Episode 29 Eggs & Scrawny Colonial Chickens

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Listen to "029 Eggs and Scrawny Colonial Chickens" on Spreaker.


Link to the Episode:

Episode 29 Eggs & Scrawny Colonial Chickens

For those of us brought up on Foghorn Leghorn and the extremely round, fluffy chicken muppets that are Gonzo's fan club from the muppet show - picturing the scrawny, fast and slightly wild chickens of the 17th century can be hard.  But here are some reasonable facsimiles - and a modern chicken for comparison.

courtesy of: PrairieChickens.org
The grassy chicken yard - with the smallish (fast) early American chicken types 


A look at the change of the American commercial chicken over time.
The 1957 chicken is definitely had some breeding done to it since the 17th century... but not tons.

from: Growth, efficiency, and yield of commercial broilers from 1957, 1978, and 2005
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0032579119385505




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