The legs are very important for chickens, as well as most amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals. Along with the wings, the legs help chickens move around freely to look for food, enjoy life, or avoid predators.
When you look at a chicken’s legs, the structure is quite similar to many other birds, such as thighs, legs, and feet. But do chickens have toes? If yes, what’s the difference between chickens’ toes and other animals’ toes?
Do chickens have toes?
Chickens do have toes. Most chickens have 4 toes, with 1 toe facing the opposite side of the other 3 toes. Chickens use their feet with toes and claws to scratch, climb, and roost.
How many toes does a chicken have?
How many toes does a chicken have
No chickens, or any bird, has the amount of toe bigger than 4 except the Dorking, the Faverolle, the Houden, the Sultan, and the non-bearded Silkie Bantams. Those chicken breeds have 5 toes on each foot.
With those chickens that have 5 toes, their 5th toes grow above the base of the hallux and point upward. In particular with the Silkies, those 5th toes are in nearly the same planes as the hallux.
The 5th toes don’t touch the ground or have any use for the chickens. The purpose of the extra toes remains unknown to humans.
There are also birds with only 3 toes or 2 toes. The ostriches, for example, have 2 toes.
The chickens’ foot structure
The chickens’ foot structure includes the toes spread out to provide balance, webbings between the toes that face forward for extra contact surface for balance and for swimming, and claws at the end of each toe for scratching and gripping.
Spurs of The chickens
A spur is a sharp protrusion that looks like a horn. They grow on the chickens’ legs for fighting and self-defense.
Even though all chickens can potentially grow spurs, they are mostly found on roosters. Hens generally don’t grow spurs, but some hens can have spurs. The spurs take years to grow from being small to being larger and sharper.
If you cut off the chickens’ spurs or their spurs are broken, it can bleed a lot and lead to the chickens’ death due to blood loss if it isn’t stopped.
So when you want to remove the spurs, you need to pay attention and perform the right methods to avoid blood loss.
The use of feet, toes, and claws for chickens
Chicken toes
With the upper limbs used for flying a short distance or leaping and not for tasks that require dexterity, the chickens use their lower limbs, or the legs, for a lot of purposes.
Here is what the chickens use their feet, toes, and claws for:
Walking
Chickens are birds, so you may think that their feet are mostly used for landing and standing. But chickens are bad at flying, so they use their legs for walking around most of the day.
Also, chickens can run pretty quickly. Combined with their wings, the chickens are very agile and move around fast, so you may have trouble catching them when they are trying to escape.
Scratching
The claws on their toes are used to scratch the dirt for insects, grubs, and grits. They are pretty good at it with their sharp but not long claws.
Holding
Chickens’ toes and claws are capable of holding their prey like worms since they have lots of joints that can fold greatly inward
Digging
Chickens can use their legs to dig up a decent amount of loose dirt to make spaces for a dust bath. They can use their claws to penetrate the dirt and the feet with toes to scoop up the dirt.
Roosting
Chickens use their toes and claws to grip a bar or a tree branch to roost up high.
Roosting is very important for chickens since when sleeping, they are vulnerable to predators, so staying away from predators by being up high is necessary for their survival.
When letting your chickens roost, make sure to get your chickens a roosting bar that fits nicely to your chickens so that they don’t slip, fall down, and damage themselves. the chickens’ natural roosting spots are tree branches.
Do chickens have fingers?
You may have known that bats with wings have fingers, but just like most birds, they don’t possess fingers.
So, what are the “chicken fingers” that you are served in restaurants?
Chicken fingers, also known as chicken tenders, chicken strips, or chicken fillets, are pieces of chicken that are skinless and boneless and are usually deep-fried and breaded.
Chicken fingers are not made from actual chicken fingers since they don’t exist. The so-called chicken fingers are mainly made out of white meat from the small and thin portion of breast meat, called tenderloin.
There are many reasons for the name “chicken fingers”, such as the “chicken fingers” are meant to be eaten with your fingers easily. However, the main reason may be that they have shapes that resemble a human finger.
Conclusion
So, do chickens have toes? chickens’ feet have toes. Most chicken breeds have 4 toes, with 1 toe sitting at the opposite of the other 3 toes and form a hallux.
There are some chicken breeds that have 5 toes. With these breeds, the extra 5th toe on a foot grows above the hallux and points upward. the function or purpose of this extra toe remains unknown. There are also many birds with 2 or 3 toes.
A chicken’s foot consists of the toes for standing and balance, webbings for extra balance and swimming, and claws for scratching.
Chickens use their feet, toes, and claws for a variety of things. For example, walking, running, holding, scratching, digging, and roosting.
Chickens have toes, but they don’t have fingers. If you have eaten chicken fingers before, those are meat from a small portion of the breast and shaped like human fingers.
Resources
- Image credits – Photo by Laurie Pink on www.flickr.com
- Image credits – Photo by Monika Kubala on unsplash.com