why cant chickens fly?

Question

i mean come on there just as fat as ducks!

Answer 1

Well, you can't blame the chickens. They started out flying, after all. At least their ancestors did. The ancestor of modern chickens, the wild red jungle fowl (also a darn good name for a rock band), wasn't a great flier, but he could get around when he had to. The entire poultry family (chickens, turkeys, guineas, ducks) are adapted to living on the ground. Their beaks are better adapted to pecking off the ground, their feet to walking instead of perching, and their wings are smaller than other birds their size.

Enter us. We take a perfectly happy wild red jungle fowl and start selectively breeding to produce bigger pectoralis muscles (that's the breast portion, for those of you who only see chickens in buckets) and eventually you get a bird who couldn't get off the ground if they thought of it, which they don't. Chickens comprise some of the thousands of artificial breeds that humans have created. Many domestic fowl, turkeys especially, have such large, um, breast portions, that they can no longer breed normally and must be artificially inseminated. This is a double whammy to the male poultry ego, such as it is.

Bottom line: those hot wings you like to wash down with your Pabst are really vestigial limbs. And if you can tell your buddies that at happy hour, maybe they'll let you drive.

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Answer 2

Because of the way we've bred them, chickens are useless at flying for long distances. Their ancestors were better at it, but artificial selection on our part has ruined a modern chicken's flight abilities. Good for us, since we don't have to chase the chicken around for hours every time we feel hungry. Actually, though, chickens can fly quickly and explosively in short spurts. This is because of the breast muscle, which is composed of fast-twitch muscle fibers. Fast-twitch muscle fibers work very fast with lots of power, but have poor endurance. Compare it to the muscle fibers of a migrating bird, like geese or ducks (slow-twitch muscle fibers) and you'll get why chickens are so much worse at flying than their relatives.

Answer 3

Chickens can fly, but there are a few of the heavier breeds that rarely take off, like Brahmas and Cochins. Bantam breeds like the Jap are more likely to fly. However, they're not quite up to migrating!

They may also have had the flight feathers on their wings clipped, but for the most part it is an urban myth that chickens can't fly.

Answer 4

Chickens can fly a little bit but only to get up in a tree,God made them fat and they don`t have long enough wings they bearly have enough wing strenghth i would look it up on the internet to be certain try ask jeeves and you can reserch it,Ducks have a long wing spand that helps them sore threw the skys chickens just don`t have that much wing spand.

Answer 5

Their wings are not the right size of shape to keep them in the air longer than a few seconds. Maybe they were designed that way so as to not be able to get away from hungry people who felt like roast chicken for dinner.

Answer 6

Because they have been bread for larger bodies and more meat, and their wings are not sufficient to lift that amount of weight.

The same reason domesticated turkeys cannot fly.

Answer 7

Chicken can fly they just rather run because it's faster

Answer 8

they have really short wings and are really fat so it would be hard 4 them to fly if u no what i mean but wouldn't it be funny if elephants could fly???????

Answer 9

they can fly its just that domestic chickens have their wings clipped by the owners so that they dont fly

Answer 10

Bob