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Chicken Vs Fowl: What’s the Difference Between the Two?

What differentiates a chicken from a foul in particular? Chickens are domesticated fowls, but a fowl is a superorder of birds. This is the main difference between a fowl and a chicken. In essence, a chicken is a type of bird, although not all fowl are chickens. Keep reading to know more.

Updated on: 17 January, 2023 1:31 PM IST By: Binita Kumari
Chicken Vs Fowl: What’s the Difference Between the Two?

This can be a terrific approach to try something new if you own a farm or have thought about bringing farm animals into your house. Including animals like hens may be instructive as well as a fantastic food source. You can keep chickens for their meat and use their eggs as a fantastic natural source of protein. Do you need to be an expert in poultry to keep chickens?

Chicken Vs Fowl: What’s the Difference Between the Two?

Despite the fact that the terms are sometimes used synonymously, "chicken" refers to a particular type of bird, whereas "fowl" can cover a wide range of birds.

For instance, domesticated chickens are raised for their meat or eggs. Any bird, including various domesticated and wild gallinaceous species, can be considered a fowl.

What is a Chicken?

As previously established, the scientific name for domestic chickens is Gallus gallus domesticus. Actually, the red junglefowl subspecies include chicken. One of the most popular and widely used domestic animals in modern times is the chicken.

Although the number of chickens worldwide varies continually, the website Statista estimates that there are currently around 22 billion of them in existence.

Chickens make up the majority of domesticated birds and poultry in the world today. This is due to the fact that humans use them as their main source of both meat and eggs, and some people even keep them as pets.

Chickens were once used for cockfighting and frequently observed in ceremonial settings before being kept as a food source. They first started being kept as farm animals and for meat and eggs during the Hellenistic era. The birds are currently virtually everywhere, both in the wild and being domesticated for agricultural use.

What is a Fowl?

Even if you may now have a clearer understanding of what a fowl is, it might still be helpful to define it further so that you can recognize it when it is used. You should be aware that the name "fowl" only refers to birds that are members of one of two biological orders: gamefowl, often known as landfowl, and waterfowl.

Despite the name "fowl" encompasses a variety of bird species, birds are classified as fowl because they share close evolutionary ancestors and thus share characteristics. The anatomical, molecular, morphological, and DNA sequence characteristics of these birds will be identical. Fowls include, among other things, pheasants, partridges, turkeys, chickens, and ducks.

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