You have a selection of names to choose from if you want to know what a male chicken is named. Rooster, cock, or cockerel, not ‘Jeff’ or ‘Bill’!Poultry has its own vocabulary and a set of terminology that can assist owners inaccurately characterize their feathered friends.
If you maintain hens at home, mastering the vocabulary will come in handy while conversing with other poultry keepers, vets, or purchasing supplies. Here’s a list of the top 20 phrases used to describe chickens. Read on to learn how to spot the difference between broilers and biddy chickens in no time!
Table of Contents
What is the name of a male chicken? 20 Important Terms and Names
1. Bantams
Bantams are chickens that are consistently smaller in size, proportions, and eggs than other chicken varieties and breeds as they reach maturity. They are popular as attractive pets and are called after an Indonesian port where small local fowl were sold.
2. Biddy
A biddy is a laying hen that has reached the age of one year. In chicken farming, these hens are considered older and more mature. This feminine name has also been used to refer to chicks.
3. Boiler
A boiler chicken is a meat chicken that has been aged for six to nine months. Its meat may be more gamey and rough due to its age, therefore it’s best used in stews and other slow-cook recipes.
Broilers are traditional meat hens that have been bred and raised particularly for that purpose. Broilers are fast-growing chickens that can be ready for market (or your plate) in as little as 6-8 weeks.
4. Broody Hen
These are laying chickens who express and exercise their natural desire to sit on a clutch of eggs and hatch them. Though some broody chickens are more fastidious than others, they make excellent incubators for viable eggs.
5. Capon
A capon is a male chicken that has been castrated before sexual maturity, resulting in less aggressive males that can be kept in groups without becoming aggressive.
Capons’ flesh is known to be less gamey and tastier than that of cockerels and hens, making them a premium delicacy in some quarters.
6. Chick
These are newborn chickens that range in age from newly hatched day old chicks to 6-week old pullets or cockerels, depending on whether they are female or male.
7. Cock
This is an over-one-year-old male chicken. It’s a nickname for a fully grown male chicken or rooster.
8. Cockerel
This is a young male chicken that ranges in age from 6-8 weeks to one year.
9. Fowl
Domesticated birds, such as chickens, are referred to as fowl. It could be landfowl such as chickens or turkeys, or waterfowl such as ducks.
10. Fryer
Young chicks that have been bred for meat are known as fryers. They are normally seven to ten weeks old when slaughtered, weighing up to 2 kg (4.5 pounds).
11. Gallus Domesticus
This is the Latin name for chickens, which are the most commonly domesticated fowl and are assumed to have originated in Asia from Junglefowl (genus Gallus). They’ve been kept for thousands of years by man!
12. Hen
A hen is a female chicken capable of laying eggs. Typically, laying begins at week 18 of life.
13. Layer Chickens
Layer chickens are bred only for their ability to lay eggs. Layer chickens are selected for their high levels of fertility, laying frequency, and egg quality.
14. Point of lay chickens
Female chickens (pullets) at the point of lay are mature female hens who are ready to lay eggs. This normally occurs between the ages of 16 and 20 weeks.
15. Pullet
Pullets are young female chickens who have grown from being chicks to becoming sexually mature and capable of laying eggs. Pullets become hens between the ages of 16 and 20 weeks when they reach the point of lay.
16. Purebred Chickens
Purebred chickens are descended from officially recognized chicken breeds and have a purebred father and mother. They frequently have distinct features, traits, and names, and have been carefully bred over numerous generations utilizing selective breeding procedures.
17. Roaster
A flesh chicken is also known as a roaster chicken. Roasters are adult birds that weigh 2.3kg and are roughly seven to eight months old (5 pounds).
18. Rooster
A rooster is an adult male hen named after the roost that he will jealously guard. The word is supposed to have originated with the Pilgrim Fathers, who avoided using the English term “cock” because of its negative connotations.
19. Spent hen
A spent hen is a laying hen that has reached the end of its reproductive career and is showing signs of decline. A spent hen is culled at 72 weeks in commercial settings to create a place for new productive layers.
Conclusion – Glossary of Chicken Terms
We hope you find this list of chicken names and terminologies useful. Exact meanings and terminology, like many other names, are subject to constructive dispute. Do you have any suggestions for alternative chicken terms? We’d love to hear from you in the comments box below.