Are chickens really birds? Yes, chickens are birds. They share many features in common with other birds, including feathers, wings, and beaks. But in some ways they also differ from most other birds. Here are five features that differentiate chickens from most other bird species.
Breeds and Varieties
One of the things that make people wonder if chickens really are birds is that there is so much variation in chicken features. Although chickens are all the same species, several hundred different breeds exist worldwide.
Wild bird species also exhibit variations. But not to the same extreme as the different chicken breeds and varieties within the breeds.
Comb and Wattles
Around the world, bird species exhibit one of three types of head gear: comb, crest, or helmet. Only chickens have a comb. And some chicken breeds have both a crest and a comb.
Not only that, but among most birds, each species has only one type of crest or helmet. By contrast, 10 different types of comb have been identified in chickens:
- Buttercup comb (example, Sicilian Buttercup)
- Carnation comb (Penedesenca)
- Cushion comb (Chantecler)
- Pea comb (Ameraucana)
- Rose comb (Wyandotte)
- Rose comb, spiked (Hamburg)
- Single comb (Jersey Giant)
- Strawberry comb (Malay)
- V comb (Sultan)
- Walnut comb (Yokohama)
Besides a comb on top of its head, a chicken has two wattles under its beak. A few other bird species also have a pair of wattles, including guinea fowl and pheasants. But none also has a comb. Additionally, lots of birds have a single wattle-like structure under the beak, but not a pair of wattles.
Ability to Fly
Even though chickens, like other birds, have air sacs and hollow pneumatic bones to make them light for flight, chickens don’t fly. They may flap their wings to gain momentum while running, jumping up to a higher perch, or flying a short distance. But they don’t make long flights.
Only about 60 of the 10,000-plus bird species identified worldwide don’t fly at all. Some, especially the larger species, simply lack enough strength for take-off. Others, like the penguin, are better adapted to swimming than to flying.
Bathing in Water
Although chickens are usually not associated with water, chickens can swim. And some actually enjoy it.
But chickens lack webbed feet, therefore they can’t propel themselves in water, like a duck can. And their feathers are not waterproof, so they can easily waterlog and drown.
As with some 200 other bird species worldwide, chickens prefer to bathe in dust, rather than in water. The bird species most likely to enjoy a good dust bath are, like chickens, land oriented.
Egg Laying
Chickens lay more eggs in a year than other birds. Wild birds that lay multiple clutches may lay as many as 50 eggs per year. The average chicken will lay 150, and really good laying hens lay almost twice that.
Most bird species lay a single clutch of eggs in spring, then hatch the eggs into chicks. Some may lay during the summer and into fall.
On the other hand, most chickens lay eggs year around. Cold-hardy breeds such as the Brahma actually lay better in winter than in summer.
Although not all chickens are included to brood and hatch their eggs, the act of egg laying itself is one of the features that indicates that chickens are indeed birds.
And that’s today’s news from the Cackle Coop.
Gail Damerow has written numerous books about keeping poultry, many of them available from the Cackle Bookstore.
