Chicken

Chickens are passive mobs that first appeared in Alpha mode. The main purpose of chickens is to supply feathers and eggs, essential for arrows and cakes respectively. Chickens are 0.875 blocks tall, 0.5 blocks wide and 0.8125 blocks long.

Behavior
Chickens wander around aimlessly. They will make no attempt to stay out of water, and a common sight is several chickens bouncing up and down in the water. If you stand near a chicken, it will turn its head towards you for a few seconds, then resume its wandering. They appear to be drawn to caves, since they move more easily down ledges than up them. Since the Beta update they seem to be the most common mob. Chickens often spawn alone, but can spawn in groups of 1-4. Like all other passive mobs, they move entirely randomly. Like most other mobs, they also cannot jump over fences.

Chickens can also lay eggs which you can throw at enemies or used as an ingredient in cakes. Chickens lay an egg on average about every 7 minutes (it took 40 minutes for 9 chickens to lay 50 eggs = 7.2 minutes/egg). Since the Beta 1.0 update on December 20, Chickens have a 1/8 chance of being spawned from a thrown egg. When thrown at a block, the egg breaks, which makes no sound, but the throw itself makes a sound which happens to be the same as a thrown snowball. If you throw an egg, a chick won't appear, but just a full-sized chicken. When egg farming, chickens seem to be attracted to the door.

Information & History

 * Chickens are the second smallest mob (the first being small slimes, the third being wolves). They are able to fit through 1x1 gaps.
 * They take no fall damage, and when they fall they make a flapping animation and fall slower than normal.
 * When a chicken is killed, and if it 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.
 * Chickens, like other mobs, can ride minecarts; when a chicken is riding a minecart, the minecart behaves as if a player were riding it.

Appearance
Chickens are sometimes mistaken for ducks due to their wide beaks and ability to swim.

Drops
Alpha and Beta
 * 0-2 feathers
 * Eggs (Spawn at random with an audible 'pop' from the chicken between 5–10 minutes for every chicken, the timer is set when they spawn and when they lay an egg)