March 19th was National Poultry Day!

I’m a little late, but we just celebrated NATIONAL POULTRY DAY. Well, you know you don’t have to encourage me to celebrate chickens (and turkeys and ducks and quail). So here are a few facts you may not know about chickens!

1. Chickens can run at 9MPH, but they can’t fly far. Their flight is more of a flutter-assisted hop. You won’t ever see chickens soaring like eagles.

2. Chickens do not sweat. Which is why I put fans on my heavily-feathered girls in summer.

3. There are more chickens than humans in the world. If every human had a laying hen, we’d take care of starvation.

4. Brown eggs cost more than white eggs–because white layers ( mostly leghorns) lay every day; brown laying hens don’t. So they cost more to feed/raise than white-egg laying hens.

5. Chickens do not take baths with water. They take baths in dust and dirt.

6. Hens do not play favorites with their chicks.

7. Chickens can recognize people. My experience tells me they DO play favorites with people.

8. Chickens Are Not Colorblind

9. Do chickens know their names? Perhaps.

10. The most expensive part about keeping chickens is the coop–if you build a proper one that predators cannot break through or dig under.

11. Chicks start to peck each other (establish a pecking order) at three days old.

12. Do hens need sunlight to develop a hard shell? No, but they do need 10-14 hours of sunlight to produce eggs. God gives them the winter off.

13. Hens only use one of their ovaries unless the other one is damaged.

14. What causes double yolked eggs? A double yolk egg is caused by two yolks being released by the ovary at the same time.

15. Double yolk eggs do not hatch into two chicks.

16. Colored eggs do not taste any different than white eggs. Eggs come in many colors: blue, green, tan, ivory, brown, speckled, and even pink!

17. A darker yolk is not more nutritious–but it shows that the hen has been eating grass, bugs, etc, not only chicken feed.

18. Chickens are one of the few birds to have comb and wattles

19. Chickens are descendants of the Red Jungle Fowl

20. A cloudy egg white means the egg is fresh. Fresh eggs also sink to the bottom of a cup of water. Older eggs float in water because air has penetrated the shell.

21. Different chickens have different combs. The color of the comb can indicate the bird’s health.

22. Will I get salmonella if I eat a raw egg? These days it is incredibly rare to find a chicken egg infected with salmonella.

23. Can chicks survive without a hen? Yes. They know how to eat and walk when they hatch. But chicks in the wild will die without a mama hen to keep them warm and protect them. Everything likes to eat chickens.

24. Chicks can identify their mothers.

25. Chickens do not need to forage to survive.

26. DNA-wise, chickens are most closely related to the Tyrannosaurus Rex. Amazing, right?

Until next time,

Angie