Glossary of Terms

All chickens are chickens!!They all hatch out as chicks.

Young males are cockerels, and become roosters, or cocks, at 1 year of age.

Young females are pullets. At 1 year of age they’re called hens.

Glossary

Alektorophobia The Fear of chickens.
Bantams Miniature breed of chicken
Broody A hen who has laid a clutch of eggs and is now sitting on them full time
Candle To examine the contents of an intact egg with a strong light source.
Capon A castrated male chicken used for meat.
Chick A newly hatched chicken.
Chook (rhymes with “book”) Australian term for a hen, also applied to all chickens, as in “I’ve a flock of chooks.”
Cockerel A male chicken less than a year old.
Comb The fleshy red protuberance on the top of a chicken’s head
Egg If you don’t know, please don’t buy any chickens!
Gizzard An organ that contains grit for grinding up the grain and plant fiber a chicken eats.
Grit Sand and small pebbles eaten by chickens and used by its gizzard to grind up grain and plant fiber.
Hen A female chicken more than a year old. These are the ones that lay the eggs.
Hybrid The offspring of a hen and rooster of different breeds, each of which might themselves be crossbred.
Incubation period The time it takes for the egg to hatch, normally about 21 days, but also the time from exposure to a disease-causing agent until the first symptom appears.
Pecking order The social rank of chickens.
Pullet A female chicken less than a year old.
Purebred The offspring of a hen and rooster of the same breed.
Rooster A male chicken more than a year old.
Sex feather A hackle, saddle, or tail feather that is rounded in a hen but usually pointed in a rooster (except in hen feathered breeds)
Wattles The fleshy red things hanging under a chicken’s beak