page_title: Chicken
section_title: Nesting and laying behaviour
hierarchical_section_title: Chicken / General biology and habitat / Behavior / Nesting and laying behaviour
context_page_description: The chicken is a type of domesticated fowl, a subspecies of the red junglefowl. Chickens are one of the most common and widespread domestic animals, with a total population of 23.7 billion as of 2018. up from more than 19 billion in 2011. There are more chickens in the world than any other bird or domesticated fowl. Humans keep chickens primarily as a source of food and, less commonly, as pets. Originally raised for cockfighting or for special ceremonies, chickens were not kept for food until the Hellenistic period.
  Genetic studies have pointed to multiple maternal origins in South Asia, Southeast Asia, and East Asia, but with the clade found in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East and Africa originating in the Indian subcontinent. From ancient India, the domesticated chicken spread to Lydia in western Asia Minor, and to Greece by the 5th century BC. Fowl had been known in Egypt since the mid-15th century BC, with the "bird that gives birth every day" having come to Egypt from the land between Syria and Shinar, Babylonia, according to the annals of Thutmose III.
context_section_description: Hens will often try to lay in nests that already contain eggs and have been known to move eggs from neighbouring nests into their own.  The result of this behaviour is that a flock will use only a few preferred locations, rather than having a different nest for every bird.  Hens will often express a preference to lay in the same location. It is not unknown for two (or more) hens to try to share the same nest at the same time. If the nest is small, or one of the hens is particularly determined, this may result in chickens trying to lay on top of each other.  There is evidence that individual hens prefer to be either solitary or gregarious nesters.
caption: Chicken eggs vary in colour depending on the breed, and sometimes, the hen, typically ranging from bright white to shades of brown and even blue, green, light pinkish and recently reported purple (found in South Asia) (Araucana varieties).
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