Poultry
π In short
Poultry are the birds people raise on farms and at home for their meat and eggs. The best known are chickens and turkeys, and there are also ducks, geese, pigeons, quails and guinea fowl.
π€© Did you know?
- A chicken ready for cooking weighs about 1.5 kilograms on average.
- People have raised chickens for thousands of years.
- The quail is one of the smallest poultry birds, and its eggs are small and speckled.
- Chickens and turkeys are the most common poultry in the world.
π Find out more
π Good food
Poultry meat and eggs are among the most important foods in the world, because they're rich in protein, which builds muscles and helps the body grow, and they're easy to cook in many ways.
π Big farms
Today poultry are raised on big farms with thousands of birds, where they get food, water and warmth, and the eggs are carefully collected every day.
π‘ The turkey
The turkey is a big bird from North America, with a red flap of skin hanging over its beak. When a turkey is angry or showing off, it fans out its tail feathers.
π― Useful feathers too
Poultry aren't only for food: the soft feathers of ducks and geese are stuffed into pillows, quilts and coats to make them warm.
𧩠Test yourself
1 Why do people raise poultry?
2 Which of these birds is poultry?
3 Which picture shows βPoultryβ?