Did you know...
- "The Chicken" is a dance, popular in American rhythm and blues in the 1950s, in which the dancers flapped their arms and kicked back their feet in an imitation of a chicken.
- At the Cincinnati Oktoberfest on September 20, 2004, rock musician Vince Neil served as the Grand Marshall of the World's Largest Chicken Dance. The US cable television channel VH1, in its compilation of the 40 Least Metal Moments, panned this performance as the single least metal moment in Heavy Metal history.
- The standard of Sir Robin from Monty Python and the Holy Grail is a chicken.
- In Indonesia, the chicken has great significance during the Hindu cremation ceremony.
- Chicken Little is an old fable about a chicken that believes the sky is falling. The phrase is used to indicate a hysterical or mistaken belief that disaster is imminent.
Birds
Silkie and Frizzle Bantam
Geographical Region: Asia
Our Animals
We have a number of Silkie and Frizzle Bantams who can be found in the Children's Zoo.
Our Frizzle rooster spends most of the day outside the fence because he fights with the Silkie rooster so please don’t try to put him back in!
Distribution & Habitat
Originally from East Asia, these chickens are now found all over the world.
Description & Behaviour
The name Silkie derives from their feathers, which lack the barbs that would otherwise hold the strands together. Individual strands sit free of each other meaning they cannot fly. They also have combs called a rose or cushion comb that look like a powder puff. Silkies are unusual among chickens in that they have black skin and bones, as well as five toes on each foot (most chickens only have four).
Each feather on a Frizzle bantam is moderately long and curls backwards towards the bird's head, giving the bird their name.
Diet
They eat seed, pellets, fruit and vegetables.
