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Chickens are among the oldest pets: bones of them dating back 8,000 years have been found in China! In ancient Egypt, they were worshiped as they heralded the sun god.

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What do chickens look like?

The ancestor of our chickens is the wild Bankiva chicken (Gallus gallus) from India. It is smaller than domestic chickens and its plumage is partridge-colored. Our domestic chickens weigh 1.8 to 2.2 kilograms. The red comb and the wattles on the head are typical. Especially in the roosters, the crest is very large.

Chickens belong to the pheasant family; they are birds that live on the ground most of the time. They can’t fly very well, but they can run all the faster with their powerful legs. The wings of domestic chickens are usually trimmed so that the animals do not flap away. Chickens can only see up close, they cannot see anything more than 50 meters away.

The body of the domestic chicken is quite massive, the head is small. Chickens’ feet have four toes: three big toes point forward, one smaller toe points backward. A pointed spur sits over this toe. The roosters use it as a dangerous weapon in rooster fights.

The feet have no feathers; they are covered with yellow horny scales. The plumage of chickens can be of different colors. Once a year it is changed at the Mauser. Today’s chicken breeds are mostly either white or brown, but there are also beautifully colored breeds: mottled black and white, mottled brown or black. The roosters can be really colorful, e.g. B. black with red-brown and beige as well as blue or green iridescent tail feathers. In addition, roosters are significantly larger than hens.

Where do chickens live?

Today, domestic chickens are common all over the world. Our domestic chickens love meadows where they can forage for food. At night they need a stable to be protected from the cold and enemies.

What types of chickens are there?

There are five subspecies of the wild Bankiva fowl; Today there are around 150 different breeds of our domestic chicken. Since the 19th century, people have tried to breed chickens that lay a lot of eggs. This resulted in the white leghorn chicken. In addition, breeds were bred that provided a particularly large amount of meat, such as the Brahma chicken. Wild relatives of the domestic fowl are capercaillie, black grouse, partridge, as well as pheasant, and quail.

However, some breeds of chickens are kept less for laying eggs and more as ornamental breeds for their appearance. Among the most beautiful are the silky chickens. This special breed originated in China more than 800 years ago and is also bred here today. Silkies are smaller than our domestic chickens and have different plumage:

Because the fine side branches of the feathers have no barbs, they do not form stable feathers but act like hair. The whole plumage is more reminiscent of soft, fluffy, long fur than plumage. As a result, silkies cannot fly. The plumage can be colored very differently: the color palette ranges from reddish-brown to silver-grey to black, white, yellowish, and even dark blue. Silkies also have five toes on their feet instead of four and have black-blue skin.

ਮੁਰਗੀਆਂ ਦੀ ਉਮਰ ਕਿੰਨੀ ਹੁੰਦੀ ਹੈ?

Chickens can live 15 to 20 years. However, hens that live in modern laying batteries stop laying eggs after 10 to 18 months and are therefore slaughtered.

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How do chickens live?

As everyone knows from the crowing of the roosters in the morning, chickens are real early risers, but they also go to bed early in the evening. Chickens are social animals. They live in groups and have a fixed rank and pecking order. High-ranking hens and roosters are always allowed to go to the feeding bowl first and can choose which perch they want to sleep on.

These rank fights are pretty fierce: the animals chop each other with their beaks. Once an animal succumbs, it acknowledges the stronger and stops fighting. The chicken that is at the bottom of the hierarchy does not have an easy life: the others pick on it and it is the last to go to the feeding trough. When hens live in small groups and a hierarchy has formed, there is mostly silence and the rooster defends its hens from enemies with loud crows and flapping of their wings.

Chickens love taking a sand or dust bath in the ground. They fluff up their feathers and snuggle up in a hollow in the ground. This dust bath helps them to rid their feathers of annoying mites. At night they go into their stable and sleep up there on the perches. Chickens prefer to lay their eggs in a nest made of straw. The fact that our current breeds can lay an egg almost every day is because the eggs were taken away from them every day: this increased fertility and the hens produced eggs constantly. A wild hen creates just 36 eggs a year, while battery hens lay up to 270 eggs a year.

Friends and foes of the chicken

Foxes and birds of prey can be dangerous to chickens and especially chicks.

ਮੁਰਗੇ ਕਿਵੇਂ ਪੈਦਾ ਕਰਦੇ ਹਨ?

Chickens lay eggs. The development from the egg cell to the yolk ball and the finished egg with albumen (also called albumen) and shell takes about 24 hours. If the hen mates with the rooster and is allowed to keep her eggs, a chick will grow inside the egg. Yolk and egg white contain all the important nutrients that the chick needs for its development.

Between the albumen and the air-permeable shell are the inner and outer shell skins, between which an air chamber forms. This way the chick gets enough oxygen. During incubation, the hen turns the eggs over and over again, thus ensuring that the temperature is constantly at 25 °C.

After about three weeks, the chicks hatch by penetrating the shell from the inside with the so-called egg tooth on the beak. They look like little yellow shuttlecocks and are real precocial: Once their feathers have dried, they can run after the mother. Mother and chick recognize each other by looks and voice.

How do chickens communicate?

Everyone knows how a chicken clucks. And it does so in many different ways. Chickens also make gurgling noises. The roosters are known for their loud crowing.