The Chook Shed - More chook fun & facts

More chook fun & facts

Largest chicken

The heaviest breed of chicken is the White Sully, developed by Grant Sullens of West Point, CA by crossing and recrossing large Rhode Island Reds with other varieties.

The largest recorded chicken is Big Snow, a rooster weighing 23 pounds 3ounces on 12 June 1992, with a chest girth of 2 feet 9 inches and standing 1 foot 5 inches at the shoulder. Owned and bred by Ronald Alldridge of Deuchar, Queensland, Australia, Big Snow died of natural causes on 6 September 1992.

Reproductivity

The highest authenticated rate of egg-laying is by a White Leghorn, No. 2988, which laid 371 eggs in 364 days in an official test conducted by Prof. Harold V. Biellier ending on 29 August 1979 at the College of Agriculture, University of Missouri.

The highest recorded annual average per bird for a flock is 315 eggs in 52 weeks (August 1991-August 1992) from 5997 free-range ISA Brown layers, owned by Vernon Weicle of Park Farm, Heol-y-Cyw, Pencoed, Wales.

The Agrigeneral Company L.P. in Ohio has 4.8 million hens laying some 3.7 million eggs daily.

Figures for 1993 showed the United States to be the largest producer of chicken meat, or broiler, with a total of 15.02 million tons. The most produced by a state was 2.3 million tons, by Arkansas.
The leading egg producer, however, is China, where an estimated 215 billion were laid in 1993. United States egg production in 1993 was 71.39 billion.
The greatest state production was in California, with 6.5 billion eggs.

Egg facts

Largest egg
The heaviest egg reported was one of 16 ounces, with double yolk and double shell, laid by a White Leghorn at Vineland, NJ on 25 February 1956. The largest egg recorded was one of nearly 12 ounces for a five-yolked egg measuring 12 1/4 inches around the long axis and 9 inches around the short, laid by a Black Minorca at Mr Stafford's Damsteads Farm, Mellor, Great Britain in 1896.

Most yolks
The highest claim for the number of yolks in a hen's egg is nine, reported by Diane Hainsworth of Hainsworth Poultry Farms, Mount Morris, NY in July 1971, and also from a hen in Kyrgyzstan in August 1977.

Other chook facts

Flying
Sheena, a barnyard bantam owned by Bill and Bob Knox, flew 630 feet 2 inches at Parkesburg, PA on 31 May 1985.

Chicken Plucking
Ernest Hausen (1877-1955) of Fort Atkinson, WI died undefeated after 33 years as champion chicken plucker. On 19 January 1939 he was timed at 4.4 seconds.

Records courtesy of
Guinness Book of Records 1995 Edition