page_title: Chicken
section_title: Reared for meat
hierarchical_section_title: Chicken / Use by humans / Farming / Reared for meat
caption_attribution_description: A commercial meat chicken production house in Florida, USA
context_page_description: The chicken is a type of domesticated fowl, a subspecies of the red junglefowl. Chickens are one of the most common and widespread domestic animals, with a total population of 23.7 billion as of 2018. up from more than 19 billion in 2011. There are more chickens in the world than any other bird or domesticated fowl. Humans keep chickens primarily as a source of food and, less commonly, as pets. Originally raised for cockfighting or for special ceremonies, chickens were not kept for food until the Hellenistic period.
  Genetic studies have pointed to multiple maternal origins in South Asia, Southeast Asia, and East Asia, but with the clade found in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East and Africa originating in the Indian subcontinent. From ancient India, the domesticated chicken spread to Lydia in western Asia Minor, and to Greece by the 5th century BC. Fowl had been known in Egypt since the mid-15th century BC, with the "bird that gives birth every day" having come to Egypt from the land between Syria and Shinar, Babylonia, according to the annals of Thutmose III.
context_section_description: Chickens farmed for meat are called broilers. Chickens will naturally live for six or more years, but broiler breeds typically take less than six weeks to reach slaughter size. A free range or organic broiler will usually be slaughtered at about 14 weeks of age.
caption: A commercial chicken house with open sides raising broiler pullets for meat
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