A Michigan woman believes her pet chicken, Peanut, is the oldest in the world at the age of 20.
Marsi Parker Darwin of Waterloo said a friend urged her to apply to have Peanut recognized as the world’s oldest living chicken, and she received a response about two weeks later with instructions on how to gather evidence including photos, videos, witness statements and media coverage.
Darwin said she started rescuing chickens in the 1990s, and in the early 2000s a Nankin hen laid a clutch of eggs in her coop after a love affair with a Mille Fleurs rooster.
One of the eggs failed to hatch, and she was preparing to throw it away into a pond for the fish and turtles when she heard a faint chirp.
…”A pitifully wet, wadded-up mess sat” in her hand. She “wrapped it in a towel”… then “set up a cage and mounted a heat lamp with one hand.”
The chick, Peanut, was rejected by her mother.
Guinness World Records lists a category for oldest living chicken on its website, but the page does not identify a current record-holder.