The good fellows at Today I found Out say that Chickens were first reared for fighting and not for food. Cockfighting was a spectacle that people wanted to watch so they reared chickens to participate in these fights. Funny right? That nice piece of chicken on your plate is aggressive enough to have had an entire sports built on it, if you doubt the ability of chickens to fight, then you surely have never been chased by any. Cockfighting is now illegal in most parts of the world and for good reason.
It is quite surprising that an animal so important is mentioned in the Bible only when Peter betrays Jesus Christ. The cock was used as a time indicator. When we think of it closely, we find that it is not so surprising, we disregard the importance of the chicken constantly, so surely people of that time might have disregarded it too.
For all of the disregard, the chicken is more important than it appears to us to be. There are some 20 billion or more chickens worldwide making it the most populous of 15,000 different bird and mammal species and it has the widest spread geographically. It is the most consumed animal in the world, it has been roasted, cooked, fried, grilled, stuffed and dipped in all manner of sauces and spices. Not even the feet and intestines are left out of the fest.
In religious symbolism around the world, the chicken stands out, subtle, not noticeable but there anyway. Indians consider the hen a hub of fertility, early churches used to place a cock on their roofs as a wind vane as a constant reminder of Peter's denial of Jesus Christ. These are quite benign roles it has played in religion. The neck of chickens have been enticing to Haitian juju practitioners, Nigerian traditional religion practitioners, and others across Africa and the world for sacrifices for anything from the birth of a new child to prayers against ones enemies. The Chicken has just been around long enough for even the gods to order them just as we make orders for them today.
Chicken eggs are used in the development of vaccines, the bones are used to treat arthritis, the wattles for some skin irritations and in our speech, we make a lot of reference to the chicken. We say, "one chickens out", "we hatch ideas", "we brood", "consider someone as cocky", "make cocktails", etc. All of these achievements and the chicken remains humble, it does not pride on them.
We should observe too that if lions, elephants or parrots were to go extinct tomorrow, these would make front page news and be the concern of every conservation biologist and ecologist, but these extinctions will bear little to no economic consequence, that does not in anyway make it okay to poach wildlife or make policies that hurt the environment. It only makes the case that if chickens ever got tired of the disrespect and lack of regard from humans and decide to pack it up and leave the earth, economies will collapse. Brands dependent on its existence, households dependent on it for meat and eggs, those poor farming households that depend on it as an alternative source of income for their meagre funds, those agro-allied industries who have perfected the production of feed and medications for chickens, etc will all be brought to ruins. That is how important the chicken is.
Shout out to the bird that barely flies but has managed to work its way to the top echelon of our society. To the bird that we all hold dear for various reasons from its taste to it just being a funny creature. To the bird that reigns supreme in the 21st century. Next time you walk past a chicken, doff off your hat to it, it has earned it. This amazing and ubiquitous bird is our main product here at The Chicken Universe and we have created a product dedicated for it. We call this product The Chicken Farm
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