Chicken

Chickens are passive mobs found in Minecraft. They have white feathers and wings, with a yellow beak, and a red wattle. Chickens supply feathers, raw chicken and chicken eggs, essential for arrows, food and cakes, respectively. Chickens are 0.875 blocks tall, 0.5 blocks wide and 0.8125 blocks long. Chickens spawn in broad daylight, and can spawn in groups of 2-6. Chickens also have a 1/8 chance of being spawned as Chicks from a thrown chicken egg, or a 1/256th chance to get 4 Chicks at once.

Behavior
Chickens appear to wander around aimlessly, but actually have decent pathfinding ability. They will make no attempt to stay out of water. Chickens are drawn to light in a dark environment, and will follow the player if the player is holding wheat (see Breeding). It will flee when attacked.

When a chicken falls from a height, it quickly flaps its wings, and falls slowly to the ground to prevent fall damage. Chickens are unable to climb up a ladder, but it is possible to push a chicken up a ladder.

Chickens will lay an egg on every 5–10 minutes (it takes 40 minutes for 9 chickens to lay 50 eggs ≈ 7.2 minutes/egg).

Breeding
Chickens can be hatched by throwing chicken eggs, allowing them to be easily bred. Each egg will have a 1/8th chance in hatching a Chick or a 1/256th chance to get 4 Chicks in an egg instead. If you start with 11 eggs you have a 50% chance of creating a colony of at least 2 Chickens.

Chickens are also able to be bred in the usual breeding fashion, by feeding them wheat. The newborn Chick will be followed by the parents. The parent Chickens will have a delay of five minutes until they can breed again.

Chicks will move faster and takes around 20 minutes for it to fully grow. They will not drop anything when killed, or lay eggs.

It is possible to herd chickens along with any other animal if you simply walk by a chicken while holding wheat. The chicken will follow you where ever you go. You can do this to lead animals into fenced areas allowing easy breeding.

Farming
The player can farm Chickens quite easily by making a safe, enclosed area. Making a Chicken colony is a great way to get an unlimited supply of feathers, raw chicken and chicken eggs.

History
Chickens were first introduced in Alpha Version 1.0.14 (Seecret Friday 7).

Raw chicken was introduced in Beta 1.8 with the introduction of the Hunger system. Before this, Chickens only dropped feathers on death.

Since Snapshot 12w07a, Chickens have the new AI system. 

Trivia

 * Chickens are the third smallest mob (the first being the Silverfish, the second being the small Slime) in Minecraft. They are able to fit through 1×1 gaps.
 * When a Chicken is killed and has a boost from the hit or is thrown over a cliff by the hit, the "corpse" will also fall more slowly than normal, and the wings will still make a flapping animation.
 * When a Chicken is riding a minecart, it is impossible to attack the Chicken rather than the cart as it is completely inside the shape of the cart.
 * Chickens are the only Overworld mob (without the use of hacks/inventory editors) that can be spawned in the Nether in Survival mode, by hatching them from throwing chicken eggs.
 * Chickens are sometimes mistaken for ducks due to their wide beaks and ability to swim.
 * Probably inspired by this, 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, there is a small chance that the Chicken will spawn on the other side of the panes.
 * Despite being a animal that does not give live birth, Chickens are able to give live birth.
 * Chicks can be lured by wheat.
 * There is no texture for the underside of a Chicken's head, allowing you to see through it and see the inside.
 * Ocelots will attack Chickens.