Chikenopedia

Have you heard of White Leghorn, Red Sex link, Cornish and Plymouth? Don’t worry I had not either, till I decided to do a little research and guess what I found?  These are not names of characters on any online game or video but - chickens! Chickens you and I enjoy eating in a variety of ways but honestly don’t know much about. So I decided to pick a route down the chicken lane and become “Chicken Smart”. Here is a quick lowdown on everything we did not know about ourfavorite food –all good nutritious chicken!

Types of Chicken Breeds & More

Chicken is one of the most common types of poultry in the world. There are many breeds of chicken such as  White Leghorn, Red Sex link,Wyandotte, Orphington, Australorp and  all of them are reared in poultry farms for a specific purpose either for meat or for producing eggs or for both.

Thus, chicken farming can be broadly classified into eggproducing; meatproducing and dual purpose categories.

Egg producing breeds are reared purely for producingeggs for ourconsumption. Breeds like White Leghorn, Black Sex Link and Red Sex Link are some of the popular egg producing breeds. These hens lay between 20-23 eggs during the first year when they are 16 -20 weeks old. After the molting phase these hens lay larger but fewer eggs- around16-18 dozens per year. Molting is the phase when the hens begin to shed their feathers. During this period there is no egg production.

Did you know India is the third-largest egg producer and the fourth-largest chicken producer in the world? Amazingly, in just last two decades, egg production has gone up to 70 billion and the broiler production has gone to 3.8 million tonnes. India also has its own local breeds like Aseel, Naked Neck, Kadaknath and few morewhich are robust and have survived harsh climates.These breeds produce anywhere between 92 -110 eggs annuallyon maturity.

Some of the commercial breeds of meat type chickens in India are Varna, B-77, Caribro-91, and Caribro Multicolored. Meat producing breeds include broilers, fryers roasters and other meat type chicken breedswhich are very efficient in converting feed to meat. A popular meat producing breed is the Cornish. Broilers and fryers are converted to meat when they hit 1& ½ to 2 kgs of weightwhile roasters are best when they reach 3 plus kgs in weight.   
                                                  
Dual purpose breeds are the classic backyard chickens. These breeds are hardy, self-reliant and fairly large-bodied. Most lay large brown shelled eggs. Some popularexamples include Rhode Island Red and New Hamshire breeds.

There is so much more we don’t know about chicken but our trail ends here today. I hope you know more about chicken than you did before, so that you can make an informed choice of the type of chicken you want to buy or the eggs you wish to enjoy. Either ways you can’t go wrong because this bird is jam packed with essential nutrients and vitamins and has so many health benefits to offer.  So eat chicken and stay healthy!
 

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