Chicken

eggs The chicken is a domesticated fowl. It is said that the chicken was domesticated in India from where it made its way to Persia. From there it was imported into Lydia in western Asia Minor, and into Greece.

Humans keep chickens primarily as a source of food, consuming both their meat and eggs.

In the English language. adult male chickens are known as cocks. Males under a year old are cockerels.
Females over a year old are known as hens, and younger females are pullets.

"Chicken" was originally the word only for chicks, and the species as a whole was then called
domestic fowl, or just fowl.

Chickens in the wild, often scratch at the soil to search for seeds, insects and even larger
animals such as lizards or young mice.

Chickens in nature may live for five to eleven years depending on the breed. Hens of special laying
breeds may produce as many as 300 eggs a year.

Under natural conditions most birds lay only until a clutch (a full clutch is usually about 12 eggs) is complete, and they will
then incubate all the eggs. While brooding, the hen maintains the nest at a constant temperature and humidity, as well as turning the eggs regularly during the first part of the incubation.

At the end of the incubation period (about 21 days), the eggs, if fertile, will hatch. Development of the egg starts only
when incubation begins, so they all hatch within a day or two of each other, despite perhaps being laid over a period of two weeks or so.

Any egg not fertilized by a rooster will not hatch, but can be consumed as food. After hatching the hen fiercely guards the
chicks.

The meat of the chicken, also called "chicken," is a type of poultry meat. Because of its relatively low cost, chicken is
one of the most used meats in the world. Nearly all parts of the bird can be used for food, and the meat can be cooked in many different ways.

Prior to about 1910, chicken was served primarily on special occasions or as a Sunday dinner.

The discovery of Vitamin-D (named in 1922),is considered a major milestone in the 20th century poultry production. It became possible to keep chickens in confinement year-round. Year-round production lowered costs, specially
for broilers.

Avian influenza

Crowded conditions in many chicken farms will allow avian influenza (bird flu) to spread quickly. A
United Nations press release states: "Governments, local authorities and international agencies need to take a greatly
increased role in combating the role of factory-farming, commerce in live poultry, and wildlife markets which provide ideal
conditions for the virus to spread and mutate into a more dangerous form..."

Chickens are susceptible to several parasites, including lice, mites, ticks, fleas, and intestinal worms, as well as other
diseases. (Despite the name, they are not affected by Chickenpox; the illness is generally restricted to humans. It is
advisable to cook the meat thoroughly, and to buy properly refrigerated meat. Once the meat is defrosted it is easily
infected and can cause stomach upsets and food poisoning.

Chickens, together with dogs and pigs, were the domestic animals of the first Neolithic culture of Oceania.

Chickens were spread by Polynesian seafarers. They were housed in extremely solid chicken coops built from stone. Traveling as cargo on trading boats, they reached the Asian continent via the islands of Indonesia and from there spread west to Europe and western Asia.

Anatomy

http://www.animalcorner.co.uk/farm/chickens/chicken_anatomy.html

The anatomy of a chicken is rather similar, however Roosters are larger birds.

chicken as we know it

Information collected from Wikipedia

How to cut a Chicken

Not every one may have had the opportunity to learn to do this Most chilren grow leaving all the work to their mother or theiir maid servants. Once they leave their home and go to work, and may be away from home for a long period, and are fed up of their hotel food, and may like to give a try to home cooking, it would be nice if they knew that it is after all an easy thing to do.

Go to this site, where you get a detailed explanation with pictures how to go about this job.

http://www.ruchiskitchen.com/Basics/chicken.htm