Test your knowledge: how many chicken facts do you know?

Chickens are a fascinating animal. See which of these fun facts about our feathered friends you know!

Chickens don’t sweat

In order to cool down, chickens will drink water or flap their wings.

There are more chickens than humans

There are more than 20 billion chickens in the world. As of 2021, there are about 7.8 million humans.

They take dirt baths

In lieu of soap and water, chickens take dirt baths by fluffing up their feathers with dirt. This scrubs off dead skins cells and rids their skin of oil buildup.

Chickens have dreams

Like humans, chickens have an REM (rapid eye movement) phase of sleeping, which indicates dreaming. More interestingly, they have another sleep phase called USWS (unihemispheric slow-wave sleep). In this sleep phase, one half of their brain is sleeping while the other half is awake. This allows them to quite literally sleep with one eye open, giving them the ability to watch for predators during rest.

They can recognize you

These smart creatures can recognize both humans and animals. They can even remember different members of their own flock after months apart.

Their communication is complex

Chickens have at least 30 different vocalizations, each one with specific meaning. Some of the things they communicate are contentment, predator warnings, food alerts, calls to their chicks — even soft purrs to their unborn chicks.

Chickens gave us the term “pecking order”

Our feathered friends have a strict hierarchy. The top chickens bully and peck the weaker chickens to establish who is in charge. But since their pecking order is established early, the flock can live in harmony.

They can run a fast mile

Clocking in at nine miles per hour, a chicken is capable of running one mile in six minutes and forty seconds.

Chickens learn from other chickens

Chickens are very smart birds. They teach each other things like which grains are bad, where to find food and how to forage. So if you wanted all of your chickens to learn something, you’d only have to teach one of them — the others will follow suit.