The chicken (Gallus gallus domesticus), a subspecies of the red junglefowl, is a domesticated fowl originally from Southeastern Asia. Rooster or cock is a term for an adult male bird, and a younger male may be called a cockerel. A male that has been castrated is a capon. An adult female bird is called a hen, and a sexually immature female is called a pullet. Chickens are omnivores. They often scratch at the soil to search for seeds, insects, and even animals as large as lizards, small snakes, or young mice in the wild. The average chicken may live for five to ten years, depending on the breed. According to the Guinness World Records, the world's oldest known chicken was a hen that died of heart failure at the age of 16 years.

Meat and Poultry

Meat is animal flesh that is eaten as food. Poultry is domesticated birds kept by humans for the eggs they produce, their meat, their feathers, or sometimes as pets.

Humans are omnivorous and have hunted and killed animals for meat since prehistoric times. The advent of civilization allowed the domestication of animals such as chickens, sheep, pigs, and cattle, and eventually their use in meat production on an industrial scale.