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Since then, the keeping of chickens has spread around the world for the production of food with the domestic fowl being a valuable source of both eggs and meat. [28] Since their domestication, a large number of breeds of chickens have been established, but with the exception of the white Leghorn, most commercial birds are of hybrid origin. [18]
Chickens are featured widely in folklore, religion, literature, and popular culture. The chicken is a sacred animal in many cultures and deeply embedded in belief systems and religious practices. [106] Roosters are sometimes used for divination, a practice called alectryomancy.
Galliformes / ˌ ɡ æ l ɪ ˈ f ɔːr m iː z / is an order of heavy-bodied ground-feeding birds that includes turkeys, chickens, quail, and other landfowl.Gallinaceous birds, as they are called, are important in their ecosystems as seed dispersers and predators, and are often reared by humans for their meat and eggs, or hunted as game birds.
Poultry farming is the form of animal husbandry which raises domesticated birds such as chickens, ducks, turkeys and geese to produce meat or eggs for food.Poultry – mostly chickens – are farmed in great numbers.
Mass production of chicken meat is a global industry and at that time, only two or three breeding companies supplied around 90% of the world's breeder-broilers. The total number of meat chickens produced in the world was nearly 47 billion in 2004; of these, approximately 19% were produced in the US, 15% in China, 13% in the EU25 and 11% in Brazil.
One indication of the effect of broilers' rapid growth rate on welfare is a comparison of the usual mortality rate for standard broiler chickens (1% per week) with that for slower-growing broiler chickens (0.25% per week) and with young laying hens (0.14% per week); the mortality rate of the fast-growing broilers is seven times the rate of ...
The Phasianidae are a family of heavy, ground-living birds, which includes pheasants, partridges, junglefowl, chickens, turkeys, Old World quail, and peafowl. The family includes many of the most popular gamebirds. [1] The family includes 185 species divided into 54 genera.
"The best in the world" White Plymouth Rocks, 1910. In the United States, chickens were raised primarily on family farms or in some cases, in poultry colonies, such as Judge Emery's Poultry Colony [1] until about 1960. Originally, the primary value in poultry keeping was eggs, and meat was considered a byproduct of egg production. [2]