Peanut, the world’s oldest living chicken, has turned 21 as Guinness World Records has named her the world’s oldest living chicken.
Marsi Parker Darwin and her husband Bill have dogs, cats, and a variety of birds, including chickens, peacocks, and ducks, on their Michigan no-kill farm.
Darwin still well remembers the day, 21 years ago, when the mother hen had abandoned one of the chicken eggs that was scheduled to hatch because it appeared to be rotten. When she heard a tiny chirp, she stopped short of throwing it into a pond for the turtles to eat.
Now, the 21-year-old chicken comes when called, loves yogurt and likes to ride in Darwin’s coat pocket while she does her chores.
Named Peanut because she was tiny and brown, the bird emerged from her egg as a “sad, wet waddled up mess.” Darwin warmed her with a heat lamp and tried to introduce Peanut to her mother hen, but she was rejected.
“She did not want that little chick that wasn’t dried off yet,” Darwin said.
More than two decades after Peanut was peeled from her shell in 2002, she is still hanging out in Darwin’s living room, often in her lap. And the bantam hen is now earning recognition: Guinness World Records has named her the world’s oldest living chicken.
“The average chicken lives five to eight years, so it’s quite the achievement,” said Darwin, 71, a retired librarian who lives in Chelsea, Mich., near Ann Arbor.
