Chickens never evolve

[neopeius]

Don't you mean 'beak' world? (don't hurt me).

Anyway, for the chickens to not evolve, something else would have to fill their niche, theoretically - another species would have to be 'fitter' than the chicken and able to overtake them in the world of semi-flightless, deliciously-fleshed fowl.

Pheasants seem like a good go-to, and are domesticatable, and easy to breed. The only issue is eggs - do other birds lay non-fertile eggs if not mated?

Muscovy do. So do Geese.

 

[Color-Copycat]

Eh, turkey tastes better anyway when it's done right.

 

[Henriksson]

Anyway, for the chickens to not evolve, something else would have to fill their niche, theoretically - another species would have to be 'fitter' than the chicken and able to overtake them in the world of semi-flightless, deliciously-fleshed fowl.

Red junglefowl never struck me as having any particularly important or hard-to-replace niche.

 

[Chairwoman Roxelana]

Eh, turkey tastes better anyway when it's done right.

I HAVE BEEN OFFENDED.

 

[SAVORYapple]

Eh, turkey tastes better anyway when it's done right.

on a serious note, I don't think there is any major difference between Turkey and Chicken and Duck
except that perhaps chicken is a little less tasty.....

 

[Emperor-of-New-Zealand]

Red junglefowl never struck me as having any particularly important or hard-to-replace niche.

Exactly my point. The niche is basically a predominantly ground-dwelling fowl. Wild junglefowl were useful for the spreading of wild seeds, too, since seeds tend not to digest. Chicken eats fruit, shits out seeds somewhere else, seeds grow.

Not an important cycle, but one that another animal (as I said, pheasants) could easily fill.

As for ducks and geese, well, they're waterfowl, and as such are considerably harder to farm.

 

[Tom Veil]

on a serious note, I don't think there is any major difference between Turkey and Chicken and Duck
except that perhaps chicken is a little less tasty.....

Turkey has two main differences compared to chicken. Historically, the important difference is that turkey is native to the Americas, which means 95% of humanity can't eat it until the Renaissance/Exploration Age. Nutritionally, turkey has fewer calories per gram than chicken, so if you're on rations, you'd probably rather have a pound of chicken than a pound of turkey. Tastiness has more to do with the breed and with how the bird was raised, but yeah, I personally agree with you that turkey's usually tastier.

 

[Nugax]

Don't you mean 'beak' world? (don't hurt me).

Anyway, for the chickens to not evolve, something else would have to fill their niche, theoretically - another species would have to be 'fitter' than the chicken and able to overtake them in the world of semi-flightless, deliciously-fleshed fowl.

EVOLUTION DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY

Even if an analog does evolve, none of the things that have it occupying chicken roles predispose it for the Red Junglefowls domesticability and utility. The niche of eating insects and small seeds is filled by a giant cricket in New Zealand after all.

All of history is butterflied away, other poultry is 50 to 100% less efficient at producing protein (albeit much better than the large domesticated mammals) and require massively more water both for habitat and consumption, so human populations will be lower.

 

[zoomar]

There is some excessive adherence on butterflies going on here. First, the entire evolution of human society in the New World happened in the absence of domestic "chickens", so there is no reason their absence would have any effect on whether or not Moctezuma II was the Mexica king in 1519. Second, "chickens" as in those fat cackling things that lay eggs, poop all over their cages, and taste great fried did not "evolve". They were bred by humans from scrawny and far less efficient predecessors. While all is speculation, there is no reason to believe that humans would not turn more aggressively to other domesticable fowl, small mammals like rabbits, acquatic resources, or vegetal sources if a roughly equivalent source of protein was needed. Civilizations would still arise in east asia, south asia, and the middle east. Civilization would then spread to Europe, north africa, etc. The worldwide broad pattern of cultural evolution would differ from ours only in relaively small details.

 

[Nugax]

There is some excessive adherence on butterflies going on here. First, the entire evolution of human society in the New World happened in the absence of domestic "chickens", so there is no reason their absence would have any effect on whether or not Moctezuma II was the Mexica king in 1519. Second, "chickens" as in those fat cackling things that lay eggs, poop all over their cages, and taste great fried did not "evolve". They were bred by humans from scrawny and far less efficient predecessors. While all is speculation, there is no reason to believe that humans would not turn more aggressively to other domesticable fowl, small mammals like rabbits, acquatic resources, or vegetal sources if a roughly equivalent source of protein was needed. Civilizations would still arise in east asia, south asia, and the middle east. Civilization would then spread to Europe, north africa, etc. The worldwide broad pattern of cultural evolution would differ from ours only in relaively small details.

Breeding requires something to work with in the first place, without the fowl its debatable if an equally efficient replacement could be found. Yes American socitities did develop sans chicken, but took longer and were less efficient at supporting high population densities outside some very tiny areas. Eurasian development might follow the same broad strokes, but literally everything would be different as generally they would produce less food, and that drop in efficiency would not be uniform (since some rely on chickens more and some might find replacements) - potentially adjusting the balance of power in every demographic and economic interaction over the course of settled Eurasian history.

Chickens account for a third of all protein consumed by humans annually - its not going to be a small difference.

 

[DG Valdron]

Breeding requires something to work with in the first place, without the fowl its debatable if an equally efficient replacement could be found.

I'm not sure if we can say that without examining the potential alternatives. But presumably, comparable 'small meat animals/birds' would have slightly different dietary requirements, penning requirements, reproductive traits etc. So there would be meaningful butterflies.

 

[MattII]

Pheasants are closely related to Junglefowl (well they share a sub-family, which is about the level of relation between humans, chimps and gorillas but not orangs), so it's not like we're completely out of options in the field.

 

[Emperor-of-New-Zealand]

EVOLUTION DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY

Even if an analog does evolve, none of the things that have it occupying chicken roles predispose it for the Red Junglefowls domesticability and utility. The niche of eating insects and small seeds is filled by a giant cricket in New Zealand after all.

I never mentioned domestication at all, I mentioned a niche. Since the OP asked about chickens, is it not natural to come up with a idea which allows a similar bird to take over?

And weta are hardly what you'd call 'giant'. No, the niche of eating small insects and seeds in New Zealand is filled by the kiwi - a small flightless bird. A relative of the ostrich no less.

 

[Nugax]

I never mentioned domestication at all, I mentioned a niche. Since the OP asked about chickens, is it not natural to come up with a idea which allows a similar bird to take over?

And weta are hardly what you'd call 'giant'. No, the niche of eating small insects and seeds in New Zealand is filled by the kiwi - a small flightless bird. A relative of the ostrich no less.

I was yelling because evolution is not a directed process, niches do not have to be filled. The Giant Weta eat small insects and seeds much like the Kiwi, and neither fill the fowl niche with anything like the efficiency of the fowls, because evolution is not a directed process.

 

[Emperor-of-New-Zealand]

I was yelling because evolution is not a directed process, niches do not have to be filled. The Giant Weta eat small insects and seeds much like the Kiwi, and neither fill the fowl niche with anything like the efficiency of the fowls, because evolution is not a directed process.

No, niches do not have to be filled, but for the sake of this thread, it would be helpful if the niche was. As other have said waterfowl and the like are far too difficult to farm due to needing expanses of water and marshy environments. Theoretically one could breed land-dwelling ducks, but even then it requires that they still live in some, if less, water.

 

[Sven]

There are duck breeds today that can essentially lay as many eggs as the best egg-laying chickens. The Khaki Campbell breed, for example, can lay over 200 eggs/year, and many are claimed to produce 300 eggs/year, which is what the best egg-laying chickens produce. Also, there are duck breeds that do just fine without access to water (the Khaki Campbell happens to be one of them), so that wouldn't really be a limitation on them, either.

Ducks could easily slip into the same barnyard niche that chickens fill in OTL. It's possible that they would be slightly less efficient and productive, but I seriously doubt that the differences would have particularly important impacts on the speed of societal development.

 

[The Admiral Hook]

KFD - Kentucky Fried Duck is a big hit in 1950s by a man by the name of a Colonel Harland Sanders.

Duck with the Col.'s special secret recipe?!

Holy sh*t, that sounds good.

 

[pa_dutch]

It would be much harder to describe what things taste like. Hmmm tastes like_______.

I for one would love to live in that world! Describing everything as "it tastes like chicken" is one of my biggest pet peeves, as the food in question rarely actually tastes that much like chicken. It's just the lazy way of describing new tastes.

Person A: "What does guinea pig taste like?"

Person B: "It tastes sorta like chicken..."

Me: "What? No, it doesn't. I think it tastes like dark duck meat with undertones of rich roast beef."

 

[iddt3]

I for one would love to live in that world! Describing everything as "it tastes like chicken" is one of my biggest pet peeves, as the food in question rarely actually tastes that much like chicken. It's just the lazy way of describing new tastes.

Person A: "What does guinea pig taste like?"

Person B: "It tastes sorta like chicken..."

Me: "What? No, it doesn't. I think it tastes like dark duck meat with undertones of rich roast beef."

Ohhhhh, you've had Guinea Pig? I've been meaning to try it, where did you get it (If stateside)? Also, Chicken is far more versitial then Turkey, and Turkey dries out too easily anyway. Chicken all the way.

 

[Basileus444]

No chicken. Ninety percent of my protein intake just disappeared.

More seriously, the Old World suffers a bit of a setback. Turkeys aren't available and I'm pretty sure it would be hard to raise ducks in Mesopotamia. Cows and horses are too valuable as a labor supply to be used as meat very often. That only leaves pigs, and I'm sure a struggling Mesopotamian farmer with stone tools is going to have a hard time during a boar into Babe, Pig in the (Sumerian) City.