Chicken Trivia Quiz 1 - Answers
1. a) An Abacot Ranger is a duck and the rest are British breeds of chickens. Croad Lanshans were imported into Britain from China by Major F.T. Croad. His niece is credited with developing today’s show breed. Ixworths were developed as a utility breed in Suffolk and a Scots Dumpy is a short legged Scottish breed.
2 d) Despite the name, Yokohamas were developed in Europe from a Japanese breed of chicken. Yokohama is not where the breed originated, but it is the port from which a French Missionary named Girad first exported the originating breed to Europe where further breeding would create the Yokohama known today. Today the Yokohama has been further developed in Japan which produces several colours of these beautiful show birds.
Plymouth Rocks and Jersey Giants, from New Jersey, are American breeds and a Brahma is from India.
3 c) 310. Although this number can vary for speciality layers like blue egg layers a modern day Hybrid Layer can be expected to lay around this number of eggs in its first 12 months of laying. The most productive pure breed chicken, Rhode Island Reds, Leghorns and Light Sussex, rarely exceed 250 eggs a year.
4 d) On September the 10th 1945 Colorado farmer Lloyd Olsen beheaded his cockerel Mike for a chicken dinner but amazingly the bird survived. Mike lived for 18months becoming a celebrity exhibit in a travelling show and featuring in many magazines of the time including Time and Life Magazine.
Mike was on display to the public for an admission cost of 25 cents. At the height of his popularity, the chicken earned US$4,500 per month ($48,000 in todays dollars) and was valued at $10,000. Olsen's success resulted in a wave of copycat chicken beheading, but no other chicken lived for more than a day or two.
Mike the Headless Chicken is celebrated in Fruita, Colorado, on the third weekend in May with an annual "Mike the Headless Chicken Day". They don’t get out much in Fruita. Apparently Mike has his own twitter blog
5 b) Hens are renowned good mothers
6 a) The yolk is held more centrally and furthest from the air pocket if the egg is stored round end uppermost.
7 a) Eggs are normally laid round end first though they travel down the oviduct pointed end first. Very occasionally, according to some observers, they can be laid pointed end first. The egg which starts off as a yolk to which is attached the germ from which the chick will develop, is revolved in corkscrew motion down the oviduct. The albumen (white) is deposited first and the shell is the last component to be deposited in the uterus. The colour of eggshells is due to a coloured coating deposited on the otherwise white shell. Contrary to popular myth shell colour has no significance to egg taste. In the USA white eggs are more prized than brown which are more popular in the UK.
8 c) Double yolker eggs under natural conditions don’t hatch. Contrary to what is popularly thought double yolkers aren’t very rare and commonly occur with young hens before their bodies have adjusted to regular laying.
Double yolked eggs are rare in supermarket eggs as they are selected out at the packing stage. Stories of people finding a supermarket carton of eggs to contain 6 double yolkers, the odds of which are 1000’s of times smaller than your chance of winning the lottery, are usually explained by these selected out double yolkers finding their way into the eggs packed for sale.
9 a) California. This is also the most populous state. It was estimated that in 2000 total US production reached over 8 billion chickens, the overwhelming majority of which were broilers, and exceeded beef in terms of meat weight consumed per capita.
10 d) This is the submissive posture a hen adopts when it wants to be mated. A hen will naturally accept you as the head of the flock and ascribe to you the role of the cock. A cock will often induce a hen to adopt this posture by doing a very brief wing down sideways display and placing a foot on her tail. It is often referred to as treading the hens.
11 b) None. Eggs are laid and chicks are hatched not born. Therefore a chicken doesn’t have a birthday though it may have a layday or a hatchday.
12 b) One. When a chick hatches it has a small horny spike on the top of it’s beak which is called an “egg tooth” and is used by the chick to break out of its shell. It is shed shortly after hatching.