Facts

About the Chicken:

A chicken's heart beats 280-315 beats per minute

A chicken travels up to 9 miles per hour

A chicken looses feathers when stressed

The amount of waste products from the lifetime of one chicken
could produce enough electricity to light a
100 watt lightbulb for 5 hours

There are more than 150 varieties of domestic chickens

Chickens CAN fly! The longest recorded distance is 301.5 feet

There are more chickens in the world than any other bird

Chickens can live 5 to 7 years (depending on breed)

The chicken who holds the record for living the longest, lived 16 years

Chickens experience REM sleep

About Chicken Eggs:

It takes approximately 4 pounds of chicken food for a chicken
to lay a dozen eggs

It takes 21 days for chicken eggs to hatch

Baby chicks peck out of the egg shell with an 'egg tooth'

A chicken lays it's first eggs around 6-7 months old

Chickens lay an average of 5-7 eggs per week

The World Record for chicken laying was set in 1979
by a White Leghorn who laid 371 eggs in 364 days.

A hen does not need a rooster to lay eggs
(although a rooster is needed to fertilize eggs)

A hen's eggs get larger as she gets older

The number of eggs a hen lays decreases each year older she gets

The largest recorded egg laid by a chicken was 12 ounces
and measureed 12.25 inches around

The record number of yolks found in one egg was nine

More than one chicken can come from one egg

About American's Love Affair with Chickens:

American's consume 8 billion chickens per year
(this translates into 55-65 lbs per person per year)

There are more than 450 million chickens in the US

Chickens sold in the grocery store are 5 to 8 weeks old

If all the chickens eaten at KFC were lined up end to end,
they'd circle the Earth 11 times.