Chick with Squeak Mini Friend 10cm

Physical Characteristics
Adult male chickens, Cockerels (or Roosters) can usually be differentiated from hens by their striking plumage marked by long flowing tails and shiny pointed feathers on their necks and backs (the hackles and saddle) - these are often coloured differently from the hackles and saddles of females. Domestic chickens are not capable of long distance flight although lighter birds are generally capable of flying for short distances, such as over fences or into trees for roosting.

Habitat
The chicken is one of the most common and widespread domestic animals. Numbered in their billions, there are more chickens in the world than any other bird. Humans keep chickens primarily as a source of food, consuming both their meat and their eggs.

Behaviour
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.

Breeding
At the end of the incubation period (about 21 days), the eggs, if fertile, will hatch. Development of the egg starts only when incubation begins, so they all 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. The chick begins by pipping - pecking a breathing hole with its egg tooth towards the blunt end of the egg, usually on the upper side. It will then rest for some hours, absorbing the remaining egg-yolk and withdrawing the blood supply from the membrane beneath the shell (used earlier for breathing through the shell). It then enlarges the hole, gradually turning round as it goes, and eventually severing the blunt end of the shell completely to make a lid. It crawls out of the remaining shell and dries out its wet down in the warmth of the nest.

Diet
Chickens are omnivores. In the wild, they often scratch at the soil to search for seeds, insects and even larger animals such as lizards or young mice.

Strange and Interesting Facts
The world's oldest chicken, according to the Guinness Book of World Records, died of heart failure when she was 16 years old.