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The World's Longest List of Chicken Sayings

From the first day I started keeping chickens I was amazed at how many common every-day sayings actually originated from people who owned and raised chickens.   When I posted a question in the forum for a list I was blown away by the response and the number of these saying that I'm familiar with.  Who would have thought that the lowly chicken was so interwoven into our everyday lives?

Caught with egg on your face.
"Dippy eggs." (A southern slang for runny eggs...to dip your toast and taters in.)
Don’t cackle if you haven’t laid.
The rooster makes all the noise, but the hen rules the roost!
The rooster may rule the roost, but the hen rules the rooster!
The rooster may crow, but this hen lays the egg!
From scratch / from chicken scratch (From raw materials, not a mix)
A whistling girl and a crowing hen, would drive the devil out of his den.
Yeah, he'd scrap heck out of hen poop. (Meaning not much of a fighter)
Fussing like an old hen.
Quit your squawking.
Tastes like chicken (to describe flavor of snake, armadillo, alligator, frog, possum)
Nest egg. (An egg left in the nest to encourage a pullet to lay her eggs there)
Scratching out a living. (Chickens are industrious birds)
Up with the chickens. (Roosters begin to crow before first light)
Walking on eggshells.
Take our flock and go (leave with the family)
Chicken lights (the small lights all over any big rig tractor-trailer)
A whistling girl and a crowing hen will always come to some bad end.
Work as hard as a hen hauling wood.
Get your hackles up (become visibly upset)
Fly the coop (leave home)
Dumb cluck (someone who doesn't get it)
Yolks on you (pun for joke)
Rulin' the roost
Does a chicken have lips? (meaning it was a stupid thing to say)
Hen party (all women gathering with a lot of laughter)
Hen house (all women sharing a house)
Scrambled eggs (gold trim on the brim of navy officers hats)
Chick (young girl)
Chicken feed (not a lot of money)
Birds of a feather flock together
Which came first the chicken or the egg?
Feather your own nest
Don't want to put up a squawk
Hatch an idea
Coming home to roost
Why'd the chicken cross the road? (To prove to the possum that it CAN be done!)
To chicken out
Pecking order
Henpecked
Rule the Roost
Cock 'o the Walk
Don't count your chickens before they're hatched
Don't put all your eggs in one basket
Have to break eggs to make an omelet
Not everything it's cracked up to be
Something to crow about
Hen cackle (for a laugh)
To be a Mother Hen
Don't brood over it
Madder than a wet hen. (also - Madder than an ol' wet settin' hen.)
Afraid the sky is falling (from Chicken Little fable)
Hard-boiled (tough)
Sunny side up (cheerful)
Over easy (soft)
Chicken scratch (handwriting)
To lay an egg (fail)
Run around like a chicken with its head cut off
Stick your neck out
Ruffle your feathers
Stick in your craw
Cock sure (being a braggart)
Bad egg
All chickens are the same color in the dark
Nobody here but us chickens
Strutting' your stuff
To bed with the chickens
Feather our nests
I'm going to wring his neck
Chicken st (petty stuff)
In a stew
A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush
As scarce as hen's teeth
Long long ago, when chickens had teeth (instead of "Once upon a time...")
Has neither chick nor child (petless, childless person who only needs to care for himself)
'A hen is only an egg's way of making another egg.' Samuel Butler
Fledgling to mean a beginner, from a young bird just feathered out and able to fly
"A chicken in every pot" (the Republican Party campaign slogan in 1928
"Don't have a pot to put it [the chicken] in" (the Democratic Party response)
Pope's nose / parson's nose the knob where tailfeathers were attached at the rear end of a cooked chicken
Cock-eyed
The rooster may crow but the hen delivers the goods
Cock and bull story (elaborate lies)
Empty nest syndrome (loneliness when kids leave home)
"I feel like Henny Penny" (I'm doing all the work, etc.)
What the hen said when she saw the scrambled eggs......my kids are all mixed up
"Soft as a downy chick"...My mom used to say this about anything soft, i.e. beds, baby's cheeks, laundry, etc.
"A hen that struts like a rooster is often invited for dinner" -- poultry adaptation of "Pride goeth before a fall".
Bird brain (silly or mindless person)
Being chicken (being afraid)
Choking your chicken (guys know about this one)
Chicklets (candy/gum)
Playing chicken (who is going to jump out of the way first)
Chickenhawk: politicians who are pro-war but declined to participate themselves
"Why don't chickens pee, they drink water?" Used to answer a question when I just don't know the answer
Better an egg today than a hen tomorrow-- poultry version of a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush
A pregnant woman near her due date with a sudden spurt of energy is known to be "nesting"
Rooster games -- when two men get to arguing rather than trying to solve the problem
En los lunes, ni las gallenas ponen. (Spanish - On Monday, even chickens don't work.)
That guy could make chicken salad out of chicken poop! (He can fix or do just about everything)
Out there where the hoot owls the chickens. (Really remote location)
And don't forget Dolly Parton's little threat in the movie " 9 to 5 " when she aimed a shotgun at her rotten boss and yelled "...or I'll change you from a rooster to a hen with one shot!"
"I'll be on you faster than a chicken on a June bug"-what we were told when we were doing something wrong
"Cocky" someone acting overly self-confident, "he is a very cocky young man" (Like a rooster!)

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