Chicken vs Rooster
Chicken is one of the most popular foods all around the world, and they are very well known animals. However, when it comes to both chicken and rooster together, one might think that it would mean the male and female of this species, but it is not so. Therefore, it would be very important to understand what a chicken is and what a rooster is.
Chicken
Chicken, Gallus gallus domesticus, is a domesticated bird originated from red jungle fowl with several different types of breeds. Chickens are reared to consume their meat (broiler chicken) and egg (layer chicken). However, people are used to refer the flesh of these animals as chicken. There are about 50 billion chickens are reared as broilers in the world today. There are a number of genetically modified chicken breeds depending on the purpose of rearing.
Male chickens are commonly known as cocks or cockerels or roosters, and females are called hens. Usually, males are larger and brighter than females as in most of the birds. A healthy male’s weight is around 5 to 8 pounds, which is a little higher weight for a bird to fly and hence, chicken has not been adapted for flying long distances, but they are capable of jumping 5 – 7 metres using their legs and wings. The most prominent feature of cock bird is the comb, where it is smaller in hens. A large comb is helpful for a better attraction from hens.
Usually, chickens are social animals and live in flocks (groups of birds). They are omnivorous in food habits; feed on seeds, worms, lizards, and even small mammals like mice.The usual incubation period for an egg is 21 days. The lifespan of a layer chicken is about five to ten years, and while that of a broiler chicken would be as low as 14 weeks. Sometimes chickens are reared as pets. That means chickens are very important animals as they got many things to do with humans.
Rooster
Rooster (aka cockerel or cock) is the male of domestic chicken, Gallus gallus domesticus. Roosters have a special feature called comb located on their heads, which is a fleshy crest or tuft. Their comb is large, prominent, and colourful. Moreover, roosters with prominent combs attract more females. They have more features to attract females and wattle is an important one, which is a large, colourful lobe of flesh hanging from the chin. Their feathers are colourful and especially the tail feathers are long, bright, and appear as a mob. The neck feathers are significantly long and pointed.
Rooster is polygamous and guards the area where its hens are nesting. They prefer to sit on high perch during daytime. Roosters are large and weigh between four and five kilograms generally. They prefer often crowing with the characteristic cock-a-doodle-doo, and it is more prominent in the early mornings than in any other time of the day.
Roosters more often fight with each other, to establish the dominance in front of females. The cockerel waltz is a specialized dance, in which they establish their dominance in a tricky method that does not involve fighting. In the presence of many males among females, the cockerel waltz dances continuously take place in order to establish the dominance.
Roosters have been a friend of human in many ways including breeding females to lay fertilized eggs for making generations as food animals. Cockfights are also an interest among some people, and they earn money through those fights. Usually a rooster lives for about 2 – 6 years but sometimes up to 10 years.
What is the difference between Chicken and Rooster?
• Chicken is the common name of the species while the rooster is their male.
• A chicken could be either male or a female, while rooster is always a male.
• The word chicken could be used to refer their meat but not the word rooster.
• Roosters are the more dominant members of the chickens.
• Roosters are usually larger and heavier than all other chickens.
• The crowing of cock-a-doodle-doo is characteristic for the roosters but not for other chickens.