 18-20 weeks old (depending on breed and season). Males of the egg-type breeds have little commercial value at any age, and all those not used for breeding (roughly fifty percent of all egg-type chickens) are killed soon after hatching. The old hens also have little commercial value. Thus, the main sources of poultry meat 100 years ago (spring chickens and stewing hens) have both been entirely supplanted by meat-type broiler chickens.
Issues with mass production
Humane Treatment
The animal welfare industry has frequently targeted the poultry industry for engaging in "inhumane practices." There are different groups concerned with animal welfare, which may not have overlapping viewpoints. Vegetarian activists are against keeping livestock in general. Other activists work not with farmers but with consumers, leaving the relevance and practicality of their efforts open to question. Finally, there are the farmers themselves, backed up by agricultural research groups such as the USDA's Extension Service[10]. Ethology, the scientific study of animal behavior, provides insight into the needs, preferences, and social organization of livestock, and their preferred living conditions.
Many animal welfare advocates object to killing chickens for food, or to the "factory farm conditions" under which they are raised. Sometimes they do both at once, campaigning against the conditions under which chickens are raised, when in fact improvements will not satisfy them since their goal is to eliminate the use of livestock altogether. For example, fast food giant KFC has been the target of PETA recently due to its methods of keeping its chickens, even though it is clear from their motto, "Animals are not ours to eat, wear, experiment on, or use for entertainment"[11], that they oppose keeping livestock in the first place. It should be noted, however, that animal welfare advocates oppose keeping livestock in part because of the inhumane treatment they are thought to suffer.
As with other species, chickens raised for meat are slaughtered when still young and tender. In the case of broiler chickens, this is at six weeks for modern breeds, and thus many of the aggressive behaviors seen in adult chickens (fighting, cannibalism) are seldom seen in for-meat chickens. Laying hens are kept much longer, with two years being normal in the U.S., and one in Europe. They are therefore routinely debeaked to prevent fighting. Because beaks are sensitive, trimming them without anaesthesia is considered inhumane by some. This practice does, however, save chickens from injuring one another, so it may improve the living conditions of chickens in the long-term. It is also argued that the procedure causes life-long discomfort. One farmer who has kept both debeaked and non-debeaked chickens free range on the same pasture for many years has observed no difference in behavior or the apparent level of contentment.[12]
When advocating more humane treatment of chickens, it is sometimes asserted that they are intelligent. On The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, a trained chicken was shown playing "Mary Had a Little Lamb" on a toy piano and bowled 3 strikes.[citation needed] Animal welfare groups such as PETA regard such cases as evidence that the birds are intelligent.[1] Dr. Chris Evans of Macquarie University claims that their range of 20 calls, problem solving skills and the ability to recognise each other by facial features demonstrate the intelligence of chickens, saying "As a trick at conferences, I sometimes list these attributes, without mentioning chickens, and people think I’m talking about monkeys." [2].
Another animal welfare issue is the use of selective breeding to create heavy, large-breasted birds, which can lead to crippling leg disorders and heart failure for some of the birds unless they are kept on a restricted diet. Concerns have been raised that companies growing single varieties of bird for eggs or meat are increasing their theoretical susceptiblity to disease. For this reason, many scientists are promoting the conservation of heritage breeds to retain genetic diversity in the species. Government efforts to do this have been largely unsuccessful due to erratic funding.
In 2004, 8.9 billion chickens were slaughtered in the United States. [13]
Human Concerns
Antibiotics
Because raising chickens in close quarters fosters the spread of disease, factory farms use antibiotics as a matter of course; many contend that this puts humans at risk as bacterial strains develop stronger and stronger resistances. [14]
A proposed bill in the American congress would make the use of antibiotics in animal feed legal only for therapeutic (rather than preventative) use, but it has not been passed yet. [15] However, this may present the risk of slaughtered chickens harboring pathogenic bacteria and passing them on to humans that consume them.
In October 2000, the FDA discovered that two antibiotics were no longer effective in treating diseases found in factory-farmed chickens; one antibiotic was willfully and swiftly pulled from the market, but the other, Baytril was not. Bayer, the company which produced it, contested the claim and as a result, Baytril remained in use until July of 2005. [16]
Arsenic
Chicken feed can also include Roxarsone, an antimicrobial drug that also promotes growth. The drug has generated controversy because it contains the element arsenic, which can cause cancer, dementia, and neurological problems in humans. Yet the arsenic in Roxarsone is not of the type which has been linked to cancer. A Consumer Reports study in 2004 reported finding "no detectable arsenic in our samples of muscle" but found "A few of our chicken-liver samples has an amount that according to EPA standards could cause neurological problems in a child who ate 2 ounces of cooked liver per week or in an adult who ate 5.5 ounces per week." However, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is the organization responsible for the regulation of foods in America, and all samples tested were "far less than the... amount allowed in a food product." [17]
Growth Hormones
Chickens grow much more rapidly than they once did and some consumers have concluded that this rapid growth is due to the use of hormones in these animals. Some consumers believe that the increasingly earlier onset of puberty in humans is the result of the liberal use of such hormones. However, hormone use in poultry production is illegal in the United States. [18] Similarly, no chicken meat for sale in Australia is fed hormones. [19] Furthermore, several scientific studies have documented the fact that chickens grow rapidly because they are bred to do so. [20] [21] A small producer of natural and organic chickens confirmed this assumption:
If this were 1948, you might have something to worry about. Using hormones to boost egg production was a brief fad in the Forties, but was abandoned because it didn't work. Using hormones to produce soft-meated roasters was used to some extent in the Forties and Fifties, but the increased growth rates of broilers made the practice irrelevant--the broilers got as big as anyone wanted them to get when they were still young enough to be soft-meated without chemicals. The only hormone that was ever used in any quantity on poultry (DES) was banned in 1959, after everyone but a few die-hard farmers had given them up as a silly idea. Hormones are now illegal in poultry and eggs. The people who advertise "No hormones" are either woefully ignorant or are indulging in cynical fear-mongering, maybe both.
E.coli
According to Consumer Reports, "1.1 million or more Americans [are] sickened each year by undercooked, tainted chicken." A USDA study discovered E.Coli in 99% of supermarket chicken, the result of chicken butchering not being a sterile process. Feces tend to leak from the carcass until the evisceration stage, and the evisceration stage itself gives an opportunity for the interior of the carcass to receive intestinal bacteria. (So does the skin of the carcass, but the skin presents a better barrier to bacteria and reaches higher temperatures during cooking). Before 1950, this was contained largely by not eviscerating the carcass at the time of butchering, deferring this until the time of retail sale or in the home. This gave the intestinal bacteria less opportunity to colonize the edible meat. The development of the "ready-to-cook broiler" in the Fifties added convenience while introducing risk, under the assumption that end-to-end refrigeration and thorough cooking would provide adequate protection. E. Coli can be killed by proper cooking times, but there is still some risk associated with it, and its near-ubiquity in commercially-farmed chicken is troubling to some. Irradiation has been proposed as a means of sterilizing chicken meat after butchering.
Avian Influenza
There is also a risk that the crowded conditions in many chicken farms will allow avian influenza to spread quickly. A United Nations press release states: "Governments, local authorities and international agencies need to take a greatly increased role in combating the role of factory-farming, commerce in live poultry, and wildlife markets which provide ideal conditions for the virus to spread and mutate into a more dangerous form..." [22]
Efficiency Issues
Farming of chickens on an industrial scale relies on high protein feeds derived from soybeans. Giving the feed to chickens means the nutrients in the feed reach humans with a much lower efficiency than through direct consumption of soybean products. However, some vitamins, such as B12, are present in chicken but not in the soybean, so soybean products do not necessarily offer a complete substitute for chicken.
Chicken diseases
Chickens are susceptible to several parasites, including lice, mites, ticks, fleas, and intestinal worms, as well as other diseases. (Despite the name, they are not affected by Chickenpox; that is a disease of humans, not chickens.)
Some of the common diseases that affect chickens are shown below:
| Name | Common Name | Caused by |
| Aspergillosis | fungi | |
| Avian influenza | bird flu | virus |
| Histomoniasis | Blackhead disease | protozoal parasite |
| Botulism | toxin | |
| Cage Layer Fatigue | small cage | |
| Coccidiosis | parasites | |
| Colds | virus | |
| Crop Bound | improper feeding | |
| Egg bound | oversized egg | |
| Erysipelas | bacteria | |
| Fatty Liver Hemorrhagic Syndrome | high-energy food | |
| Fowl Cholera | bacteria | |
| Fowl pox | virus | |
| Fowl Typhoid | bacteria | |
| Gallid herpesvirus 1 or Infectious Laryngotracheitis |
virus | |
| Gapeworms | Syngamus trachea | worms |
| Infectious Bronchitis | virus | |
| Infectious Bursal Disease | Gumboro | virus |
| Infectious Coryza | bacteria | |
| Lymphoid Leucosis | virus | |
| Marek's disease | virus | |
| Moniliasis | Yeast Infection or Thrush |
fungi |
| Mycoplasmas | bacteria-like organisms | |
| Newcastle disease | virus | |
| Necrotic Enteritis | bacteria | |
| Omphalitis | Mushy chick disease | umbilical cord stump |
| Prolapse | ||
| Psittacosis | bacteria | |
| Pullorum | Salmonella | bacteria |
| Scaly leg | parasites | |
| Squamous cell carcinoma | cancer | |
| Tibial dyschondroplasia | speed growing | |
| Toxoplasmosis | protozoal parasite | |
| Ulcerative Enteritis | bacteria |
Chickens in religion
In Indonesia the chicken has great significance during the Hindu cremation ceremony. A chicken is considered a channel for evil spirits which may be present during the ceremony. A chicken is tethered by the leg and kept present at the ceremony for its duration to ensure that any evil spirits present during the ceremony go into the chicken and not the family members present. The chicken is then taken home and returns to its normal life.
In ancient Greece, the chicken was not normally used for sacrifices, perhaps because it was still considered an exotic animal. Because of its valour, the cock is found as an attribute of Ares, Heracles, and Athena. The alleged last words of Socrates as he died from hemlock poisoning, as recounted by Plato, were "Crito, I owe a cock to Asclepius; will you remember to pay the debt?", signifying that death was a cure for the illness of life.
The Greeks believed that even lions were afraid of cocks. Several of Aesop's Fables reference this belief. In the cult of Mithras, the cock was a symbol of the divine light and a guardian against evil.[citation needed]
In the Bible, Jesus prophesied the betrayal by Peter: "Jesus answered, "I tell you, Peter, before the rooster crows today, you will deny three times that you know me." " (Luke 22:34) Thus it happened (Luke 22:61), and Peter cried bitterly. This made the cock a symbol for both vigilance and betrayal.
Earlier, Jesus compares himself to a mother hen when talking about Jerusalem: "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing." (Matthew 23:37; also Luke 13:34).
In many Central European folk tales, the devil is believed to flee at the first crowing of a cock.
In traditional Jewish practice, a chicken is swung around the head and then slaughtered on the afternoon before Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, in a ritual called kapparos. The sacrifice of the chicken is to receive atonement, for the bird takes on all the person's sins in kapparos. The meat is then donated to the poor. A woman brings a hen for the ceremony, while a man brings a rooster. Although not actually a sacrifice in the biblical sense, the death of the chicken reminds the penitent sinner that his or her life is in God's hands.
The Talmud speaks of learning "courtesy toward one's mate" from the rooster. This might refer to the fact that when a rooster finds something good to eat, he calls his hens to eat first.
The chicken is one of the Zodiac symbols of the Chinese calendar. Also in Chinese religion, a cooked chicken as a religious offering is usually limited to ancestor veneration and worship of village deities. Vegetarian deities such as the Buddha are not one of the recipients of such offerings. Under some observations, an offering of chicken is presented with "serious" prayer (while roasted pork is offered during a joyous celebration). In Confucian Chinese Weddings, a chicken can be used as a substitute for one who is seriously ill or not available (e.g sudden death) to attend the ceremony. A red silk scarf is placed on the chicken's head and a close relative of the absent bride/groom holds the chicken so the ceremony may proceed. However, this practice is rare today.
Chickens in history
The first pictures of chickens in Europe are found on Corinthian pottery of the 7th century BC. The poet Cratinus (mid-5th century BC, according to the later Greek author Athenaeus) calls the chicken "the Persian alarm". In Aristophanes's comedy The Birds (414 BC) a chicken is called "the Median bird", which points to an introduction from the East. Pictures of chickens are found on Greek red figure and black-figure pottery.
In ancient Greece, chickens were still rare and were a rather prestigious food for symposia. Delos seems to have been a centre of chicken breeding.
An early domestication of chickens in Southeast Asia is probable, since the word for domestic chicken (*manuk) is part of the reconstructed Proto-Austronesian language (see Austronesian languages). Chickens, together with dogs and pigs, were the domestic animals of the Lapita culture, the first Neolithic culture of Oceania.
Chickens were spread by Polynesian seafarers and reached Easter Island in the 12th century AD, where they were the only domestic animal, with the possible exception of the Polynesian Rat (Rattus exulans). They were housed in extremely solid chicken coops built from stone. Traveling as cargo on trading boats, they reached the Asian continent via the islands of Indonesia and from there spread west to Europe and western Asia.
The Romans used chickens for oracles, both when flying ("ex avibus") and when feeding ("auspicium ex tripudiis"). The hen ("gallina") gave a favourable omen ("auspicium ratum"), when appearing from the left (Cic.,de Div. ii.26), like the crow and the owl.
For the oracle "ex tripudiis" according to Cicero (Cic. de Div. ii.34), any bird could be used, but normally only chickens ("pulli") were consulted. The chickens were cared for by the pullarius, who opened their cage and fed them pulses or a special kind of soft cake when an augury was needed. If the chickens stayed in their cage, made noises ("occinerent"), beat their wings or flew away, the omen was bad; if they ate greedily, the omen was good.
In 249 BC, the Roman general Publius Claudius Pulcher had his chickens thrown overboard when they refused to feed before the battle of Drepana, saying "If they won't eat, perhaps they will drink." He promptly lost the battle against the Carthaginians and 93 Roman ships were sunk. Back in Rome, he was tried for impiety and heavily fined.
In 161 BC a law was passed in Rome that forbade the consumption of fattened chickens. It was renewed a number of times, but does not seem to have been successful. Fattening chickens with bread soaked in milk was thought to give especially delicious results. The Roman gourmet Apicius offers 17 recipes for chicken, mainly boiled chicken with a sauce. All parts of the animal are used: the recipes include the stomach, liver, testicles and even the pygostyle (the fatty "tail" of the chicken where the tail feathers attach).
The Roman author Columella gives advice on chicken breeding in his eighth book of his treatise on agriculture. He identifies Tanagrian, Rhodic, Chalkidic and Median (commonly misidentified as Melian) breeds, which have an impressive appearance, a quarrelsome nature and were used for cockfighting by the Greeks. For farming, native (Roman) chickens are to be preferred, or a cross between native hens and Greek cocks. Dwarf chickens are nice to watch because of their size but have no other advantages.
Per Columella, the ideal flock consists of 200 birds, which can be supervised by one person if someone is watching for stray animals. White chickens should be avoided as they are not very fertile and are easily caught by eagles or goshawks. One cock should be kept for five hens. In the case of Rhodian and Median cocks that are very heavy and therefore not much inclined to sex, only three hens are kept per cock. The hens of heavy fowls are not much inclined to brood; therefore their eggs are best hatched by normal hens. A hen can hatch no more than 15-23 eggs, depending on the time of year, and supervise no more than 30 hatchlings. Eggs that are long and pointed give more male, rounded eggs mainly female hatchlings.
Per Columella, Chicken coops should face southeast and lie adjacent to the kitchen, as smoke is beneficial for the animals. Coops should consist of three rooms and possess a hearth. Dry dust or ash should be provided for dust-baths.
According to Columella, chicken should be fed on barley groats, small chick-peas, millet and wheat bran, if they are cheap. Wheat itself should be avoided as it is harmful to the birds. Boiled ryegrass (Lollium sp.) and the leaves and seeds of alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.) can be used as well. Grape marc can be used, but only when the hens stop laying eggs, that is, about the middle of November; otherwise eggs are small and few. When feeding grape marc, it should be supplemented with some bran. Hens start to lay eggs after the winter solstice, in warm places around the first of January, in colder areas in the middle of February. Parboiled barley increases their fertility; this should be mixed with alfalfa leaves and seeds, or vetches or millet if alfalfa is not at hand. Free-ranging chickens should receive two cups of barley daily.
Columella advises farmers to slaughter hens that are older than three years, because they no longer produce sufficient eggs.
Capons were produced by burning out their spurs with a hot iron. The wound was treated with potter's chalk.
For the use of poultry and eggs in the kitchens of ancient Rome see Roman eating and drinking.
Chickens in South America
An unusual variety of chicken that has its origins in South America is the araucana. Araucanas, some of which are tailless and some of which have tufts of feathers around their ears, lay blue-green eggs. As J. Gongora reports, some people have suggested that they predate the arrival of European chickens brought by the Spanish and are evidence of pre-Columbian trans-pacific contacts between Asia and South America. [23]
See also
- List of chicken breeds
- Chicken coop
- Chickens in popular culture
- Symbolic chickens
- Chicken hypnotism
- The chicken or the egg
- Why did the chicken cross the road?
- Rubber chicken
- Gamebird hybrids - hybrids between chickens, peafowl, guineafowl and pheasants
- Chook raffle - A type of raffle where the prize is a chicken.
References
- ^ according to the Firefly Encyclopedia of Birds
- ^ http://www.ruleworks.co.uk/cgi-bin/TUfaq.exe?Guide=Poultry&Category=Poultry%20-%20General#q9
- ^ http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,185704,00.html
- ^ http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6548719.stm
- ^ "The Dollar Hen", Milo Hastings, (1909)
- ^ "The Dollar Hen", Milo Hastings, (1909)
- ^ Dryden, James. Poultry Breeding and Management. Orange Judd Press, 1916.
- ^ http://www.plamondon.com
- ^ Havenstein, G.B., P.R. Ferket, and M.A. Qureshi, 2003a. Growth, livability, and feed conversion of 1957 versus 2001 broilers when fed representative 1957 and 2001 broiler diets. Poult. Sci. 82:1500-1508
- ^ http://www.csrees.usda.gov/ USDA Cooperative Research, Education, and Extension Service
- ^ People_for_the_Ethical_Treatment_of_Animals
- ^ http://www.plamondon.com/faq_welfare.html
- ^ http://usda.mannlib.cornell.edu/reports/nassr/poultry/ppy-bb/
- ^ http://dwb.unl.edu/Teacher/NSF/C10/C10Links/www.sierraclub.org/cafos/toolkit/antibiotic.asp
- ^ http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/food/animal-feed-and-the-food-supply-105/chicken-arsenic-and-antibiotics/index.htm
- ^ http://www.mindfully.org/Farm/2005/Baytril-Antibiotic-Banned29jul05.htm
- ^ http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/food/animal-feed-and-the-food-supply-105/chicken-arsenic-and-antibiotics/index.htm
- ^ http://www.fda.gov/cvm/hormones.htm
- ^ http://www.abc.net.au/landline/stories/s543233.htm
- ^ http://ps.fass.org/cgi/content/abstract/82/10/1509
- ^ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=7877935&dopt=Abstract
- ^ http://www.farmsanctuary.org/newsletter/Avain_flu.htm
- ^ J. Gongora, et al., "Mitochondrial DNA sequences reveal a putative East Asian ancestry for old Chilean chickens," Proceedings of the International Conference on Animal Genetics, ISAG 2006, Porto Seguro, BA, Brasil.
P. Smith, The Chicken Book (University of Georgia Press, 2000), passim.
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