Talk:Chicken

Anywhere grass?
Since chickens spawn at an 1/8 rate when you throw an egg at a grass tile, does that mean they can spawn anywhere at grass when an egg is thrown? –Preceding unsigned comment was added by Tials (Talk&#124;Contribs) 19:00, 20 December 2010. Please sign your posts with


 * You can throw eggs to spawn chickens anywhere, but I'm not sure about slabs/glass. --Troagador 20:23, 15 January 2011 (UTC)


 * What about tall-grass? The stuff you gets seeds from? I have a base on a huge plain (grassland biome?) with acres of tall grass and loads of cows and sheep and few pigs but no chickens for quite some playing time. Forrest nearby.. nothing. Where do chickens come from? Bart --86.80.116.169 23:47, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Hates Pits
Chickens seem to hate being stuck in a pit. An example would be this video (specifically from 1:35 to 1:42), in which it seems as though the troop of chickens were racing to get out of the pit. I've also seen this behavior in a couple of other post-Beta Youtube videos. I also tried this in my own game. However, I don't know if it applies to any other mobs. --Myuzi 00:20, 26 December 2010 (CST)
 * Wow that is a new behaviour mob behaviour. Someone's gotta' check it out. :o --Scykei 10:11, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

I have a death hole type set up, with a small hole for some redstone to get through. It seems to me that the chickens landing in the death pit are anxious to go through this 1 block whole to get to the more expansion cavern for wiring, but I've not really seen enough of this to confirm anyting. --Troagador 20:25, 15 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Actually, from what I can tell, this is normal. It just looks unnatural because all the chickens' pathfinders are tracing through one block. I believe I've seen this with other mobs as well. When a mob comes to the side of a block, it will attempt to jump over it. if there are no 1-block ledges available, it will constantly attempt to find a better path. When he removed the block, all the chickens registered a jumpable ledge, and all decided it was a usable path. Mobs (for the most part) do not consider other mobs when tracing a path, so while they all appeared to swarm the opening, in reality, it was just each chicken detecting a better path at once. So there isn't an actual piece of code for "Escape from pit, ASAP", but if you'd like to interpret this function as a dislike of pits, go on ahead. I'm no coder, and my understanding of mob AI is based on observation and reading this wiki. My knowledge is rudimentary at best, but I hope this helped, anyway! --Technoman7 16:58, 7 July 2011 (UTC)


 * From my own observation passive mobs try to go into open areas, once I had a farm in a room, there had to be at least 100-200 chickens in there. When i accidentally broke 1 square in the wall most of them went right for it and dispersed around the area. Couldn't close to hole until there was maybe 10 left. There were chickens EVERYWHERE. Also tamed wolves don't seem to like being led into closed areas (tried getting them into a pen, they absolutely ignored it, I had to have them sit and push them in one by one. 67.243.174.218 14:09, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Timer?
Im trying to farm eggs but my chickens keep vanishing. I am not sure if this is on a timer or what. Could this possibly be El Chupacabra? haha =P Anyone know if ther is a timer on farm or passive animals? –Preceding unsigned comment was added by Zux (Talk&#124;Contribs) 05:33, 21 January 2011. Please sign your posts with


 * Like all other passive mobs chickens disappear when you walk away from them. If you want your chickens to stay you have to stay close to them. --Taurentius 22:47, 23 February 2011 (UTC)


 * how close do you have to stay to keep them alive? –Preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.191.49.176 (Talk) 06:22, 28 May 2012. Please sign your posts with

Farm animals no longer despawn as of beta 1.8. 74.73.15.166 14:00, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Do chickens still despawn in certain circumstances in multiplayer? My friend and I were trying to create an underground chicken farm, we lured 3 chickens into the room, had just bred two, and then all four chickens vanished while we were watching them. Apparently this isn't the first time this has happened to my friend, but I assumed he had just walked too far away from them before. Is it possible to farm chickens underground? Eman ruse 22:41, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Chickens = enemy spies?
I heard that when chicken encounters a hostile monster, it then leads that monster to the player. Is that true? I must say that I saw chickens during daylight creeper fights quite often. Xeoxer 14:50, 11 July 2011 (UTC)


 * That's not true. Hostile mobs will ignore chickens, and chicken's pathfinding has nothing to do with the player. The fact that you saw chickens during a fight with a creeper doesn't really mean anything, because chickens spawn in the daylight, anyway. --Technoman7 15:58, 14 July 2011 (UTC)


 * That would be super creepy if they did! Milkman9 16:01, 28 August 2011 (CTD)


 * dude look at paulsoaresjr's minecraft tutorial episode 8. (its not just a theory, its true) 66.240.56.238 16:10, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
 * EDIT: they are spies, they're always there, watching... waiting... –Preceding unsigned comment was added by 206.166.54.18 (Talk) 12:15, 5 July 2012. Please sign your posts with
 * I agree 100%. Chickens are the most dangerous mob in the game. They sound like creepers, lead monsters to you, and are nearly impossible to hit. LB 12:30, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

Chickens Dying from Overcrowding
It says in the article that chickens will die when crowded in a small space. I think this only applies when the walls are made from a solid block and is due to it being forced to clip into the block and take suffocation damage. I've seen a great number of chickens in a very small farm using fence for the walls and none of them will die. --Wriggle255 02:34, 17 September 2011 (UTC)
 * In 1.2.5, yes, but in 1.3.2 something is happening... more commentary below. --Mental Mouse 21:15, 18 August 2012

Chicks Dying from Drowning
Is anyone seeing their baby chicks dying in 1m water (not from overcrowding)? I don't see it documented anywhere, but if I have anywhere from 1 to hundreds of baby chicks floating in water, they will (almost) all die from what appears to be drowning damage before maturing. Pzich 17:28, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

I've confirmed this as well. When trying to make an automatic chicken farm, the chickens keep dying in the one layer of water suspended over signs. -MadScientistBlue 12:43, 28 March 97.88.170.48 17:44, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Confirm. 2 Levels of water over signs don´t help either. Baby Chickens get either pushed underwater by their parents (only 2 breeding pairs in 10x10, not overcrowded) or sink below water level themselves and die. -AbaddondV 89.182.42.56 01:07, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Chickens in caves (1.8)?
I've been playing 1.8 for a day now, exploring some caves, and have come across two chickens while underground. One had even laid an egg. I could also hear a chicken while in a very large underground ravine, probably about 30 layers deep. Is this happening to anyone else, or just me? –Preceding unsigned comment was added by Mchasej (Talk&#124;Contribs) 05:15, 19 September 2011. Please sign your posts with
 * Considering chickens take no fall damage, it would make sense to find some in a ravine that opens up to the surface somewhere. 174.32.68.85 00:58, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

Spawn rate change?
Is it me, or have chickens become a lot rarer since 1.8? It's been days since I last saw one... heck, I actually haven't had any new passive mobs spawn near my home. Is that normal now? Cobalt32 02:09, 13 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Did you killed animals near your home? because now less animals spawn if you kill them... --Gil2455526 02:20, 13 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Actually, I did... so now you need to leave some alive if you want more to spawn? Cobalt32 01:09, 15 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Yeah, they now spawn when you first gets to the chunck, and respawn VERY slowly, like hours...--Gil2455526 01:59, 15 October 2011 (UTC)


 * I know this is a very late response however passive mobs now usually spawn during chunk generation, they rarely spawn on their own. Go outside of the explored area and bring some wheat to lure some mobs into w/e area u want them in. 67.243.174.218 14:12, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

eggs for breeding?
right now chickens dont lay eggs for the breeding thing with wheat they could soon idk if they will –Preceding unsigned comment was added by Enderdragon (Talk&#124;Contribs) 12:36, 15 October 2011. Please sign your posts with


 * Well they might but each time I throw a egg at a chicken there comes another one or fourNick63 22:48, 20 October 2011 (UTC)Nick63

Chicken = duck
Posted on twitter 28.10.11: @notch Markus Persson Also, the chicken is now a duck. –Preceding unsigned comment was added by 86.50.85.130 (Talk) 07:32, 28 October 2011. Please sign your posts with 
 * It was a joke — Toshu (talk) 01:52, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Baby Chicken height?
How tall is a baby chicken? –Preceding unsigned comment was added by 81.152.236.236 (Talk&#124;Contribs) 11:52, 6 November 2011. Please sign your posts with


 * Well its hard to say how tall they are but they are silghty shorter than normal chicken due to the fact that there heads are the same size but there body is smaller. –Preceding unsigned comment was added by 82.3.11.232 (Talk&#124;Contribs) 19:39, 8 November 2011. Please sign your posts with

Swimming Chicken Bug?
If 3 or more chickens are swimming in one chunk, when you leave that chunk you can experience a FPS drop. The more chickens there are swimming, the more severe and prolonged the FPS drop is. This has been around for a very long time: (Despite solving the silly math captcha correctly, the page would not save the changes and therefore would not let me have a source for this claim) I'm not sure where to report this bug, so I figured this would be the best place for it. 118.93.22.174 09:25, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Got the same problem. If there are chickens swimming anywhere near me and I walk more than 20 blocks away, my game freezes up. 71.179.29.164 00:36, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

Chickens lay eggs between 5 and 10 minutes (Every 6000 ticks + a random 6000 ticks)
The article states that they "may" lay an egg every 5 to 10 minutes but there is solid proof in the source that chickens WILL lay an egg every 5 minutes minumum with an up to 5 minute extra time that is randomly assigned. Nothing has changed in 1.8 as is speculated in the article and as such should be removed. Don't know about 1.0 though since I'm not coding for 1.0 until most mods get updated to 1.0 46.59.35.62 01:19, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Chicks from egg on SMP
Under Trivia it says that on SMP world that is generated before 1.0, instead of chicks, eggs will hatch full grown chickens. On my server, in a world that is generated with 1.8 eggs hatch chicks, not chickens. Server is Bukkit mod, I don't know about vanilla server. --31.45.179.244 15:51, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

Jump Height
How high can a chicken jump? Will a chicken jump a fence, two fences? Anotherfahlman 12:55, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Strange Behaviour 1.2.4 and Multi-Spawn Eggs
Hmm. I'm noticing that my chicken have a big tendency to try to escape from a fence area when they are inside of it and the gates are opened. Lol?

Also, now every time (happended 3 times in a row) I trow an egg that hatch I get 4 chickens insted of one. It's a bug, or luck? –Preceding unsigned comment was added by 87.4.90.28 (Talk) 22:24, 29 March 2012. Please sign your posts with

o-o Chickens "nest"
I've noticed that chickens will determine one spot they like to stay. For Benedict, it's the trapdoor to my basement. For Leslie, it's (conveniently) her coop/bed/crib thing. Anyone else notice this? :P –Preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.235.47.4 (Talk) 20:42, 13 April 2012. Please sign your posts with


 * 1st of all, you NAME YOUR CHICKENS? you must have been alone for a while
 * second of all, they are attracted to light and grass, so take a look at their "spots" and get back to me :-66.240.56.238 16:08, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

Breeding chickens in a jungle
My base is in a jungle and I'm having problems breeding chickens, I think the Ocelots are killing them. I put up a double-width fence, then moved the outer fence out to leave a gap, but my chickens keep dying. How can I protect them? PhilHibbs 13:05, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I tried a stone wall 2 blocks high with doors and that didn't work either. PhilHibbs 18:42, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
 * They may be dying off from overcrowding. They're supposedly suffocating against the walls, but (contra prior comments), I'm finding that even with a glass-walled enclosure, let alone fence, they reach a maximum density, and the excess die off when I'm not watching.  This seems to be new in 1.3.1, at least I was managing much better densities in 1.2.5. --Mental Mouse 21:05, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
 * It isn't overcrowding, I've had just 2 chickens in a large walled enclosure (over 16x16) and they disappeared. PhilHibbs 21:53, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
 * How close to a jungle are you guys? Could it be Ocelots? Will check a few chicken masher farms I have and test designs to see if this is a thing. Also, I assume this is SP? 70.118.77.26 11:25, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Not seeing this. Only chickens dissapearing in my farms are the ones I kill Firehound 11:38, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

new info about breeding
chickens in 1.4 will be bred with seeds the source of this is a tweet by dinnerbone h.ttps://twitter.com/Dinnerbone/status/240640866811777024 fullstop after the h to not create link.also i have only put this on the talk page because i don't know if it should be added yet2.223.159.208 00:53, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Chickens in Ice Plains
I'm playing in an ice biome and I've been having a hard time trying to find a chicken, just for getting a feather (and maybe an egg) from it. I've explored the map several kms around and got no success. My question is, are there any chickens available in Ice Plains? I think that if I could ever find an open sky cavern I might find more animal variety, including chickens. But should I really carry on with my quest? --Absay 05:45, 21 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Chickens spawn in Ice Plains, and any other biome that cows, sheep, and pigs can spawn in. I just tested this myself. Generated a new world, random seed, found the nearest ice plains (which was surprisingly huge) and had to travel for a bit, but eventually I found some chickens. The nice thing about chickens is you don't even need to lure a chicken back to start a farm, all you need to do is grab a stack and a half of eggs and go home. --Kahless61 19:25, 21 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Thank you Kahless61. It turns out that after reading this, I decided to give myself a last chance to go on a trip and look for a chicken, and I finally founnd some waddling around a knoll. It took me one day (in game), but I attracted a couple to my base and could start the breeding process, etc. So yeah, I can confirm as well, chickens do spawn in icy maps.--Absay 18:24, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I suspect that in certain individual maps, chickens are especially likely to get killed or trapped. Chickens may be immune to fall damage, but by the same token they can wander into smaller holes and happily drift down into caverns.  Similarly, a surface lava pool can act like a bugzapper, especially at night (as they move towards light).  --Mental Mouse 13:50, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Chickens getting stuck in fences/cobble walls, eventually popping out the other side
Has anyone else got this problem? If not, what am I doing wrong? As far as space is concerned, the chickens have plenty. --190.152.229.147 20:04, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Yes, i have the same problem, it's very annoying. They seem to go for the corners and get trapped. Also happening to cows. except they don't get trapped, but they keep crowding at one spot at the edge of the fence, and eventually one gets out too. i'm playing the just released 1.5 redstone update. 201.80.87.143 18:37, 14 March 2013 (UTC)


 * See my comment a couple of entries below -- these three complaints are all related. --Mental Mouse 20:16, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Chickens suffocating each other
My chickens keep suffocating themselves no matter what. It is irratating.--Cutie Cake 16:25, 6 March 2013 (UTC)


 * See my comment a couple of entries below -- these three complaints are all related. --Mental Mouse 20:17, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Chickens escaping
Ever since 1.5 my chickens keep ending up on the other side of the fence, and escape. Does anyone else have this problem? 81.0.98.76 11:53, 19 March 2013 (UTC)


 * This isn't actually new to 1.5, I've been seeing it for quite a while. The basic problem is that while animals can't just walk through blocks or fences, they can be pushed through -- if it's a solid block they'll suffocate, but if it's a transparent block like fences, they can end up on the other side.  This happens a lot when animals get too crowded, and especially after breeding:  The babies, "following" their parents, crowd them into the wall/fence.  For chickens, one way to deal with this is to build an "egg farm", where a layer of water gathers the chickens into the middle.  You'll still get some suffocation, but not nearly as much.  In any case, I just figure that escapees are volunteering for slaughter....   ETA:  It's on Mojira as MC-2025, and actually does seem to have gotten worse (or added a new component) in 1.5. --Mental Mouse 20:16, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

no eggs
I made a huge egg farm, about 2 eggs a sec, i went back to the world from multiplayer and there were no eggs. i waited a long time and there was still no eggs. Minecrafty1450 02:07, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Chickens from eggs
Since there was a bit of an edit war over this, I'm going to explain the mathematics here. Each egg has a $1/8$ × $1/32$ = $1/256$ (0.39%) chance of spawning 4 chicks, a $1/8$ × $31/32$ = $31/256$ (12.11%) chance of spawning one chick, and a $7/8$ (87.5%) chance of spawning nothing. The average number of chicks per egg is. A full chest contains 27 stacks of 16 eggs each, for a total of 432. On average, you'll get  chicks per chest of eggs. -- Orthotope 02:37, 28 April 2013 (UTC)
 * And to clarify my part, the formula in my "guard comment" just does that with whole numbers: For each 256 eggs, 1 in 8 produces a chick, which is 32, but 1 of those gives 3 extra, so you get 35 chicks per 256 eggs.  Then you can multiply out , for the same result. --Mental Mouse 10:47, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Actually, the way you do it is this: Since there are 27 stacks that can be in a single chest, and there is a max of 16 eggs per stack, we know that there can be 432 eggs per chest (864 for a double). Since 1 out of every 256 can give four chicks, that means that 1.6875 eggs (just a weird average) will hatch four chicks (432/256). Then we multiply that by 4 to find out how many chicks that gives (6.75). So then we subtract 1.6875 from 432 (to find how many eggs will have a 1 in 8 chance to give one chick), 430.3125 eggs have a chance to give a 1 in 8 chance of a chick. So then if we divide 430.3125 by 8, we know that there are 53.7890625 chicks that had their own eggs. Then we add 53.7890625 and 6.75 together and we get 60.5390625 chicks for a single chest (on average). Then if we round that to a nicer number we get 60.5 per chest, or 121 for a double chest.

Here's another way to do it: Since the 'normal' chance for chicks is 1/8 for a single chick, and there is a 1/256 chance for an egg with 4 chicks, that means that 255 out of every 256 eggs will have a 1/8 chance of a single chick. So if there are 255 eggs with a 1/8 chance to have an egg, that means you have to divide 255 by 8, or multiply 255 by .125 (1/8) to get 31.875 chicks from those 255. Then that last egg will give 4 chicks so you just add 4 to 31.875 to get 35.875. Since we are dealing with 432 eggs and not 256, you simply divide 432 by 256 to get the relative size ratio of 1.6875. Then just multiply 35.875 and 1.6875 together and still get 60.5390625, or 60.5 chicks per chest and 121 for a double sized chest. (KGuitarMan94 20:03, 28 April 2013 (UTC))


 * Those calculations would be correct if eggs had a 1/256 chance of spawning 4 chicks, and those that don't spawn 4 have a 1/8 chance of spawning a single chick. However, that's not how the game works. In the actual code, eggs have a 1/8 chance of spawning a chick, and of those, they have a 1/32 chance of spawning four instead of one. Using a different procudure to calculate the probability will not produce the correct result. -- Orthotope 20:56, 28 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Looks like Orthotope beat me to the post, but here's my response: While I haven't nailed down the error precisely, I suspect you are counting the 256'th egg both for 4 eggs and again for another 1. When you subtract the "quads" eggs from the pool, the remaining eggs have slightly less than 1/8 chance of an egg, because the quads eggs would have been part of the 1/8.   In general, if there is a simple way to calculate such things which is provably correct (note that Orthotope's and my methods are equivalent, and both are pretty much transcriptions of the odds), any more complex method can be checked against it -- if the complex way doesn't match the simple way, odds are the error is in the more complex method.  --Mental Mouse 20:58, 28 April 2013 (UTC)