Chicken

Chickens are common egg-laying passive mobs.

Natural generation
Chickens naturally generate in groups of up to 4 on grass blocks with 2 blocks of free space above it at light level of 9 or more.

They spawn more frequently in jungles than in other biomes.

5% of naturally generated chickens will be babies.

Baby chicken
Chickens can be bred to produce chicks.

Thrown eggs have a $1/8$ chance to spawn a baby chicken. If successful, there is a $1/32$ chance to spawn four baby chickens instead. If the egg was thrown at a wall at a certain angle, the chicken may spawn in the wall, suffocating the chicken.

Baby chickens will grow up in 20 minutes, although the growth can be accelerated by seeds; each use of seeds reduces the remaining time by 10%.

Chicken jockey
All baby zombie variants and baby zombie pigmen have a 5% chance to spawn riding a chicken, forming a chicken jockey. Since a baby zombie only occurs from 5% of zombie spawns, this means that chicken jockey spawns makes up only 0.25% of all zombie spawns.

In a chicken-free environment, this gives each spawned zombie a 0.25% chance of becoming a chicken jockey; if chickens are present, the chance increases to 0.4875%.

A chicken jockey can also be spawned by the command.

Drops
Adult chickens drop from 0 to 2 feathers, and 1 raw chicken. If a chicken dies while on fire, it drops cooked chicken instead of raw chicken.

The amount of raw chicken (or cooked chicken) dropped is affected by the Looting enchantment. Chickens drop 1–3 experience when killed by a player or tamed wolf.
 * Looting I  : 1–2 raw chicken, 0–2 feathers
 * Looting II : 1–3 raw chicken, 1–3 feathers
 * Looting III : 1–4 raw chicken, 1–4 feathers

Like other baby animals, killing a baby chicken yields no items, nor experience.

Behavior
Chickens appear to wander around aimlessly. When falling they will flap their wings quickly and fall slowly, making them immune to fall damage. Despite this, they will still avoid falling off high cliffs.

While in a loaded chunk, a chicken will lay one egg every 5 to 10 minutes (6000 to 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 popping sound can be heard.

They share some behaviors with other "farm animals":
 * They are drawn to light when in a dark environment.
 * When struck, they run around quickly and aimlessly.
 * They can swim, visibly flapping their wings as they stay on the surface.
 * They can be led around by holding a seed, and are also able to breed with seeds.

Chickens are attacked by wild ocelots.

Baby chickens do not lay eggs. Due to their small size, they can pass through openings even smaller than a full block, though not willingly.

When swimming, baby chickens need only one block of air above their heads. Adult chickens need two blocks of air above their heads or else they will take damage when they float up and will eventually die.

Breeding


If two chickens are fed seeds, beetroot seeds, melon seeds, or pumpkin seeds (or nether wart in the Legacy Console Edition), they will mate and produce a chick. After breeding, the chickens will be unable to breed again for 5 minutes.

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

Data values
Chickens have entity data associated with them that contain various properties of the mob. Their entity ID is.

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.
 * Chickens are able to "hide" within hoppers due to their small size, protecting them from lava or water that might be directly on top of the hopper.
 * A few weeks before the end of 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.
 * While you are loading/creating/exiting a world on Legacy Console 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?".
 * The changelog for Pocket Edition 0.3.0 referred to chickens as ducks.