Chicken Domestic

Dec 262015

Chicken Domestic

About the bird — Chickens are one of the most common and widespread domestic animals, with a total population of 23.7 billion as of 2018. Chickens are omnivores. In the wild, they often scratch at the soil to search for seeds, insects, and even animals as large as lizards, small snakes, or sometimes young mice. In a study published in 2020, it was found that chickens shared between 71% – 79% of their genome with red junglefowl, with the period of domestication dated to 8,000 years ago. More than 50 billion chickens are reared annually as a source of meat and eggs.