Life hasn’t been easy for Pearl, the world’s oldest living chicken. She once broke her leg fleeing a raccoon attack. Her fellow hens have tried to kill her. She has suffered bouts of chicken pox and pneumonia, and these days her arthritis tilts her body to one side. If that’s not bad enough, her best friend is a mop. “She’s been through a lot,” said Pearl’s owner, Sonya Hull (pictured). Yet, the feisty 14-year-old fowl has survived it all to become the world’s oldest chicken. Well, at least, Hull admits, the oldest chicken whose owner bothered filling out the Guinness World Records paperwork. The fame, says Hull, hasn’t gone to Pearl’s head. “She doesn’t seem fazed by it at all.” Hull hatched Pearl herself in an incubator, and says she’s always been a bit of a runt. In fact, Hull says her other hens have it out for Pearl. So, when Pearl started to slow down in her old age, the family decided to take her out of the chicken coop and let her live out her golden years inside the house. Nowadays, Pearl resides mostly in Hull’s laundry room, where she likes to snuggle up with the aforementioned mop. She often scoots her way into the living room to enjoy some television and neck scratches. The average lifespan of an egg-laying hen is 6-8 years, but living side and being doted upon seems to be the key to chicken longevity.
