Carrier pigeons get all the glory as postal carriers, but we learn here that "chicken mail" required a self-addressed, stamped envelope.  From St. Nicholas magazine, 1900.

Forget the chicken -- which came first, the dove or the egg?  From The Peace Egg, a Mumming Play, 1835.

Doctor Dolittle notwithstanding:

"So perhaps the answer is simply to collect all the facts, and then make a judgement. But is it possible to collect all the facts? You cannot, after all, talk to the chickens." —For Business Ethics (2005)

"When I was a little girl I thought chickens were the souls of dead actresses."
—Leonora Carrington, The Stone Door

"A rooster flushed before either of us had any idea it was there."
—Steve Grooms, Modern Pheasant Hunting

From Dr. Boli's Encyclopedia of Misinformation:

"Which came first: the chicken or the egg?” —This hoary folk conundrum reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of evolutionary history. The chicken and the egg are distinct organisms living in a symbiotic relationship.

Greg Ross, proprietor of Futility Closet, showcased this 1903 patent for chicken spectacles.

That's funny—I thought the inventor was doing it for a lark.