Unlabeled Diagram of Chicken Anatomy

All 16 parts on the diagram

Show the list

Start here: 8 main parts 8

Comb The fleshy red crest on top of the head. Hens have one too, but a rooster's comb is bigger.
Beak The hard, pointed mouth, also called the bill.
Wattles The flaps of red skin that hang under the beak. There is one on each side. They are bigger on a rooster.
Hackles The long feathers down the back and sides of the neck. A chicken can raise them.
Sickles The tail's two longest curved feathers. Only roosters have them.
Breast The round front of the body, below the neck.
Shank The bare part of the leg between the thigh and toes. It is covered in small scales.
Toes They are at the end of each leg. The chicken stands on them.

Head: 4 1

Earlobe A small fleshy patch on the side of the head. It sits below the ear. With the comb and wattles, it is one of the chicken's fleshy growths.

Feathers: 7 5

Saddle The feathers covering the back in front of the tail. On a rooster they are long and pointed.
Main tail feathers The long, straight feathers that form the tail, under the sickles.
Wing bow The short feathers on the top front of the folded wing. Sometimes called the shoulder.
Wing bar The short feathers across the middle of the folded wing. They cover the base of the flight feathers.
Primaries The wing's longest, outermost feathers, the main flight feathers. On a folded wing they lie at the back.

Body and legs: 5 2

Thigh The feathered top of the leg, under the body.
Spur A pointed growth of bone covered in horn. It is on the back of the shank.

How this list was compiled: Read 2026-09-27. (1) Wikipedia, List of poultry feathers (after the British Poultry Standards, 6th and 7th editions, pp. 13-14), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_poultry_feathers : hackles, saddle feathers (long and pointed in cocks), sickles (the two longest curved tail feathers, only in cocks), main tail feathers, wing bow coverts, wing bar, primaries. (2) The plate it shows, A Silver Wyandotte Male, from J. E. Hodgins and T. H. Haskett, The Veterinary Science (Detroit, c. 1907), p. 550, public domain: beak or bill, wattles, breast, thigh, shank, toes, saddle, sickle, flight of the wing, wing bow or shoulder, hackle, ear lobe, comb, spur. (3) Wikipedia, Comb (anatomy), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comb_(anatomy) : the comb, wattles and earlobes are the fleshy growths on a chicken's head; Rooster, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rooster : both sexes have a comb and wattles, more prominent in males; Hackles, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hackles : erectile feathers on the back and side of the neck; Spur (zoology), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spur_(zoology) : an outgrowth of bone covered in a sheath of horn. Licence: own work

The drawing: Drawn for this site by script, 2026-09-27. Own work, nothing traced. Licence: own work

How it works

This unlabeled diagram of chicken anatomy shows the outside of the bird only. A line runs from each of sixteen parts to the place for its name, the comb first and the toes last.

Read the full guide

Diagram of chicken anatomy, unlabeled: the sixteen names

Head: comb, beak, wattles, earlobe. Feathers: hackles, saddle, sickles, main tail feathers, wing bow, wing bar, primaries. Body and legs: breast, thigh, shank, spur, toes. The numbered sheet counts the parts in that order.

Older names that are also right

The 1907 poultry plate these names follow writes beak or bill, wing bow or shoulder, and ear lobe as two words, and it calls the primaries the flight of the wing. A pupil who writes bill, shoulder or flight feathers has named the right part.

For a first sheet, eight parts are enough: comb, beak, wattles, hackles, sickles, breast, shank and toes.

Questions and answers

What is the difference between primary and secondary feathers on a chicken?

Primaries are the wing's longest, outermost feathers. Secondaries are the long flight feathers of its inner part. The sheet asks for the primaries only.

What are tail coverts on a chicken?

Short feathers that cover the base of the main tail feathers on a rooster, and most of the tail on a hen. They are too small to mark on this drawing, so the sheet asks for the main tail feathers.

What are the beard, muff and crest on a chicken?

Feathers that only some breeds have: a beard below the beak, a muff below and around the eyes, a crest standing up from the head. The rooster drawn has none of them.

Does the unlabeled chicken diagram have an answer key?

Yes: the same rooster with the sixteen names written in. It marks the sheets, or goes out afterward as the labeled copy.