14 things you should know about chickens

 

1       A chicken is comprised of approximately 75% water.

2      Chickens can run up to 9mph.

3      The Guinness World Record for the smallest chicken egg is 2.7cm but there has reportedly been       another find of a 2.1cm chicken egg found in 2011 by a Rev. Donnie Russell of South Carolina.
   
4      The oldest living chicken was 22 years old.  She was a Red Quilled Muffed American Red Game  named Muffy.

5      The world’s largest chicken weighed in at 23lbs 3oz.  “Big Snow”, a White Sully, was bred in Queensland Australia by Ronald Alldridge and died in 1992 of natural causes.

6      Chickens can be sweet – but they can’t taste it.  They can taste salt in foods though, and generally tend to avoid it.

7     Chickens never forget a face.  Well, maybe not never but they can distinguish between more than 100 faces including yours and your family’s.  Mine even recognize my dogs.

8     Chickens hold the honor of being the leader in food production.  More chickens are raised and killed for food than all other land animals combined.

9      The largest chicken egg is reportedly 9.2cm long and 6.3cm wide and weighs a whopping 201grams making it three times heavier than a standard sized chicken egg.  The proud owner resides in Heilongjiang Province, China.  The same hen is reported to once have laid four eggs in a single day.

10     Chickens are smarter than human babies!  Italian researchers have successfully demonstrated that young chicks have a sense of “object permanence” from as early as two days old.  Human babies don’t reach this milestone until they are around 6-7 months old.

11     Chickens are not colorblind.  In fact, they see color better than humans do.  While humans have three cones to help them differentiate red, green and blue chickens are also able to differentiate violet and ultraviolet light.  What’s more, the color differentiating cones in chicken’s eyes are more evenly distributed than in the human eye making it even easier for them to differentiate color.

12     Chickens have three eyelids.  In addition to the usual top and bottom eyelid that work together to close simultaneously and meet in the middle of the eye chickens have a third eyelid – called the nictitating membrane.  The nictitating membrane is a transparent membrane which opens and closes horizontally and operates independently of the top and bottom eyelids.  It also has its own lubricating duct.

 13    Chickens are chatty!  There are more than 30 known types of vocalizations including different vocalizations to coincide with different predator threats.

14      Chickens experience REM sleep – which means they are capable of dreaming.  I wonder what a chicken dreams about?

 Source: Backyard Chickens