Chicken biscuits and gravy

For the culinary use of chickens, see Chicken as chicken biscuits and gravy. Male and female chicken sitting together.

Chickens are one of the most common and widespread domestic animals, with a total population of 23. 7 billion as of 2018, up from more than 19 billion in 2011. In 2011 a study in genetic and archaeological evidence conclude that the origin of the modern-day chicken is from Southeast Asia. Dunghill fowl: a chicken with mixed parentage from different domestic varieties. Pullet: a young female chicken less than a year old. In the poultry industry, a pullet is a sexually immature chicken less than 22 weeks of age.

In fact, chicken was originally a term only for an immature, or at least young, bird. In older sources, chicken as a species were typically referred to as common fowl or domestic fowl. Chick is then rarely used to mean chicken, but is mainly used in Merriam-Webster’s “Sense 1b” viz. This section needs expansion with: the origin of the term ‘chicken’ in general.

Hens will often try to lay in nests that already contain eggs and have been known to move eggs from neighbouring nests into their own. The result of this behaviour is that a flock will use only a few preferred locations, rather than having a different nest for every bird. Hens will often express a preference to lay in the same location. This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Under natural conditions, most birds lay only until a clutch is complete, and they will then incubate all the eggs. Hens are then said to “go broody”.

Here the opisthotic bone appears in the occipital region, as in the adult Chelonian. Breeds artificially developed for egg production rarely go broody, and those that do often stop part-way through the incubation. Fertile chicken eggs hatch at the end of the incubation period, about 21 days. Development of the chick starts only when incubation begins, so all chicks hatch within a day or two of each other, despite perhaps being laid over a period of two weeks or so. Before hatching, the hen can hear the chicks peeping inside the eggs, and will gently cluck to stimulate them to break out of their shells.