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%.

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.

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 the 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.

Chicken jockeys may spawn with items equipped. Baby zombie pigmen versions of the chicken jockey will always have their golden sword equipped. Provoking the zombie pigman chicken jockey will cause it to attack, like a normal zombie pigman. Killing the chicken will not cause the zombie pigman to attack.

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. Chicken corpses can also lay eggs.

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 follow players that are holding seeds, pumpkin seeds, melon seeds, and beetroot seeds, and are also able to breed with those items.

Chickens are attacked by wild ocelots.

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.

Unlike most mobs, chickens will attempt to jump up stairs instead of climbing them normally.

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 riding a minecart, it is impossible to attack the chicken rather than the cart as it is completely inside the shape of the cart.
 * Cooked chicken can easily be obtained by letting chickens fall onto a block of burning netherrack from which they can run off.
 * 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.
 * Chickens are the only Overworld mob (without the use of hacks/inventory editors) that can be bred in the Nether, by building a suitable area and throwing eggs inside of it.
 * 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.
 * You can start "chicken tube" farms in which you contain vast numbers of chickens in a small space to get their eggs to make more chickens or to kill for food, completely bypassing the point of breeding and wheat farming.