The chicken is a large and round short-winged bird, domesticated from the red junglefowl of Southeast Asia around 8,000 years ago. Most chickens are raised for food, providing meat and eggs; others are kept as pets or for cockfighting.
Beak trimming, or beak conditioning, is the partial removal of the beak of poultry, especially layer hens and turkeys, although it is also performed on some quail and ducks. When multiple birds are confined in small spaces due to farming practices, they are more likely to hurt each other through pecking. Beak trimming aims to avoid damage done by pecking, although the practice is criticized by animal welfare organizations and banned in several European countries. Beak trimming is most common in egg-laying strains of chickens. In some countries, such as the United States, turkeys routinely have their beaks trimmed. In the UK, only 10% of turkeys are beak trimmed.
A capon is a male chicken that has been castrated or neutered, either physically or chemically, to improve the quality of its flesh for food, and, in some countries like Spain, fattened by forced feeding.
Gold Kist was a large chicken producing company in the southern United States. It was founded in 1933 by D.W. Brooks, a University of Georgia agronomy instructor as the Cotton Producers Association, a cooperative to help farmers in Carrollton, Georgia, market cotton. It soon grew and diversified into fields such as fertilizer and retailing farm supplies. It soon entered the poultry business. In 1998 it exited the agronomy business to focus on protein products, primarily chicken but also pork. In 2004, with the approval of its membership, it converted from being a cooperative to a for-profit stock-ownership company, listed on NASDAQ. In 2006, Gold Kist was acquired by Pilgrim's Pride.
Battery cages are a housing system used by factory farms for various animal production methods, but primarily for egg-laying hens. The name arises from the arrangement of rows and columns of identical cages connected, in a unit, as in an artillery battery. Although the term is usually applied to poultry farming, similar cage systems are used for other animals. Battery cages have generated controversy between advocates for animal welfare and industrial producers.
Sex-links are crossbred chickens whose color at hatching is differentiated by sex, thus making chick sexing an easier process. Sex-links come in several varieties. As hybrids of laying or dual-purpose breeds infused with extra vigor via heterosis, sex-links can be extremely good egg-layers which often produce 300 eggs a year or more depending on the quality of care and feed. The color of their eggs vary according to the mix of breeds, and blue-green eggs are possible.
Poultry farming is the form of animal husbandry which raises domesticated birds such as chickens, ducks, turkeys and geese to produce meat or eggs for food. Poultry – mostly chickens – are farmed in great numbers. More than 60 billion chickens are killed for consumption annually. Chickens raised for eggs are known as layers, while chickens raised for meat are called broilers.
The Barbu d'Uccle or Belgian d'Uccle, Dutch: Ukkelse Baardkriel, is a Belgian breed of bearded bantam chicken. It was first bred in the town of Uccle on the outskirts of Brussels, in central Belgium, in the early years of the twentieth century. It is a true bantam, with no standard-sized large fowl counterpart, and is one of eleven Belgian true bantam breeds.
The poulet de Bresse or volaille de Bresse is a French chicken product which has appellation d'origine contrôlée status, and which was registered as a Protected Designation of Origin under EU and UK law as Volaille de Bresse / Poulet de Bresse / Poularde de Bresse / Chapon de Bresse. It may be produced only from white chickens of the Bresse Gauloise breed raised within a legally-defined area of the historic region and former province of Bresse, in eastern France.
Urban keeping of chickens as pets, for eggs, meat, or for eating pests is popular in urban and suburban areas. Some people sell the eggs for side income.
Broodiness is the action or behavioral tendency to sit on a clutch of eggs to incubate them, often requiring the non-expression of many other behaviors including feeding and drinking. Being broody has been defined as "Being in a state of readiness to brood eggs that is characterized by cessation of laying and by marked changes in behavior and physiology". Broodiness is usually associated with female birds, although males of some bird species become broody and some non-avian animals also show broodiness.
Chick sexing is the method of distinguishing the sex of chickens and other hatchlings, usually by a trained person called a chick sexer or chicken sexer. Chicken sexing is practiced mostly by large commercial hatcheries to separate female chicks or "pullets" from the males or "cockerels". The females and a limited number of males kept for meat production are then put on different feeding programs appropriate for their commercial roles.
The Euskal Oiloa, Spanish: Gallina Vasca, is a breed of domestic chicken from the autonomous community of the Basque Country in north-eastern Spain and south-western France. It is the traditional rural chicken of the area, a rustic dual-purpose breed of Atlantic type, and differs from Mediterranean Spanish breeds such as the Castellana Negra and the Minorca in several respects: it has yellow legs and feet, red earlobes, and lays brown eggs.
The Bresse Gauloise is a French breed of domestic chicken. It originates in the historic region and former province of Bresse, in the regions of Rhône-Alpes, Bourgogne and Franche-Comté, in eastern France. Because of legal restrictions on the use of the name, only white chickens raised within that area may be called "Bresse"; outside it, they are given the name "Gauloise"; the breed name combines both. Four colours are recognised for the Bresse Gauloise, three of them linked to areas within Bresse: the Bresse de Bourg is "grey" (silver-pencilled); the Bresse de Bény is white; the Bresse de Louhans is black; and a blue variety has recently been created. White Bresse de Bény chickens and capons raised in the area of Bresse have appellation d'origine contrôlée status and are marketed as poulet de Bresse; they are regarded as a premium product and command higher prices than other chickens.
Coucou de Rennes is a French breed of chicken.
The Pictave is an endangered French breed of bantam chicken. It is named for the Pictavi, the tribe which gave its name to the former Province of Poitou, now part of the region of Nouvelle-Aquitaine. It is a true bantam, and has no full-sized counterpart; it is the only true bantam of France. Cocks weigh about 800 grams and hens about 600 g. It was created in the twentieth century by Raymond Lecointre, who used the hens to incubate his pheasant eggs and raise the chicks.
The Malines, Dutch: Mechelse Koekoek, is a Belgian breed of large domestic chicken. It originates from the area of Mechelen, in the province of Antwerp in Flanders, for which it is named. It was created in the nineteenth century by cross-breeding local cuckoo-patterned farm chickens with various different types of imported Oriental chicken. With the Jersey Giant, it is among the heaviest of all chicken breeds. It is valued for the quality of its meat, which is pale in colour and fine-textured.
Slovenian Barred Hen is a traditional breed of domestic chicken, originating in Slovenia. This breed was developed on the Biotechnical Faculty of University of Ljubljana some decades ago. Animals of the Slovenian Barred Hen are barred black and white layer hens, used primarily for production of commercial crossbreeds sold under the trademark Prelux.
Slovenian Brown Hen is a traditional breed of domestic chicken, originating in Slovenia. It was developed at the end of the 20th century at the Biotechnical Faculty of University of Ljubljana. Animals of this breed are brown coloured layer hens that are also used as parents for commercial crossbreeds sold under the trademark Prelux.
The Poule gasconne is a French breed of chicken.
