Poultry is the category of domesticated birds that people keep for the purpose of collecting their eggs, or killing for their meat and/or feathers. These most typically are members of the superorder Galloanserae (fowl), especially the order Galliformes (which includes chickens, quails and turkeys) and the family Anatidae (in order Anseriformes), commonly known as "waterfowl" (e.g. domestic ducks and domestic geese). Poultry also include other birds which are killed for their meat, such as pigeons or doves or birds considered to be game, like pheasants. The term also refers to the flesh of such birds.

Contents 1 Examples 2 Cuts of poultry 3 See also 4 External links

[edit] Examples

Bird	Wild ancestor	Domestication	Killed or used for
Chicken	Red Junglefowl	Southeast Asia	meat, feathers, eggs, ornamentation
Duck	Mallard/Muscovy Duck	various	meat, feathers, eggs
Emu	Emu	various, 20th century	meat, leather, oil
Goose	Greylag Goose/Swan Goose	various	meat, feathers, eggs
Indian peafowl	Indian Peafowl	various	meat, feathers, ornamentation, landscaping
Mute swan	Mute Swan	various	feathers, eggs, landscaping
Ostrich	Ostrich	various, 20th century	meat, feathers, leather
Turkey	Wild Turkey	Mexico	meat, feathers
Domesticated guineafowl	Helmeted guineafowl	Africa	meat, pest consumption, and alarm calling
Common pheasant	Common pheasant	Eurasia	meat
Golden pheasant	Golden pheasant	Eurasia	meat, mainly ornamental
Rhea	Rhea	various, 20th century	meat, leather, oil, eggs

[edit] Cuts of poultry

The meatiest parts of a bird are the flight muscles on its chest, called breast meat, and the walking muscles on the first and second segments of its legs, called the thigh and drumstick, respectively.

White meat has less oxygen-carrying myoglobin than the dark meat, and is thus lighter in color. Dark meat comes from muscles more heavily exercised, which therefore have more fat stored in them. This accounts for both dark meat's reputation as being unhealthier, and yet more flavorful. Birds that fly rarely (domestic turkey) or sporadically (chicken) have white meat breasts, and birds that fly frequently or long distances (ducks, geese and doves) have dark meat breasts. Quail breast meat is intermediate in color. Leg meat is dark.

[edit] See also

• Amenable species
• Oyster (fowl)
• Poultry farming

[edit] External links

• Information on Poultry Diseases
• PoultryCast podcast
• PoultryHub.org is a wiki-based collaborative resource centre where people share information about poultry
• The Poultry Guide - A to Z and FAQs
• World Poultry.net - all you need to know about poultry
• ChickenCrossing.Org - Information,discussion, links about chickens & other poultry
• Poultry.ie - Irish Poultry Community and Information Source

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