Chicken

Chickens (sometimes called Ducks ) are passive mobs that supply feathers, raw chicken, chicken eggs, and even cooked chicken (cooked chicken supplied only if the chicken is killed by fire). Chickens are 0.875 blocks tall, 0.5 blocks wide and 0.8125 blocks long.

Appearance
Chickens have white feathers and wings, yellow beaks, yellow feet and red wattles. Their texture is somewhat checkered, in a similar fashion to wool. They are about the size of a block, and, like other mobs, their baby form has a small body with a large head.

Behavior
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 * While in a loaded chunk, a chicken lays one egg approximately every 7.5 minutes (6000 to 12000 ticks).
 * They follow the player if they are holding wheat seeds, melon seeds, or pumpkin seeds.
 * When a chicken falls from a ledge, it quickly flaps its wings and falls slowly to the ground to prevent fall damage.
 * Chickens appear to wander around aimlessly, not even attempting to stay out of water.
 * They are drawn to light in a dark environment.
 * They flap their wings in water to keep above the surface.
 * If burned to death they will drop cooked chicken. (With e.g. Flint and steel or Lava.)

Breeding
There are two ways to breed chickens. This can be done by throwing eggs, which has a 1/8 to spawn a baby chicken; if it does, there is a 1/32 chance of spawning 4 chicks instead of one. It should be noted that if it is thrown at a wall, the chicken will spawn in the wall and likely suffocate, as seen in this diagram:

Chickens can also be bred like the other farm animals, by feeding adult chickens seeds of any sort. They can be bred with wheat seeds, melon seeds, pumpkin seeds, or even nether wart. The chickens that were fed will need to wait 5 minutes before they can breed again.

Hatching chickens by throwing eggs, and breeding them with seeds, can be done simultaneously to multiply them much faster than other mobs. Baby chicks take 20 minutes to mature. Like all other baby animals, they do not drop resources and experience orbs when killed. (Nor do they lay eggs.)

Chicks
Successfully breeding two chickens or breaking enough chicken eggs spawns a chick.


 * Chicks move faster than adults.
 * They take about 20 minutes to fully mature.
 * As a chick, they do not lay eggs and do not drop resources/experience if killed, like any other baby mob.
 * Chicks follow their parents or other adult chickens until they grow into an adult.
 * Chicks can swim in water if they try.
 * Chicks can drown in water 1 block deep or more.

Farming
Farming chickens is very useful, as it provides a renewable source of chicken eggs, raw/cooked chicken, feathers, and XP. As with other animals, you will want to keep them in an enclosed or fenced area so they don't wander off. The best Chicken farming technique would include a pit-type enclosure at least 2 blocks deep with a ladder out. (otherwise chickens escape every time you open the door or gate)  Chicken farms can generate quite a bit of noise; you probably will want to build large farms at least sixteen blocks away from frequently used areas.

Remember that ungathered eggs will vanish after 5 minutes—merging stacks does extend that, but even so, if you're trying to build a large population you'll want to gather them several times a day. If a pen of chickens is abandoned (all chicks grow up, then eggs are not gathered for at least 5 minutes), the next egg harvest will average at least 70% of the number of chickens (hatching to about 83%).

Automatic egg farms can be created by placing chickens in water arranged so as to support the chickens, while letting the eggs (and any drops from killed chickens) fall into a collection area. (beware that chicks can drown in water as of 1.5.1)

In the Minecraft snapshot 13w01, hoppers were introduced. Putting one of these below the output of an egg farm automatically collects the eggs for you. Add a chest below that to store the eggs, or, if you are feeling creative, add an automatic dispenser below to turn the eggs back into chickens. Then wait for the chickens to age, and kill them automatically or manually. Some useful values:
 * A single chest (or Minecart with chest) full of eggs will yield an average of 59 chicks.
 * Assuming a farm with automatic hatching, then later automatic collection of eggs, a given large number of eggs (say 1 chest, or 2 chests, etc.) will take roughly 75 minutes to replace itself. This includes the 20 minutes for the chickens to grow to maturity, but not any time needed to actually hatch all those eggs.

This video is a proper example of the new automatic farm possibilities after snapshot 13w01 with hoppers.

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. This also happens in Pocket Edition.
 * 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 or iron bars, there is a small chance that the chick spawns on the opposite side.
 * Despite being an animal that does not give live birth, chickens in-game are able to give live birth.
 * Chickens are the only animals that can repopulate from only one animal. The eggs it drops can be hatched into additional chickens, which can then breed.
 * There is no texture for the underside of a chicken's head, allowing you to see through it and see the inside.
 * Ocelots attack chickens.
 * When first released, chickens took fall damage like other mobs, and would drop leather if they died from it (bug).
 * The baby chicken is so small it can fit through the gap of a stair block facing a full block.