Chicken

A chicken is a passive mob found in grass biomes and the main source of chicken, feathers and eggs.

Spawning
Chickens spawn naturally in the Overworld in groups of four on grass blocks with 2 blocks of free space above it at a light level of 9 or more. They do not spawn in deserts, snowy plains, ice spikes, snowy slopes, meadows, wooded badlands, jagged peaks, frozen peaks and stony peaks. $$, chickens are more common in sparse jungles.

After the world generation, chickens spawn individually.

5% of chickens spawn as baby chickens.

$$, chickens require a light level of 7 or more to spawn and are found in groups of two to four.

Java Edition
All baby zombie variants and baby zombified piglins have a 5% chance to spawn riding a chicken, forming a chicken jockey. Because a baby zombie occurs from 5% of zombie spawns, the chicken jockey spawns consist of 0.25% of all zombie spawns in a chicken-free environment; if chickens are present, the chance increases to 0.4875%. A chicken jockey can also be spawned by using the following command:

Chicken jockeys may spawn with items equipped. Baby zombified piglin versions of the chicken jockey always wield a golden sword. Harming or killing the chicken does not cause the zombified piglin to attack.

Bedrock Edition
Baby zombie jockeys do not spawn riding chickens, but check for nearby adult chickens to mount prior to attacking a player, wandering trader, adult villager, snow golem or iron golem.

Drops
Adult chickens that were not part of chicken jockeys lay an every five to ten minutes.

When an adult chicken is killed, it drops from zero to two. The maximum is increased by one per level of Looting, for a maximum of zero to five with Looting III. The chicken also drops a (one  if killed while on fire). The maximum is increased by one per level of Looting, for a maximum of one to four with Looting III. experience orbs are dropped when a chicken is killed by a player or tamed wolf or if it was part of a chicken jockey. When two adult chickens breed, orbs are dropped.

Killing a baby chicken yields no items or experience.

Behavior
A chickens wanders aimlessly but go after players holding various seeds within a six by four by six cubic area, while a baby chicken follows adult chickens.

Chickens avoid falling off cliffs and flap their wings when they are in middle air and fall slowly, thus chickens are immune to fall damage.

When harmed, chickens flee around for a few seconds.

Chickens uniquely attempt to jump up to climb stairs instead of climbing them normally.

Ocelots, untamed cats and foxes pursue and attack chickens.

While in a loaded chunk, an adult chicken lays an egg every five to ten minutes (6000–12000 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 pop sound is heard.

Chickens stay underwater for 15 seconds or can swim, visibly flapping their wings and staying on the water surface. While swimming, a chicken needs only one block of air above its head.

Breeding
If two adult chickens are fed wheat seeds, beetroot seeds, melon seeds or pumpkin seeds, a baby chicken spawns. They cannot breed for 5 minutes afterward. Chicks take 20 minutes to grow up, but the growth time can be accelerated by 10% each time it is fed seeds. A baby chick fed a seed once per second will grow up in approximately 48 seconds using 47 seeds.

Chicks are smaller than a half-block and can unwillingly pass through openings smaller than a full block, but do not walk through half-block-tall spaces. A chick riding a minecart cannot be hit because it is completely inside the minecart's hitbox.

Eggs
Chickens are the only Overworld mob that can repopulate without breeding. Adult chickens lay eggs at random and an egg thrown at the ground by a player or a dispenser has a $1⁄8$ chance of spawning a baby chicken. If a baby chicken spawns from a thrown egg, there is a further $$ chance to spawn three extra baby chickens, or $$ overall. It is theoretically possible for a stack of 16 eggs to yield 64 chickens if all spawn chances succeed for all eggs.

Chickens spawn more frequently if the egg is thrown at an existing entity rather than a block.

If the player throws an egg at a glass pane, the baby chicken can spawn on the far side of the pane.

Sounds
Chickens use the Friendly Creatures sound category for entity-dependent sound events.



ID




Entity data
Chickens have entity data associated with them that contain various properties.




 * See Bedrock Edition level format/Entity format.
 * See Bedrock Edition level format/Entity format.

Trivia

 * When a chicken is killed off a ledge, the corpse also falls more slowly than normal and the wings continue flapping.
 * Chickens are able to "hide" within hoppers due to their small size, which protects them from dangers like lava on top of the hopper.
 * A few weeks before the end of Java Edition 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.
 * The changelog for Pocket Edition v0.3.0 alpha referred to chickens as ducks.
 * Notch later referred to chickens in a blog post as "the chicken/duck/whatevers".