Chicken

Chickens are common passive mobs found in most grassy biomes, and are the main source of chicken, feathers and eggs.

Spawning
Chickens spawn naturally in the overworld in groups of four on grass blocksThey do not spawn in wooded badlands plateaus or snowy tundras, but still spawn in snowy taigas with 2 blocks of free space above it at a light level of 9 or more.

After the world generation, they spawn individually.

Chicken Jockey
All baby zombie variants and baby zombie pigmen have a 5% chance to spawn riding a chicken, forming a chicken jockey. Because a baby zombie occurs from 5% of zombie spawns, the chicken jockey spawns consist of 0.25% of all zombie spawns in a chicken-free environment; if chickens are present, the chance increases to 0.4875%.

Drops
When an adult chicken is killed, it drops:


 * 0–2 feathers. The maximum is increased by 1 per level of Looting, for a maximum of 0–5 with Looting III.


 * 1 raw chicken (1 cooked chicken if killed while on fire). The maximum is increased by 1 per level of Looting, for a maximum of 1–4 with Looting III.


 * 1-3 XP when killed by a player or tamed wolf; (10 XP if it was part of a chicken jockey).

Chickens that were not part of chicken jockeys lay 1 egg every 5 to 10 minutes.

When they breed, they drop 1-7 XP.

Killing a baby chicken yields no items or experience.

Breeding
If two adult chickens are fed wheat seeds, beetroot seeds, melon seeds or pumpkin seeds, a baby spawns. They cannot breed for 5 minutes afterward.

Chicks take 20 minutes to grow up, but the growth time can be accelerated by 10% each time it is fed seeds.

Chicks are incredibly small. They can pass through openings even smaller than a full block, though not willingly. When one is riding a minecart, it is impossible to hit as it is completely inside the minecart's hitbox.

Eggs
Chickens are the only Overworld mob that can breed without a separate item. Chickens lay eggs at random, and an egg and thrown at the ground has a 1/8 chance of spawning a chick. If a chick spawns from a thrown egg, there is a further 1/32 chance (overall 1/256 per egg) to spawn 3 extra chicks. It is theoretically possible for a stack of 16 eggs to yield 64 chickens, if all spawn chances succeed for all eggs.

If the player throws an egg at a glass pane, the chick can spawn on the far side of the panes.

Trivia

 * When a chicken is killed off a ledge, the corpse also falls more slowly than normal, and the wings continue flapping.
 * Chickens are able to "hide" within hoppers due to their small size, which protects them from dangers like lava on top of the hopper.

History

 * Chickens were added in Xbox 360 TU1, Xbox One CU1, PlayStation 3 1.0, WiiU Patch 1, and Nintendo Switch 1.0.1.
 * A feature was added in Xbox 360 TU5 where chickens would run away if attacked.
 * In Xbox 360 TU7, baby chickens were added, and chickens can be bred with seeds.
 * In Xbox 360 TU14 and PlayStation 3 1.04, using a chicken spawn egg, baby chickens can be spawned by using Left Trigger on an adult chicken.
 * A feature was added in Xbox 360 TU31, Xbox One CU19, PlayStation 3 1.22, and WiiU Patch 3 where baby chicken growth can be accelerated using seeds.
 * The chicken texture was changed in PlayStation 4 1.90 as part of the Texture Update.