 Search Britannica...
 Subscribe Login 
Home Games & Quizzes History & Society Science & Tech Biographies Animals & Nature Geography & Travel Arts & Culture Money Videos
chicken
Table of Contents
Introduction
Natural history
Social hierarchy
Domestication and economic
production
References & Edit History
Quick Facts & Related Topics
Images & Videos
 Galliformes) of India. The chicken is perhaps the
For Students
chicken summary
Quizzes
Ultimate Animals Quiz
Animal Group Names
Ultimate Bird Trivia Quiz
Deadliest Animals Quiz
Wild Words from the
Animal Kingdom
Vocabulary Quiz
Read Next
7 More Domestic Animals
and Their Wild Ancestors
11 Questions About Birds
Answered
8 Birds That Canʼt Fly
Abundant Animals: The
Most Numerous
Organisms in the World
How Mike the Chicken
Survived Without a Head
Discover
Why Is Missouri Called
the Show Me State?
Whatʼs the Difference
Between a Turtle and a
Tortoise?
Why Do Bananas Turn
Brown?
Why Was Nazi Germany
Called the Third Reich?
When Does Summer
Start?
How Fast Is the Worldʼs
Fastest Human?
7 of History's Most
Notorious Serial Killers
tandoori chicken
Table of Contents
Introduction
References & Edit History
Quick Facts & Related Topics
Images
Quizzes
Whatʼs on the Menu?
Vocabulary Quiz
Cuisine of India
Related Questions
What are the oldest known
civilizations of India?
What are the major holidays and
festivals of India?
Read Next
7 More Domestic Animals
and Their Wild Ancestors
How Mike the Chicken
Survived Without a Head
Do Birds Pee?
Nutritional Powerhouses:
8 Foods That Pack a
Nutritional Punch
Why Do Animals Have
Tails?
Discover
Why Is the Indy 500 Held
on Memorial Day
Weekend?
10 Greatest Baseball
Players of All Time
The Top COVID-19
Vaccine Myths Spreading
Online
6 Animals That Eat Their
Mates
10 Best Hockey Players of
All Time
How Did the Rainbow Flag
Become a Symbol of
LGBTQ Pride?
Why Is Missouri Called
the Show Me State?
 Home  Science  Birds, Reptiles & Other Vertebrates  Birds
chicken
bird
 Print  Cite  Share  Feedback 
Also known as: Gallus domesticus
Written and fact-checked by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Last Updated: May 27, 2024 • Article History
Chicken, (Gallus gallus), any of more than 60
breeds of medium-sized poultry that are
primarily descended from the wild red jungle
fowl (Gallus gallus, family Phasianidae, order

most widely domesticated fowl, raised worldwide
for its meat and eggs.
Rhode Island Red rooster
Despite the chicken’s close relationship with the
red jungle fowl, there is evidence that the gray See all media
jungle fowl (G. sonneratii) of southern India and
other jungle fowl species, also members of Related Topics: leghorn • Brahma •
roaster • Wyandotte • Cornish
Gallus, may have contributed to the bird’s
On the Web: Oklahoma State
ancestry. There is some debate about what the University - Breeds of Livestock -
chicken’s scientific name should be. Although Breeds of Chickens (May 27, 2024)
many taxonomists and ornithologists consider it
as a domesticated form of the wild red jungle See all related content →
fowl, some classify it as a subspecies of the red
jungle fowl (i.e., G. gallus domesticus), whereas
others, including the U.S. Department of Agriculture, classify the bird as G.
domesticus.
Britannica Quiz
Ultimate Animals Quiz
Natural history
Chickens have a squat and rounded
appearance. They stand less than 70 cm (27.6
inches) tall and weigh approximately 2.6 kg
(5.7 pounds) on average. Males (called cocks

or roosters) and females (hens) are known for
their fleshy combs, lobed wattles hanging
below the bill, and high-arched tails. In some
roosters, the tail can extend more than 30 cm
(12 inches) in length. chicken
Chickens breed in the spring and summer
months. Egg laying is stimulated by the long
stretches of daylight that occur during the warmer months; however, artificial lights
placed in chicken coops can trigger a hen’s egg laying response throughout the year.
The time between ovulation and egg-laying is approximately 23–26 hours. Subsequent
ovulations may occur within an hour after the previous egg was laid, allowing some
hens to produce as many as 300 eggs per year.
Fertilized embryos develop quickly, and chicks hatch approximately 21 days later.
Chicks are born covered in down, but they mature quickly, becoming fully feathered
after four to five weeks. At about six months, males produce viable sperm, and females
produce viable eggs. Members of free-ranging flocks may live for six to eight years
under the best conditions, but most chickens used in the poultry industry serve as egg
layers for two to three years before being slaughtered for their meat, with much of it
being used in pet food. Chickens in captivity have been known to live for up to 30
years.
Social hierarchy
Each flock of chickens develops a social hierarchy that determines access to food,
nesting sites, mates, and other resources. A flock usually includes one dominant adult
male, a few subdominant males, and two or more females that are carefully watched
over by the dominant male. Social hierarchies in chickens are segregated by sex and
manifest as a pecking order, in which individuals of higher social rank may strike out at
individuals of lower rank with their beaks (pecking) to ensure access to food and other
resources. Altercations, however, may also include pummeling with wings and
scratching with claws.
Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content.
Subscribe Now
Chickens belonging to the same age cohort and sex are often kept together in industrial
production settings. The pecking order is established within groups of female chicks by
the 10th week of life. In groups of male chicks, however, fights for dominance may
continue into adulthood. In situations where one adult bird challenges another—which
happens most often when a new bird is introduced into the flock—fights involving
males risk injury and death more often than fights involving females.
Domestication and economic production
Chicken domestication likely occurred more
than once in Southeast Asia and possibly India
over the most recent 7,400 years, and the first
domestications may have been for religious 
reasons or for the raising of fighting birds.
Descendants of those domestications have
spread throughout the world in several waves
for at least the last 2,000 years. For most of
that period, chickens were a common part of
free-range chicken
Organic free-range chickens (Gallus
the livestock complement of farms and gallus) clustering around a henhouse in…
...(more)
ranches throughout Eurasia and Africa. Only
in the early 20th century, however, did
chicken meat and eggs become mass-
production commodities.
Modern high-volume poultry farms, with rows
of cages stacked indoors for control of heat,
light, and humidity, began to proliferate in
Great Britain about 1920 and in the United 
States after World War II. Females (mature
hens and younger chickens, called pullets) are
raised for meat and for their edible eggs.
Farmers have developed numerous breeds and
varieties to fulfill commercial requirements.
egg production
Egg-producing hens (Gallus gallus) in an
industrial henhouse. Under ideal lighti…
...(more)
Originally, meat production was a by-product
of egg production. Only hens that could no
longer produce enough eggs were killed and
sold for meat. By the mid-20th century,
however, meat production had outstripped egg
production as a specialized industry. The 
market for chicken meat has grown
dramatically since then, with worldwide
exports reaching nearly 12.5 million metric
tons (about 13.8 million tons) by the early 21st chicken feet
century. Chicken feet for sale at a market in
Maracaibo, Venezuela.
Mature males have long been used for sport
(i.e., cockfighting, now outlawed in many
jurisdictions) as well as for breeding. Many immature males (cockerels) are castrated
(usually chemically, with hormones that cause atrophying of the testicles) to become
meat birds (capons).
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
This article was most recently revised and updated by Robert Lewis.
 Home  Entertainment & Pop Culture  Food
tandoori chicken
dish
 Print  Cite  Share  Feedback 
Also known as: tandoori murgh
Written by Laura Siciliano-Rosen
Fact-checked by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Article History
Tandoori chicken, a dish of roasted chicken
marinated in yogurt and generously spiced,
giving the meat its trademark red colour. It is
named for the cylindrical clay oven in which it is

cooked, a tandoor. The dish is attributed to
Kundan Lal Gujral, a Hindu from Punjab state
who fled newly formed Pakistan after the 1947
partition of India and opened a restaurant in tandoori chicken
Delhi. Tandoori chicken quickly became popular
throughout South Asia and the Middle East as
See all media
well as in Western countries. The spices most
Related Topics: India • Indian
commonly used include a mix called tandoori cuisine • chicken • tandoori cookery
masala (typically cayenne pepper, garlic, ginger, • dish
onion, and garam masala), red chili powder or
Kashmiri chili powder, and sometimes turmeric
See all related content →
and paprika. Tandoori chicken is often served on
the bones.
Laura Siciliano-Rosen
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Load Next Page 