A female chicken is called a hen.

A baby chicken is called a chick.

A male chicken is called a rooster.

A group of chickens is called a flock.

On average, 3 hens give you 2 eggs a day. That means to get a dozen eggs a day, you would need 18 hens. It takes 21 days for a chick to hatch from an egg.

Most hens start to lay around 4-6 months of age. However, for various reasons (time of year, temperature, etc.) they may wait until the next Spring to start laying eggs.

You can tell what the color of the eggs will be by looking at the chickens earlobes.

A white-lobed hen will lay white eggs. A red-lobed hen will lay brown eggs.

The exception to this is the breeds Easter Egger, Ameraucana and Araucana breeds. They normally have red ear lobes, but their eggs range from khaki green to sky blue to pink-tinted to lavender-tinted.

After the yolk is formed in the hen's single ovary, the yolk drops into the body cavity. From there it goes into the infundibulum or "funnel". It then starts it's way down the oviduct. The oviduct is more than 2 feet long and is lined with glands that secrete the materials for the albumen (egg white), shell membrane and shell. The egg shell pigment is added in the last stage of this process. It takes 24 hours or more from the time the yolk is released until the completed egg is laid.

A hen only needs a rooster in order to lay fertile eggs that could hatch. A hen can lay non-fertile eggs without a rooster.

It is very difficult to tell roosters from hens at an early age. In most breeds, cockerels (males) develop larger combs and wattles earlier than pullets (females) and start to crow at 16 weeks.

There are many reasons why a rooster crows. He could be announcing his territory, or letting the hens know he's there. It can also be a challenge to another rooster. Why they crow when they crow, only the rooster knows for sure.

There are 113 different breeds of chickens.

Check out BarkYardChickens.com for more information. They are a wealth of information about raising chickens.