But chicken are the same species as their wild counterpart, the red jungle fowl. And there’s such a diversity of them, some may be more closely related to a wild jungle fowl than to another variety of domestic chicken. Therefore, it seems to me that what defines a chicken (as opposed to a jungle fowl) isn’t a specific genetic mutation, but the fact that it’s domesticated. And it seems to me that capturing a live jungle fowl would’ve been easier than hatching an egg you’ve harvested. The fowl that first laid an egg in captivity may thus already be considered a chicken, although it was born a red jungle fowl, hatched from a red jungle fowl’s egg; and only then it laid the first chicken’s egg.