Hens are amazing and funny creatures and, in my five years of keeping them, they have provided me with no end of amusement and entertainment.
I have decided to write a bit of a guide to tell everyone about some things, you may not realise about our little, feathered friends.
A chick takes about 21 days to hatch-either in an incubator or under the fluffy bottom of a mother hen.
2. A group of chickens is called a flock.
3. The hen that sits on the egg is not necessarily the hen that laid the egg. A broody hen will sit on any eggs to hatch them-regardless of whether the chicks will be related to her or not. Indeed, hens will sit on any egg so it is not uncommon for duckling eggs to be put under a hen too. The Ugly Ducking story could well have been true.
4. Not all eggs are destined to be chickens. A hen lays an egg, on average, once a day-whether
the egg is fertilised or not. For this reason, the chances of you eating a fertilised egg is slim to none.
5. . A fertilised egg needs to be kept at the right temperature for every second of the 21 day gestation so if you buy hens from a backyard hen keeper, there is still little chance that you will ever find a chick in your egg.
6. The only way a chicken egg can be fertilised and become a chick is if the flock has a resident, fertile cockerel. So the eggs you buy from the supermarket would never be fertilised because farmers would not keep cockerels in commercial flocks.
7. The word chicken refers to the whole of the species. A female chicken is a hen and a male is a cockerel. It always gets me when I see the term ‘chickens for sale’ and it ends up being a cockerel.
8. Every flock has a pecking order. There is a top girl in every coop and pecking is normal. When new and younger birds come into the flock, it is usual for quite severe pecking to take place to show the new comers who is boss.
9. Pecking may be normal but it can also be vicious and it is not uncommon for hens to draw blood on new recruits in the coop.
10. Chickens are attracted to the colour red so any blood drawn on another bird would attract the hens to peck more. This also applies to red anything-so if you were to go amongst chickens, wearing flip flops with painted, red toe nails, they would peck your toe nails.*
*This happened to a friend 😉
There are so many things to learn about chickens but these are the basics and are what many people ask me when I say we keep hens.
For more information about keeping chickens, why not check out my beginners guide to chicken keeping and five reasons why you need to keep chickens as pets.
Haha I have a vision of your ‘friend’ running away from pecking hens with beautifully painted toenails getting destroyed! Chickens do sound like great fun, I’d love to have some one day.
Nat.x
Chicken keeping has been on my wish list for years, they are such amusing birds to watch. Enjoyed your list of facts and will definitely avoid red nail polish if we ever own chickens ourselves! #AnimalTales
Emma that’s really interesting, my friend has chickens in her garden & absolutely loves having them. We had blue eggs (shell) from a friend of my husbands, she said it was due to the food they had eaten, but they had the yellowest yolks I’ve ever seen.
#animaltales
I’m quite impressed with myself that I knew 9 of these (didn’t know about the red colour)
I love chickens! One day we hope to keep some!
Thanks for sharing
#animaltales
I did and learnt the hard way when they pecked at a scab on my ankle!!
Oh my gosh, such interesting facts. I had no idea about the color red or that hens will sit on other chickens’ eggs. Really, all of this is pretty much new to me. I love getting fresh eggs from local chickens — something that’s common in France but not back in NYC. I’d always shop at the grocery store for my eggs back home. Thanks for the info! #animaltales
Hopping over from Animal Tales… What a lovely post! We have a small mixed flock of 14 hens in our back yard and, like you said, they are very entertaining! -Marci @ Stone Cottage Adventures
I didn’t know that chickens were attracted to the colour red AnimalTales
I have kept chickens for 10 years now … as a child though my parents had them and I was frightened of them as they always seemed to try and peck me. I wonder if I was wearing red? When guests come to stay in our holiday cottage I think the most frequent question we get asked is whether hens will lay eggs when there is no cockerel … we have no cockerel and we have eggs I say! #AnimalTales