Following the Path of Chickens to Discover the World

The book further notes that the white-feathered broiler can serve as a the Anthropocene’s marker. “Anthropocene” is a term proposed chiefly by atmospheric scientists and geologists to highlight humanity’s impact on the Earth’s biosphere.

So how has the white-feathered broiler enabled humans to influence the planet?

Modern white-feathered broilers have diverged markedly from their ancestors in skeletal morphology, pathology and genetics. Although they grow rapidly, they have almost entirely lost the ability to survive in the wild. They lack the strong feet needed to scratch for food, their wings are grossly underdeveloped, and without human intervention they simply cannot survive.

It is fair to say that this is a species born entirely to meet human demands. Bennet of the University of Leicester therefore argues that the white-feathered broiler can serve as the signature species of the Anthropocene.

II. The Ancestor of the Chicken: Red Junglefowl

Darwin noted in his writings that the modern domestic chicken likely originated from the Red Junglefowl found in the tropical forests of eastern India.

Further research in archaeology and modern biology has revealed that the origin of domestic chickens is not solely the Red Junglefowl: genetic introgression from the wild Grey Junglefowl contributed the yellow skin and yellow beak found in many modern domestic chickens, traits largely inherited from the Grey Junglefowl.

In 2020, Wang Mingshan’s team published a study in Cell Research, investigating which of the five extant subspecies of Red Junglefowl was domesticated into the modern domestic chicken. Their findings indicated that the South Asian subspecies of Red Junglefowl, now distributed from southern Yunnan to northern Thailand, is the primary ancestor of the modern domestic chicken.

From 2021 to 2025, I happened to be conducting field observations in Yunnan Province’s Xinping County, Yuxi City throughout this period. The Red Junglefowl’s natural habitat is relatively dry and hot, belonging to the tropical regions south of latitude 23°N in China. I have filmed footage of female Red Junglefowl foraging. As wild birds, Red Junglefowl possess remarkably strong flight capabilities.

Did humans find the chicken, or did the chicken find humans? The book poses this very question.

Archaeological research in Thailand has provided early examples of Red Junglefowl entering the human ecological niche. The cultivation of rice attracted the Red Junglefowl closer to human settlements, and through this gradual proximity, the birds were slowly domesticated.

At my fieldwork site, an elderly man surnamed Tao told me that the main difference between Red Junglefowl and domestic chickens is simply that the former live on the mountain and the latter live in the home.

From the perspective of local people, the relationship between the two populations is described as a continuum between nature and culture. In other words, wild animals and domesticated animals are essentially of the same kind, or can maintain ongoing exchange between them.

As the ancestor of the domestic chicken, the Red Junglefowl frequently hybridises with domestic chickens within its range. This hybridisation has given rise to several of China’s miniature domestic chicken breeds, such as the Dehong chicken, Dali Mountain Bantam, Chahua chicken, and the ant chicken of Hainan’s Wuzhi Mountain, among others. Some of these are kept for ornamental purposes or used to lure wild Red Junglefowl, earning them the name “decoy chicken”.

This breed is used locally to lure Red Junglefowl, and is also an important food in the local cuisine. Locals finely chop its skin, meat and bones together and stir-fry the mixture into a dish called “bone mash”, served to honour guests.

As we can see, the hybridisation and gene flow between Red Junglefowl and domestic chickens created the species we call “chicken”, and also gave rise to the diversity of food choices available to us.

Red Junglefowl lay very few eggs. January to May is their fixed breeding season each year. After the breeding season ends, they undergo “feather erosion”, whereby the feathers on their necks are replaced by short, dark, stubby plumes. This phenomenon is considered a self-protective strategy adopted by wild animals outside the breeding season.

Compared with domestic chickens, the Red Junglefowl has a distinctly streamlined body shape, suited to foraging and fleeing in the wild.

Now that we have spoken of the Red Junglefowl, let us turn to China’s local chicken breeds.

As of 2024, the Chinese National Register of Livestock and Poultry Breeds records a total of 140 indigenous chicken breeds across the country. Adapted to local climates and socially recognised, these breeds possess a distinctly regional, genetic and cultural character.

Take, for instance, the familiar Taihe Black-boned chicken, which in earlier decades was presented as a state gift to Thailand. The Yanjin Black-boned chicken, one of Yunnan’s six celebrated breeds, closely resembles the Lianshan Black-boned chicken recorded in Eating to Extinction, though it is larger in build. The Haidong chicken shown in the bottom right hails from northern Qinghai and certain areas bordering Gansu. The White-eared Yellow chicken, meanwhile, is one of China’s highest-yielding indigenous egg-laying breeds.

Now let me tell you about my own chickens.

This hen was a birthday gift from my uncle thirteen years ago. She belonged to an egg-laying breed that was widely kept locally at the time — small in stature, weighing roughly 1.5 kg, yet a prolific layer. She also served to hatch our local breeds of goose and duck.

The black and yellow hens beside her are a yellow-feathered broiler breed introduced to the area at that time. The yellow-feathered broilers differed greatly from the local chickens, forming a neat complement.

Why do I say they formed a complement?

In our area there was a breed of very tall build, known as the Tall-legged chicken. A cock could grow to nearly a metre or even taller, reaching a weight of three to four kilograms. The hens laid very few eggs and were prone to paralysis during incubation. So we typically kept both types together, using the smaller breed to incubate the eggs of the larger one.

The white Frizzled Black-boned chicken pictured below is a renowned medicinal breed, found mainly in the villages of local ethnic minorities. The White-feathered, Green-eared Frizzled Black-boned chicken, in particular, is prized for its medicinal value.

Beyond its medicinal uses, this breed also carries cultural significance. For instance, when a family suffers a streak of misfortune, the local shaman may be called upon to perform a “tuisha” rite using the Frizzled Black-boned chicken. Tuisha means dispelling the ill fortune that has settled over the household.

After 2010, the Frizzled Black-boned chicken gradually died out and was crossbred with yellow-feathered broilers and Silkies. Once all manner of commercial broilers, layers and exotic breeds were introduced, the local gene pool was progressively diluted.

In truth, none of the three original local chicken breeds survives. Across the country as a whole, indigenous breeds are steadily disappearing.

Let us briefly examine the reasons behind this loss.

After China’s transition to a market economy, household-registration restrictions were relaxed and population mobility increased. As the migrant-labour exodus began, rural inhabitants streamed into the cities in large numbers, and the number of poultry keepers dwindled.

I vaguely recall that when the migrant wave first surged, every market day in our area saw enormous quantities of local chickens sold. Within a year or two, adult birds, chicks and eggs alike had been sold out entirely. I have not seen those local chickens since.

On another front, globalisation brought in commercial broilers, layers and other imported breeds that outperformed local varieties in management, growth rate and output. This led to a decline in self-raised local chickens and a shift in the breeds being kept.

The third factor is the rise of commercialisation. The emergence of poultry companies and specialist breeders created production monopolies, while smallholders and backyard operations steadily shrank. Urbanisation further accelerated the shift in motivation behind keeping poultry.

I noticed that when the beautiful village development programme was rolled out in my hometown, every household was required to confine its free-ranging chickens. Once confined, local breeds were more susceptible to disease, could not sustain breeding, and certain hygiene concerns and zoonoses began to emerge. After the global outbreak of avian influenza, people became far more wary of chickens.

IV. Chicken and Cultural Diversity

We all know that biodiversity and cultural diversity are inextricably linked. As farming practices and breeds change, the cultures tied to them vanish with them.

Take chickens, for example. Words that once described plumage patterns — dun, pied, tricolour, sunflower — have faded from most people’s memory, because we no longer encounter the full range of colourful breeds.

In my home region of Guizhou, when a Miao family celebrates a betrothal, the entire village contributes the largest chicken from its own flock, and everyone gathers for a feast to witness the engagement. This betrothal ceremony is called the “Eating the Wool Chicken” rite.

The large chickens once used for these ceremonies were, in fact, Tall-legged chickens. The Tall-legged chicken is a breed of massive build with high meat yield, and carrying one to a relative’s home brought great prestige. But since the Tall-legged chicken went extinct, they are now largely replaced by the “882” (broiler line) or other black-and-red-type broilers.

As natural incubation has gradually declined, smallholders no longer breed their own local varieties but simply buy chickens at the market. Once the breeds capable of natural incubation and brooding disappear, local duck and goose numbers also fall sharply, because hens used to hatch those domestic ducks for them.

Among the Yi people of the Lesser Liangshan, chickens, humans and other living beings — twelve species in all — are believed to share a common origin in “Red Snow”, a lineage known as the “Twelve Branches of the Snow Clan”. Chickens, like humans, possess fingers; they are generally classified among the Clawed, and as a result must not be killed wantonly in everyday husbandry or ritual life. They are especially revered during ceremonies for their power to banish demons and evil spirits.

The Lesser Liangshan region has a rich tradition of clan genealogy. This genealogical culture is a distinctive cultural phenomenon of the local Yi people, formed through their long-standing inquiry into biological relationships. More precisely, clan genealogy offers an account of the origins of both living beings and the inanimate world.

A local clan genealogy about the chicken recounts where the chicken came from and where it is headed:

“Chicken clans of every hue upon the earth, you too are counted among the Twelve Branches. From the sky’s high blue you fell; upon the azure heavens you alighted… First you split into one lineage and made your dwelling atop Tuer Mountain. Thus you became the Eagle clan… Then you split again, and became the Goose and Duck clan… Then you split again, and became the Peacock clan… Then you split again, and became the Pheasant and Bamboo-Pheasant clan… Chicken clans of every hue upon the earth, you too belong to the Twelve Branches of the Snow Clan. You must not be harmed; you must not be consumed. To banish demons, we invoke you; to drive out ghosts, we invoke you; to banish demons, ghosts and evil spirits alike, we invoke you; to honour the ancestors and the gods, we invoke you.” (Lijiang Yi Studies Society. Selected Writings on Traditional Yi Culture of Lijiang [M]. Yunnan Ethnic Publishing House, 2013: 24–27)

At the same time, this genealogy also expresses the chicken’s relationship with other species, including humans. Or rather, the chicken opens out into a world of many species.

The local vernacular is rich in vocabulary for describing a chicken’s build, plumage colour and other features. These chickens — varied, colourful, and diverse in type — were once a familiar sight in daily life.

But this was merely what I observed during my fieldwork. Looking back now, the changes have been enormous.

This photograph was taken in 2016. By then, many yellow-feathered broilers had already entered the Lesser Liangshan region, while this vendor was selling local indigenous breeds.

When I revisited the area in 2023, I encountered her again, but the market had banned the sale of live birds, and many crossbred chickens had appeared locally. She told me that the chickens now on sale were no longer locally raised indigenous breeds. She said she simply could not source chickens any more — the entire supply chain had collapsed.

There is a local Yi proverb: “A broiler is not a chicken.” For this reason, people use only local or Yi breeds for divination. Divination is performed after the sacrificial rites; it may foretell a family’s fortune or the weather in the days ahead. For instance, if the chicken’s occipital bone bears a black spot, rain will come soon.

During the Torch Festival, the Yi require a young hen that has not yet laid an egg and has white skin for the sacrificial rites. If the local breed known as the “Nuosuwa” — or Yi chicken — of the Lesser Liangshan were to disappear, could the Torch Festival rites continue as before? At the time, I confess I was sceptical.

V. Protecting the “Chicken of Tomorrow”

Having spoken of crises, let us now turn to some hope.

On 29 December 2005, the Animal Husbandry Law of the People’s Republic of China was promulgated, followed on 1 July 2006 by the Administrative Measures for Livestock and Poultry Genetic Resource Conservation Farms, Reserves and Gene Banks, marking the beginning of a tiered programme to protect indigenous breeds.

This image was taken by me in 2018 in Daping Village, Yuanyang County. Most of the villagers are Hani, and they are strongly resistant to outside breeds. Local unwritten customary laws exist specifically to protect their own varieties. For instance, chickens from outside the village, or purchased from the market, are not permitted to enter. In this way, the community naturally safeguards its local breeds.

In Jiasha Town, Xinping County, in 2023, I saw Pine-feathered chickens again after many years. The local stock of Pine-feathered chickens was still reasonably plentiful, and the cultural setting was not vastly different from what I knew of my home region in Guizhou. At the time, I was considering whether it might be possible to source some birds from there.

The establishment of the Chahua chicken breed conservation village in Manheha, Xishuangbanna, has also created a process of collaborative breed conservation — from the national level down to the province, and ultimately to the village, with everyone participating.

To offer a brief summary: from the 1970s to the mid-1990s, rising consumption of meat, eggs and dairy products in developing countries stimulated livestock and poultry production, yet the poor and small-scale producers were rapidly pushed out of the industry as individual farms scaled up.

This profound transformation in production, driven by demand, flooded developing countries with industrialised livestock and poultry breeds from developed nations, establishing monopolies and forcing local farmers to pay exorbitant fees for imported breeding stock. The introduction of industrialised breeds led to a homogenisation of food worldwide and dealt a severe blow to indigenous varieties.

As one of the centres of poultry domestication, China boasts a wealth of superior indigenous breeds capable of meeting the diverse needs of communities across the country. Those breeds unsuited to intensive farming, due to a range of social factors, are disappearing under the pressures of commercialisation, globalisation and similar trends.

The decline in self-raised chickens means that smallholders will lose food sovereignty, and food diversity will diminish. While the market appears to fill the gap, it imposes higher costs on small-scale household farming and makes it harder to sustain closed-loop cycles.

As a wild animal, the Red Junglefowl has been granted institutional protection, continuing to hold its ecological niche and safeguarding the gene pool of the wild ancestor. On the other hand, “local chickens” are similarly protected by national policy, yet they also need greater support from local communities. The continuity of traditions such as Yi chicken culture in the Lesser Liangshan will depend on the survival of local breeds.

This entanglement of biodiversity and cultural diversity, which began when Red Junglefowl first came to live alongside humans thousands of years ago, will continue to be vivid and full of uncertainty.

In defiance of simplification, in pursuit of more choices, our own “Chicken of Tomorrow” will remain in our own hands.

Foodthink contributor

Zou Lei

A doctoral student at Minzu University of China, Zou Lei studied Yi chicken culture in the Lesser Liangshan during his master’s programme and continues to examine interspecies relationships amid rural social change.

 

 

 

Compiled by: The Paper’s Page Turners