Chicken

Chickens are common passive mobs found in grassy biomes.

Spawning
Chickens spawn naturally in the overworld in groups of four on grass blocks with 2 blocks of free space above it at a light level of 9 or more.

Chickens are more common in jungle hills, jungle edges and modified jungle edges.

After the world generation, they spawn individually.

5% of chickens spawn as babies.

They require a light level of 7 or more to spawn and are found in groups of two to four.

Java Edition
All baby zombie variants and baby zombified piglins have a 5% chance to spawn riding a chicken, forming a chicken jockey. Because a baby zombie occurs from 5% of zombie spawns, the chicken jockey spawns consist of 0.25% of all zombie spawns in a chicken-free environment; if chickens are present, the chance increases to 0.4875%. A chicken jockey can also be spawned by using the following command:

Chicken jockeys may spawn with items equipped. Baby zombified piglin versions of the chicken jockey always wield a golden sword. Harming or killing the chicken does not cause the zombified piglin to attack.

Bedrock Edition
Baby zombie jockeys no longer spawn riding chickens, but check for nearby adult chickens to mount prior to attacking a player, wandering trader, adult villager, snow golem or iron golem.

Drops
When an adult chicken is killed, it drops: Chickens lay 1 every 5 to 10 minutes.
 * 0–2 . The maximum is increased by 1 per level of Looting, for a maximum of 0–5 with Looting III.
 * 1 (1  if killed while on fire). The maximum is increased by 1 per level of Looting, for a maximum of 1–4 with Looting III.
 * when killed by a player or tamed wolf ( if it was part of a chicken jockey).

When they breed, they drop.

Killing a baby chicken yields no items or experience.

Behavior
Chickens are active, wandering aimlessly, chicks also following adults. When falling, they flap their wings and fall slowly, thus they are immune to fall damage. However, they avoid falling off cliffs. When harmed, they flee around. Chickens uniquely attempt to jump up to climb stairs instead of climbing them normally. They are attacked by ocelots, untamed cats, and foxes. Chickens follow players holding various seeds within 6 blocks.

While in a loaded chunk, a chicken lays an egg every 5–10 minutes (6000–12000 ticks), unless it is, or was, a part of a chicken jockey. If the player is close enough to a chicken when it lays an egg, a pop sound is heard.

Chickens are able to swim, in a derpy fashion, visibly flapping their wings and staying on the water surface. While swimming, chickens and chicks need only one block of air above their heads.

Breeding


If two adult chickens are fed wheat seeds, beetroot seeds, melon seeds or pumpkin seeds, a baby spawns. They cannot breed for 5 minutes afterward.

Chicks take 20 minutes to grow up, but the growth time can be accelerated by 10% each time it is fed seeds.

Chicks are incredibly small. They can pass through openings even smaller than a full block, though not willingly. When one is riding a minecart, it is impossible to hit as it is completely inside the minecart's hitbox.

Eggs
Chickens are the only Overworld mob that can breed without a separate item farm. By collecting their eggs and throwing them at the ground, there's a $$ chance to spawn a chick. If that's successful, there is a further $$ chance ($1⁄8$ per egg) to spawn 3 extra chicks. It is possible to get a maximum of 64 chickens per stack of (16) eggs. See also chicken farm.

If the player throws eggs at glass panes, the chick can spawn on the far side of the panes.

ID




Entity data
Chickens have entity data associated with them that contain various properties.

Trivia

 * When a chicken is killed while falling, the corpse also falls more slowly than normal, and the wings continue flapping.
 * Chickens are able to "hide" within hoppers due to their small size, which protects them from dangers like lava on top of the hopper.
 * A few weeks before the end of Java Edition Beta, Notch tweeted that he changed the chickens to ducks, causing a turmoil on Twitter. A few days later, Jeb, still getting feedback on the idea, stated that it was just a joke.
 * The changelog for Pocket Edition v0.3.0 alpha referred to chickens as ducks.
 * Notch later referred to chickens in a blog post as "the chicken/duck/whatevers".