Chicken

Chickens (sometimes called Ducks ) are passive mobs that supply feathers, raw chicken, and chicken eggs. If killed by fire, they can supply cooked chicken instead of raw.

Appearance
Chickens have white feathers and wings, yellow beaks, yellow feet and red wattles. Their texture is somewhat checkered, in a similar fashion to wool. They are small enough to fit entirely within a block: 0.875 blocks tall, 0.5 blocks wide and 0.8125 blocks long. Like most other mobs with baby forms, their baby form has a smaller body, but the head is the same size as adults, and so appears disproportionately large.

Behavior

 * Chickens appear to wander around aimlessly, without attempting to stay out of water or avoid falls.
 * They are immune to fall damage. When falling they will flap their wings quickly and fall slowly.
 * While in a loaded chunk, a chicken lays one egg approximately every 7.5 minutes (6000 to 12000 ticks).
 * They share some behaviors with other "farm animals":
 * They are drawn to light in a dark environment.
 * The adults can swim, visibly flapping their wings as they stay on the surface, The babies, however, are prone to drowning; being so small, they can drown even in some partial blocks of water.
 * They can be led around or bred bred with a food item (in this case, anuy sort of seed) to produce a baby (a "chick"). (See "Breeding" below for full details.)

Breeding
There are two ways to breed chickens: Chickens can be bred like other farm animals, by feeding any two adult chickens, with seeds of any sort. They can be bred with wheat seeds, melon seeds, pumpkin seeds, or even nether wart. The chickens that were fed will need to wait 5 minutes before they can breed again.

However, chicks can also be produced by breaking eggs. The eggs must be explicitly broken; eggs sitting around as items will not hatch, and will eventually despawn like other items.

When an egg is thrown (or shot from a dispenser), it will eventually hit a solid block or a mob, and break. It then it has a 1/8 chance to spawn a baby chicken; if it does, there is a 1/32 chance of spawning 4 chicks instead of one. If the egg was thrown at a wall at certain angles, the chicken may spawn in the wall and either suffocate (opaque blocks) or pass through entirely (transparent blocks).

Hatching chickens by throwing eggs, and breeding them with seeds, can be done simultaneously to multiply them much faster than other mobs.

Chicks

 * Chicks move faster than adults.
 * Chicks follow adult chickens until they grow into an adult. If produced by breeding, they will follow one of their parents; if that chicken dies or they were produced from an egg, they will choose a nearby chicken as their "parent".  Since they are faster, they are prone to pushing their parents around.
 * Chicks take about 20 minutes to fully mature.
 * Chicks do not lay eggs, and like other baby animals, they do not drop anything (including experience) if killed.
 * Due to their small size, chicks can pass through openings even smaller than a full block.

Farming
Farming chickens is very useful, as it provides a renewable source of chicken eggs, raw/cooked chicken, feathers, and XP. As with other animals, you will want to keep them in an enclosed or fenced area so they don't wander off. The best Chicken farming technique would include a pit-type enclosure at least 2 blocks deep with a ladder out. (otherwise chickens escape every time you open the door or gate)  Chicken farms can generate quite a bit of noise; you probably will want to build large farms at least sixteen blocks away from frequently used areas.

Remember that ungathered eggs will vanish after 5 minutes—merging stacks does extend that, but even so, if you're trying to build a large population you'll want to gather them several times a day. If a pen of chickens is abandoned (all chicks grow up, then eggs are not gathered for at least 5 minutes), the next egg harvest will average at least 70% of the number of chickens (hatching to about 83%).

Automatic egg farms can be created by placing chickens in water arranged so as to support the chickens, while letting the eggs (and any drops from killed chickens) fall into a collection area. (beware that chicks can drown in water as of 1.5.1)

In the Minecraft snapshot 13w01, hoppers were introduced. Putting one of these below the output of an egg farm automatically collects the eggs for you. Add a chest below that to store the eggs, or, if you are feeling creative, add an automatic dispenser below to turn the eggs back into chickens. Then wait for the chickens to age, and kill them automatically or manually. Some useful values:
 * A single chest (or Minecart with chest) full of eggs will yield an average of 59 chicks.
 * Assuming a farm with automatic hatching, then later automatic collection of eggs, a given large number of eggs (say 1 chest, or 2 chests, etc.) will take roughly 75 minutes to replace itself. This includes the 20 minutes for the chickens to grow to maturity, but not any time needed to actually hatch all those eggs.

This video is a proper example of the new automatic farm possibilities after snapshot 13w01 with hoppers.

Trivia

 * When a chicken is killed off a ledge, the "corpse" also falls more slowly than normal, and the wings still make a flapping animation. This also happens in Pocket Edition.
 * Notch tweeted that he changed the chickens to ducks a few weeks before the end of Beta, causing a turmoil on Twitter. A few days later, Jeb, still getting feedback on the idea, stated that it was just a joke.
 * If you throw chicken eggs at glass panes or iron bars, there is a small chance that the chick spawns on the opposite side.
 * Despite being an animal that does not give live birth, chickens in-game are able to give live birth.
 * Chickens are the only animals that can repopulate from only one animal. The eggs it drops can be hatched into additional chickens, which can then breed.
 * There is no texture for the underside of a chicken's head, allowing you to see through it and see the inside.
 * Ocelots attack chickens.
 * When first released, chickens took fall damage like other mobs, and would drop leather if they died from it (bug).
 * The baby chicken is so small it can fit through the gap of a stair block facing a full block.
 * In Pocket Edition, adult chickens come out of eggs instead of baby chickens.
 * Chickens are able to "hide" within hoppers due to their small size, protecting them from lava or water that is directly on top of the hopper.
 * Also in Pocket Edition there is a glitch that allows chickens to get their heads stuck in chests. This makes it easy to collect their eggs which are always in the same spot.
 * On the covers of Pocket Edition and Xbox 360 Edition, a chicken is shown carrying a Block of Diamond, even though chickens are not able to carry anything in any edition.
 * While you are loading/creating/exiting a world in the Xbox 360 Edition, the message that appears can say "Is it a Chicken, or a duck?". Also, the summary for the mobs avatars at the end says "... and a chicken... Or is it a duck?".
 * Chickens become invisible at a certain distance, with the chicks disappearing at a shorter distance.