Chickens are amazing creatures and more intelligent than many people know. They can communicate with each other and even have a unique tetrachromatic vision that allows them to see more colors than people and most animals. This blog is filled with fun facts about these amazing creatures, books you can check out to learn more, and a cool coloring page for if you’re feeling creative!
There are two fun days in May when we celebrate chickens:
5 Amazing Facts about Chickens
10 Amazing, Interesting, and Bizarre Chicken Breeds You Don’t See Every Day:
Onagadori Chicken
Polish chicken
Silkie chicken
Silver and Golden Sebright Chicken
Yokohama chickens
Modern Game chicken
Turken or naked neck chicken
Araucana or rumpless chickens
Ayam Cemani chicken
Frizzle Chickens
Sources
Books
Non-Fiction
A kid’s guide to keeping chickens by Melissa Caughey
Chickens make excellent pets, and Melissa Caughey (author of the award-winning blog Tilly’s Nest) provides all the information kids need to raise healthy chickens and have tons of fun doing it! Caughey engagingly shares her advice so that kids understand what it means to keep chickens and what kind of housing, food, equipment, and care the chickens need to thrive.
A nonfiction picture book exploring chickens and all the fascinating things about them–how they fly, what they eat, what the different breeds are, and more.
Where do chicks come from? by Amy E. Sklansky
Describes what happens daily for the three weeks from when a hen lays an egg until the baby chick hatches.
The hen who sailed around the world : a true story by Guirec Soudée
Guirec Soudée tells the story of his 3,400-mile sea voyage with his pet hen, Monique.
Chickenology : the ultimate encyclopedia by Barbara Sandri
Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Why don’t chickens fly? Did you know that there are three hundred types of chickens? This fascinating and informative visual encyclopedia presents chickens in all their feathered glory. Did you know that baby chicks can count, that roosters can dance, or hens can be therapy animals? From breeds and anatomy to chicken history and the egg story, chickenology is chock-full of fowl facts. It tempts you to raise a chicken or two in your background!
From egg to chicken by Camilla de la Bédoyère
How many eggs do hens lay? Where do hens build their nests? What do chicks eat? Packed with fascinating facts, amazing photographs, and labeled diagrams to explain growth and development. Are you ready to start at the beginning?
Fiction
Sonya’s chickens by Phoebe Wahl
Sonya raises her three chickens from the time they are tiny chicks. She feeds them, shelters them, and loves them. Everywhere Sonya goes, her chicks are peeping at her heels. Under her care, the chicks grow into hens and even give Sonya a wonderful gift: an egg! One night, Sonya hears noises from the chicken coop and discovers that one of her hens has disappeared. Where did the hen go? What happened to her? When Sonya finds the answers, she learns some important truths about the interconnectedness of nature and the true joys and sorrows of caring for another creature.
Millie’s chickens by Brenda Williams
A young girl named Millie raises a variety of chickens in her backyard and it is her responsibility to care for and protect them.
I got a chicken for my birthday by Laura Gehl
A girl is disappointed when she receives a chicken as a birthday gift from her Abuela until she realizes the chicken is planning a bigger present for her special day.
Tyrannosaurus Rex vs. Edna, the very first chicken by Douglas Rees
A humorous picture book in which Edna, the first chicken, faces off against a hungry Tyrannosaurus Rex.
My little chick : from egg to chick… by Géraldine Elschner
Lena liked to sit in her mother’s garden and watch the chickens. But something is missing in this happy group of hens…a sweet little chick! How fortunate that plump little Alma had just laid an egg. But to Lena’s surprise, Alma does not seem interested in hatching it. Lena makes a snap decision and attempts to surprise everyone by hatching the chick herself. However, hatching an egg is more complex than Lena thinks, and the journey from egg to chick is long. This is a sweet book about the challenges and joys of being a parent.
Cheeky Chick! by Julia Jarman
Cheeky Chick can’t help being cheeky–he just wants to explore. But there’s a crafty fox about…Can Cheeky Chick make it back to the henhouse safely? It is a funny, characterful picture book by an award-winning author that children will want to read repeatedly.
Five fuzzy chicks by Diana Murray
Five baby chickens want to have some fun and visit with the other farm animals before bedtime.
Chicken break! : a counting book by Cate Berry
Illustrations and easy-to-read, rhyming text invite the reader to count chickens, from one standing guard to ten drooping and dragging their way back to the coop after breaking out for a night of fun.
Chicken talk by Patricia MacLachlan
From Newbery Medalist MacLachlan and “New York Times”-bestselling illustrator Krosoczka comes a cheeky and heartwarming picture book about chickens who scratch messages around the farm for their humans to find–resulting in surprise, chaos, and plenty of fun.
Interrupting chicken by David Ezra Stein
Little Red Chicken wants Papa to read her a bedtime story, but interrupts him almost as soon as he begins each tale.
