General Chicken habitat

In the U.S.A., Canada and Australia, adult male chickens are known as roosters; in the UK they are known as cocks. Males under a year old are cockerels. Castrated roosters are called capons (though both surgical and chemical castration are now illegal in some parts of the world). Females over a year old are known as hens, and younger females are pullets. In Australia and New Zealand (also sometimes in Britain), there is a useful generic term chock (rhymes with "book") to describe all ages and both genders. Babies are called chicks, and the meat is called chicken. Industry have their own definition for this, child of chicken called as DOC, chicken for consumption called as Broiler and chicken for egg called as Layer.

"Chicken" was originally the word only for chicks, and the species as a whole was then called domestic fowl, or just fowl. This use of "chicken" survives in the phrase "Hen and Chickens," sometimes used as a UK pub or theater name, and to name groups of one large and many small rocks or islands in the sea (see for example Hen and Chicken Islands)

Roosters can usually be differentiated from hens by their striking plumage, marked by long flowing tails and shiny, pointed feathers on their necks and backs (the hackles and saddle)—these are often colored differently from the hackles and saddles of females.

However, in some breeds, such as the Sebright, the cock has only slightly pointed neck feathers, the same colour as the hen's. The identification must be made by looking at the comb, or eventually from the development of spurs on the male's legs (in a few breeds and in certain hybrids the male and female chicks may be differentiated by colour). Adult chickens have a fleshy crest on their heads called a comb or cockscomb, and hanging flaps of skin either side under their beaks called wattles. These organs help to cool the bird by redirecting blood flow to the skin. Both the adult male and female have wattles and combs, but in most breeds these are more prominent in males.

Domestic chickens are not capable of long distance flight, although lighter birds are generally capable of flying for short distances, such as over fences or into trees (where they would naturally roost). Chickens will sometimes fly to explore their surroundings, but usually do so only to flee perceived danger. Because of the risk of escape, chickens raised in open-air pens often have one of their wings clipped by the breeder—the tips of the longest feathers on one of the wings are cut, resulting in unbalanced flight which the bird cannot sustain for more than a few meters, and it is thus discouraged from flying at all.