Chickens are all too familiar animals, and almost everyone's life is inseparable from them, especially the various delicacies related to chickens and eggs.
The chickens have endured so much, but do you really understand it?
I'm ashamed to say that I don't have anything else in my head except this bit of food, I really shouldn't be!
Fortunately, there are back waves, and they have produced a fun popular science "Chicken Encyclopedia" exclusive to chickens, which was selected as the "Top Ten Nature Children's Books" in 2023 by the "Dapeng Nature Children's Book Award", which is amazing!
From eggs to meat, from ancient times to the present, from biology to humanity, this book takes people to re-understand this ubiquitous chicken from multiple perspectives.
How are eggs formed in a hen?
The order of egg formation is that there is a yolk first, then an egg white, and finally an eggshell.
Hens need light and temperature to lay eggs. Spring and summer have long days, plenty of sunshine and warmth, making them ideal for hens to lay eggs. In winter, when the weather is cold and the daylight hours are short, the hen may temporarily stop laying eggs.
When do hens start laying eggs?How many eggs can be laid per year?
The hen begins to lay eggs at about 5 months of age, before the age of 1 and a half, an average of one to two days, and can lay more than 300 eggs per year, as she gets older, it lays fewer and fewer eggs, and by the age of 4, it almost does not lay eggs.
How do chicks hatch?
Only fertilized eggs can hatch chicks, and the fertilized yolk will have a small dark dot that will develop into the embryo of the chicken. If you want to know if the egg has been fertilized, you can use an egg lamp to irradiate the egg to see if there is a placenta inside.
It takes 21 days for the egg to be laid and the chicken begins to appear in one week, the head, beak and hind limbs begin to appear in one week, the feathers grow in nine days, the chicks form in fifteen days, and the chicks break out of the shell in one day. The chicks will start pecking at the eggshell with the broken teeth of the tip of their beak, for as little as 10 minutes and as many as a few hours.
How can you tell if an egg is fresh or not?
Prepare a bowl of brine and put the eggs in the brine and the fresh eggs will sink and the stale ones will float. The less stale the egg will float higher because its air chamber becomes larger!
What does a chicken farm look like?
Chicken feeding methods include open-air free-range, cage breeding, ground breeding, etc., the farm generally includes perch, drinking rack, feed trough, egg nest, lighting, etc., the lighting in the cage is rarely turned off, so that the hen can lay more than 300 eggs per year.
What are the components of an egg and what are they used for?How many species of hens are there in the world?Who are the ancestors of chickens?What kind of legends and stories are there about chickens?More interesting facts about chickens are waiting for you to discover!