Chicken Myths/Rumors: True or False, Please Share!

[Lacy Duckwing]

This thread is for all the chicken myths and rumors that we have all heard. Some MIGHT be true, whereas others, most likely not. Please be kind if you find someone who disagrees with you, and provide evidence (if possible) to back up your statement. Feel free to share as many chicken Myths/Rumors that you want to! Hopefully there'll be a chance to learn something new, and have a good time as well.


~Form~

Myth/Rumor:
Story:
True or False:
Evidence:


Here's the first chicken Myth/Rumor I'm wanting to share.:

Myth/Rumor: Broody hens produce milk.
Story: I read somewhere (and I can't remember where) that broody hens produce milk for their chicks. They pluck their chest feathers (true) and have milk droplets come off their skin (false) to feed their chicks.
True or False: False
Evidence: I've had plenty of hens hatch out chicks. If this was true, the chicks would be often wet when I pick them up from under their mother. Also, their down might not be so fluffy either.

 

[neo71665]

I used DE once because I was told it would work for the situation. A couple of days later, I found a perfectly healthy chicken dead. Never dared used it since.

Yep but somebody gonna chime in about how their great granny's uncle sue made his chickens snort a line of it 3 times daily and they laid 4 eggs a day because of it. They put 3 shots of ACV in the chickens water and now they do college calculus.

 

[bill3607]

Some chickens are really good at math.
True, I have a hen that balances my checkbook.
Full disclosure: It is easy for her since I rarely use checks now days....but still pretty impressive.

 

[JacinLarkwell]

Myth: All males are human agressive
True/False: False
Evidence: I have over 2 dozen males that, while not cuddlebugs, are certainly not human aggressive

 

[alwaystj9]

Roosters only crow at daybreak.

 

[HeatherKellyB]

My mom and many other people have thought that you have to have a rooster for the hen to produce eggs. FALSE

You need to have a rooster for your eggs to be fertilized, but not for eggs

 

[Allsfairinloveandbugs]

Hearing a cock crow at midnight means a pending death...

My roosters wake me up in wee hours of the morn having crowing contests. Sometimes makes me wanna kill em, & I doubt the hens appreciate it either.. Maybe the impending death is referring to the loud-mouthed cock.

 

[HeatherKellyB]

Another one I heard from my mom, "the white stuff in the egg is rooster sperm"
Again, FALSE
It's actually chalazae/chalaza, which helps to hold the yolk in place. It's part of the egg.

 

[Allsfairinloveandbugs]

Don't forget the biggest myth we all have heard. Brown eggs taste better than white eggs

I sold eggs at the local farmers market for several years, & yes there were always some that wanted all brown eggs "because they taste better."
On the flip side, there were always some that wanted all blue eggs because "blue eggs have less cholesterol."
I started cracking eggs of different colors in a bowl (and left the shells in the bowls too) so people could see that although the eggs were different colors on the outside, they were all the same on the inside. Once people saw the white leghorn jumbo eggs also had rich golden yolks, they wanted those too!

 

[neo71665]

Don't forget the biggest myth we all have heard. Brown eggs taste better than white eggs

A chicken egg is a chicken egg. You compare my farm fresh brown eggs to some who knows how old only fed layer feed yeah my brown egg is gonna be better. Same way my farm fresh white eggs are gonna be better than some production mass production store bought brown eggs.