Chicken, Anyone???

"Chickens. Need I say more?"
- a friend of mine.

Peck around the library and lay this egg- a page of chicken trivia:

1.) There are over 150 varieties of domestic chickens. The most common egg-layers are White Leghorns and Golden Comets. The most common poultry varieties are Cornish Cross and Plymouth Rocks.

2.) Chickens and turkeys can cross-breed. The result is called a turkin.

3.) The short-term egg-laying record was set in 1967 by a White Leghorn in Sri Lanka. She layed 17 eggs in six hours.

4.) If there's no rooster in a flock of chickens, one hen will stop laying eggs and crow, assuming the role of protector.

5.) The chicken is the closest living relative of Tyrannosaurus rex.

6.) The amount of waste a chicken generates in its lifetime could power a 100-watt light bulb for five hours.

7.) Chickens are native to Asia. They were spread around the world as an easy food source, and were first brought to North America by Christopher Columbus.

8.) World record: In 1930 a chicken in New Zealand laid 361 eggs in 364 days.

9.) Typically, it takes a hen 24-26 hours to lay an egg, which hatches in 21 days.

10.) A chicken's comb (the decorative head plumage) has a practical function: it keeps the bird cool. There are eight varieties: buttercup, pea, strawberry, V-shaped, silkis, cushion, rose, and single.

11.) Chickens can't swallow while they are upside down.

12.) If a chicken has a white earlobe, its eggs will be white. If it's earlobe is red, the eggs will be brown-shelled. An exception: Arucana chickens can lay green, pink, and blue eggs.

13.) Worldwide, chickens outnumber humans. o_0

14.) World's largest chicken egg: 16 ounces, laid by a New Jersey White Leghorn in 1956.

15.) Chickens have 24 distinct cries to communicate to one another, including separate alarm calls depending on what kind of predator is near.