Quick Chicken Facts: More Chickens on Earth than Humans

Buff Orpington                                              Photo: Nancy Shobe

Sometimes life gets you by the tail feathers and you don't have much time to read or write.

Today was one of those days. The chickens needed to be fed, the tomatoes watered, the banana trees trimmed and the dog prepped for graduation. Tonight, my English Doodle, Mango, received her diploma from Perfect Puppy Academy (see photo below). Trust me, a magna cum laude graduate, Mango's not.

Because of a lack of time today,  I resorted to pulling a few chicken facts off the website of the Imagination Station, a hands-on science museum located in Toledo, OH.

Did you know:

   -  There are more chickens on earth than humans?

   -  China has the most with over 45% of egg production coming from China. The U.S. is
       second with only 8.1% of the egg production.

   -  Chickens can travel up to 9 mph.

   -  The greatest number of yolks in a single egg was nine. (And, that's no yolk.)

   -  Chickens are a domestic subspecies of the red junglefowl, a member of the pheasant
       family native to Asia.

   -  Chickens were once sacred symbols representing the sun.

I have absolutely no idea how many humans are on earth, so I wouldn't know when chickens exceeded our population. That was an interesting fact.

Mango: English doodle at Graduation

I never guessed that China has the world's greatest egg production, but it doesn't surprise me. They seem to be setting a lot of production records these days.

I've never been in a race with any of my chickens, so I can only trust the stats. Nine (9) mph is something I only do while seated in the driver's seat.

One fact I do know is that chickens are the sacred symbols of the sun. Because every morning around 6:30 a.m., my restless chickens squawk just as the sun rises. I awaken knowing I need to drag my weary bones up to their coop, scoop out  some morning feed and  release the chickens  for a day of free-ranging. Those are the only chicken facts that truly matter to me.