Peanut, a chicken from a no-kill farm in Michigan, is the current Guinness Record holder for the “World’s Oldest Chicken,” at 21 years old, 156 days, and counting. Chickens have an average life expectancy of 5-8 years, so Peanut is somewhat of a Methuselah of the aviary world. On Jan. 28, 2023, she was officially crowned the world’s oldest chicken at the ripe old age of 20 years and 272 days. Peanut almost didn’t exist. When owner Marsi Parker Darwin (pictured below) was getting ready to throw a batch of rotten-looking eggs that a hen had abandoned into an alligator pond 21 years ago, she heard a faint chirp from one of them. That’s when she realized the chick was alive but didn’t seem to have an egg tooth (part of the beak) to get out of the shell. Marsi peeled the egg back and was shocked to see a tiny little chick about a third of the size of a normal chick. That’s when she decided to name the chick Peanut. Today, Marsi says Peanut is in relatively good health and close to beating the record set by Muffy, a chicken who was 23 years and 152 days old when she died back in 2011.
