In Fowl Territory : Chicken Feed

Dr. Seuss’ “Green Eggs and Ham” isn’t a totally absurd title. Araucana hens lay green (and blue) eggs.

* Ever since President Bush sent tons of dark chicken meat to Russia in 1991, citizens have referred to the hindquarters as “Bush legs.”

* A French acrobat once fried eggs and ate them while walking a tightrope over Niagara Falls.

* According to theologians, the book of Genesis answers the question of which came first, the chicken or the egg. In Chapter 1, on the fifth day, God created fish and fowl.

* Ancient Egyptians tested the temperature of chicken incubators by holding an egg against their eyelid. They also cleaned pearls by feeding them to chickens and searching the droppings later.

* When Republicans promised to put “a chicken in every pot” in 1928, they were plagiarizing France’s Henri IV, who said centuries earlier that he wanted a chicken in every peasant’s pot on Sundays.

* The longest rooster crow on record is 45 seconds.

* On the Internet, https://www.ultranet.com/~jonb/chicken claims to turn visitors into poultry.

* The average number of eggs laid per hen in 1900 was 30. Today it’s 270.

Sources: American Heritage; Poultry Tribune; Virginia Tech’s Research Institute on Livestock Pricing; L.A. Times; “Poultry Oddities”