Have you ever stopped to think about the worlds most populous bird?  Gallus Gallus Domesticus is the common chicken.  We all love the bird.  I like it baked, broiled, fried, blanched, grilled and poached.  Lets face it chicken is GOOD.  I was watching an epsiode of Good Eats with Alton Brown about the humble clucker and decided I wanted to know more.  Here are some of the fun facts I learned.

Since the wild ancestor of the domestic chicken is still among us, comparisons between their behavior and other differences that exist are available to us. Behaviorally, domesticated chickens are less active, have fewer social interactions, are less aggressive to would-be predators, and are less likely to go looking for foreign food sources than their wild ancestors.

Chickens are decended from jungle birds that originated from southern Asia in what is now India.

The chicken is the closest living relative of the tyrannosaurus-rex.

There are more than 24 Billion chickens in the world right now.

Alektorophobia is the Fear of chickens.

Over 80 pounds of chicken is consumed by an average American every year.

Most commercially produced chicken eggs intended for human consumption are unfertilized.

    I enjoyed learning more about chickens, hope you learned something too!