Poultry Business

Poultry is the category of domesticated birds which some people keep for the purpose of collecting their eggs, or kill for their meat and/or feathers. These most typically are members of the superorder Galloanserae (fowl), especially the order Galliformes (which includes chickens and turkeys) and the family Anatidae (in order Anseriformes), commonly known as "waterfowl". Poultry also include other birds which are killed for their meat, such as pigeons or doves or birds considered to be game, like pheasants. The term also refers to the flesh of such birds.

The chicken (Gallus gallus, sometimes G. gallus domesticus) is a domesticated fowl. Recent evidence suggests that domestication of the chicken was under way in Vietnam over 10,000 years ago. Until this discovery, conventional wisdom held that the chicken was domesticated in India. Some genetic research has suggested that the bird likely descended from both Red and the Grey Junglefowl (G. sonneratii). Although hybrids of both wild types usually tend toward sterility, recent genetic work has revealed that the genotype for yellow skin present in the domestic fowl is not present in what is otherwise its closest kin, the Red Junglefowl.

Chickens in nature may live for five to eleven years depending on the breed. In commercial intensive farming, a meat Chicken generally lives only six weeks before slaughter. A free range or organic meat chicken will usually be slaughtered at about 14 weeks. Hens of special laying breeds may produce as many as 300 eggs a year. After 12 months, the hen's egg-laying ability starts to decline, and commercial laying hens are then slaughtered and used in baby foods, pet foods, pies and other processed foods. The world's oldest chicken, according to the Guinness Book of World Records, died of heart failure when she was 16 years old.

Chickens are gregarious birds and live together as a flock. They have a communal approach to the incubation of eggs and raising of young. Individual chickens in a flock will dominate others, establishing a "pecking order," with dominant individuals having priority for access to food and nesting locations. Removing hens or roosters from a flock causes a temporary disruption to this social order until a new pecking order is established. Adding hens—especially younger birds—to an existing flock, can lead to violence and injury.