CHICKEN

Chickens were raised in Ereẓ Israel in biblical times. Excavations at Tel Mizpah (Tell al-Nasba) uncovered a Hebrew seal from the period of the monarchy in Judah with the reproduction of a cock and, near the pool of gibeon , a pitcher with the figure of a cock. In the Mishnah the chicken is called tarnegol (feminine, tarnegolet) which is derived from the Sumerian tarlugal, the king bird. The male (cock) is also called gever. The sages identified it with the sekhvi in Job 38:36, "Who hath given understanding to the sekhvi?" on which is based the blessing in the morning service: "Blessed art Thou … Who hast given to the cock intelligence to distinguish between day and night." Some sages identified the zarzir motnayim, included among those that are "stately in going," with the cock (Prov. 30:31; see Yal. ad loc). Hens, frequently mentioned in rabbinic literature and regarded as the choicest of birds (BM 86b), were raised near the home and brought into the hen-coop at night (Shab. 102b). Since the cock symbolized procreation, it was customary as part of a marriage ceremony to bring a cock and a hen and to say: "Be fruitful and multiply like chickens" (Git. 57a; cf. Ber. 22a). The sages were aware that a hen also laid eggs without mating. Red (TJ, Ber. 3:5, 6d) and white (Av. Zar. 13b) chickens were bred. Among other details given in the Talmud about the cock are: the color of its comb changes at different hours of the night (Ber. 7a) and its eyelids close upward because smoke entering its eyes from below would cause it to go blind (Shab. 77b). The hen's egg represents a basic unit of volume (see Weights and measures ) for halakhic purposes. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: F.S. Bodenheimer, Ha-Ḥai be-Arẓot ha-Mikra, 2 (1956), 379–82; J. Feliks, Animal World of the Bible (1962), 59; Lewysohn, Zool, 194–9. ADD. BIBLIOGRAPHY: Feliks, Ha-Ẓome'aḥ, 86, 287. (Jehuda Feliks)