What is the difference between a chicken and a hen?


Quick Answer

A mature female chicken is called a hen, making the only difference between a chicken and a hen its sex and age. A mature male chicken is called a rooster, cock or roo.

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What is the difference between a chicken and a hen?
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Full Answer

The immature female chickens are called pullets and the immature male chickens are called cockerels. A newly hatched chicken is called a chick.

The chicken is a bird, and there are more than 150 different varieties of domestic chickens that people consume on a regular basis. These varieties have different colors, patterns and combs. There are seven different types of combs that a chicken can have and these include rose, strawberry, cushion, pea, buttercup, single and V-shaped. Approximately 8,000 years ago, the chicken was domesticated. Chickens are not able to sustain flight and the longest recorded flight of a chicken is a mere 13 seconds. This makes them ideal for keeping on farms because they can easily be kept in fences without flying away. Chickens can, however, travel up to 9 miles per hour by foot.

A chicken's internal body temperature runs at 102-103 degrees Fahrenheit and a chicken's heart beats approximately 280-315 times every minute. All domestic chickens can be traced back to Gallus Gallus or the Red Jungle Fowl genetically. They are also the closet living relative to that of the T-rex.

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