Some people think that they know the answers to all questions, but over the simplest and most obvious childish question about the color of the grass, the sky or the salty taste of the water in the sea, they can sit in complete prostration for a very long time. Do you remember why the chicken is yellow?
Small chicks should be quieter than water, below the grass. Otherwise, they are at high risk of becoming a dinner for predators. Of course, yellow cannot be called very inconspicuous, especially in a barnyard in the middle of black mud or green foliage. But nature provides for a lot, and the color of the chicken is one of the ancient defense mechanisms developed in the process of evolution many years ago.
The fact is that earlier, long before the mass domestication of chickens, they led a wild lifestyle and nested in the fields among tall grass. The period of incubation of eggs and the appearance of offspring fell on the end of summer and the beginning of autumn. And the little chicks began to run confidently among the field grass at the very moment when it dried up and turned yellow. Hence the camouflage color - it is almost impossible to notice a yellow chicken in the yellow autumn grass.
Of course, not all chickens are yellow, some breeds of chickens are born variegated, gray or even black. But this is far from coincidental. Since the wild ancestors of chickens lived not only in the fields, but also in woodlands and even in rocky mountain meadows, the color of the chickens varied according to the habitat of the birds. Nature foresees everything very well, and where the chicks needed a gray fluff to be invisible among stones and pieces of earth, they were no longer bright yellow, but variegated.
Why do chickens, as adults, lose their yellowness and become red, white, black or variegated? There is nothing surprising in this, the fact is that the yellow color is not given to chickens by a permanent feather, but by fluff, which is completely obscured from views after the growth of feathers. Adult birds no longer need to be completely invisible, since they are better able to hide and know a little more about life than little ones. That is why chickens acquire a color characteristic of their breed with age, losing their pristine yellowness and youthful naivety.
