A Brief History of the Modern Chicken

This audio story is brought to you by BirdNote, a partner of the National Audubon Society. BirdNote episodes air daily on public radio stations nationwide.
 

Transcript:

You maybe wouldn't think it, but the chicken is an extremely well-connected bird.

The Red Junglefowl is the ancestor of the Rhode Island Red Rooster, or Araucana (pronounced ah-ruh-CAH-nuh), to use its proper title. King of the Hill in the chicken world. With each new day, a new opportunity to assert his dominance.

From DNA analysis, scientists postulate that chickens were first domesticated from junglefowl in India, some 5,000 years ago. Traders and travelers then carried them far and wide, to Asia Minor, Africa, and Europe. Julius Caesar is said to have noted that the Britons “kept them for pleasure, but not for the table.”

The farming of chickens for their meat and eggs developed later, until today, when the chicken is probably the most numerous avian species in the world. You won't find a rooster on the 2018 BirdNote calendar, but you will find a host of other beautiful birds.

Find it at BirdNote.org. For BirdNote, I'm Mary McCann.

Calls of the rooster and alarm calls of the hens recorded by C. Peterson.

Ambient chicken sounds provided by Kessler Productions BirdNote's theme music was composed and played by Nancy Rumbel and John Kessler.

Producer: John Kessler

Executive Producer: Dominic Black