Forget About the Road. Why Are Chickens So Bad at Flying?

Chickens could have wings and fluffy feathers, however they're pretty dismal fliers, typically going airborne for only some yards earlier than touchdown.

The rationale for his or her poor flight is not as rhetorical as why they crossed the highway. Slightly, chickens are horrible fliers as a result of their wings are too small and their flight muscle groups are too giant and heavy, making it onerous for them to take off, mentioned Michael Habib, an assistant professor of scientific cell and neurobiology on the College of Southern California and a analysis affiliate on the Dinosaur Institute on the Pure Historical past Museum of Los Angeles County.

However chickens weren't at all times that approach, he mentioned. [Why Can't All Animals Be Domesticated?]

"We did that to them," Habib informed Dwell Science. "We did it by way of the oldest sort of genetic engineering we have, which is selective breeding."

The jungle fowl (Gallus gallus) — a wild fowl native to northern India, southern China and Southeast Asia — is both the speedy ancestor or the closest dwelling relative of the fashionable hen (Gallus gallus domesticus), which was first domesticated between 6,000 and eight,000 years in the past, Habib mentioned.

A wild junglefowl in Thailand.

Credit score: nate samui / Shutterstock.com

Like different so-called "sport birds," akin to grouse, pheasants and quail, the jungle fowl can fly solely brief distances. It is because, regardless of their highly effective muscle groups, they've little endurance. Sport birds use their massive flight muscle groups to take off in a near-vertical, fast burst and fly for a brief distance — known as a burst flight — permitting them to flee predators.

However the trendy hen can barely obtain that, Habib mentioned. That is largely as a result of folks wish to eat chicken, and so bred the chickens to have even bigger flight muscle groups (or hen breasts) than the jungle fowl.

"Massive flight muscle groups are tasty," Habib mentioned.

It'd sound counterintuitive, however the hen's giant flight muscle groups impede its flight. With the intention to fly, birds want applicable "wing loading" — a ratio of physique mass to wing space. Birds must have at the very least 1 sq. inch of wing per zero.6 ounces of physique mass (1 sq. centimeter per 2.5 grams) to fly.

Provided that the domesticated hen has smaller wings and a heavier mass (due to its tasty flight muscle groups) than its wild brethren, it is no shock that chickens can barely fly, Habib mentioned. Nevertheless, typically younger chickens (which are not as heavy as adults) can take to the air, "however just for very brief distances," Habib mentioned.

That distance is so brief that a big, fenced-in space is commonly sufficient to maintain them from escaping into the wild.

"In the event that they're near a fence and the fence is tall sufficient, they cannot take off steep sufficient to recover from it," Habib mentioned. "And in the event that they're removed from the fence, the place they might have a decrease [takeoff] angle, they do not have sufficient endurance to nonetheless be within the air after they get there."

"They're so near being fully flightless that you do not essentially need to put a roof over them to maintain them in," Habib mentioned.

Authentic article on Dwell Science.

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