Chickens are the fastest growing (and fastest producing) animal you can own. Since they multiply so quickly it's always a good idea to start your animal collection with these. You'll have all 8 chickens in no time!

In order to buy your first chicken you need at least 3 patches of grass growing back behind the chicken barn. I've been able to buy at 3, but sometimes 4 patches is necessary. You can buy chickens at the Farmer's Union for 1000 G each. You can choose to buy a male or female chicken. You don't get to name your chickens though! Only the female chickens will lay eggs. In the girl version, the chickens will lay 2 eggs a day while in the boy version they'll only lay 1 a day. You can sell the eggs for 50 G each.

Female chickens lay eggs but you can't hatch the eggs unless you also have a male chicken! If you put an egg in the incubator (located in the first barn section in the lower left corner) and it never hatches into a chick, you're missing a male chicken. You don't get a choice when it comes to the gender of the new chick; when it hatches it might be a male or a female chicken. If you get another male sell it back to the Famer's Union for 1000 G. You'll have to wait for your male chick to grow up first since you can't sell chicks, only adult chickens. Also you can't put any more eggs in the incubator if you have the maximum amount of 8 chickens.

Your chickens won't instantly become golden once they reach an affection level of 10 hearts. It will take the equivalent of 1 more heart in order for them to become golden, so approximatly 8-10 days. Golden chickens of course lay golden eggs, which sell for 200 G each. Golden eggs also hatch into chicks that grow up into golden chickens! You don't need to have a golden male chicken in order for golden eggs to become golden chickens; any male will do. Just like with regular eggs though you can't determine the gender of the chicken. You can sell unwanted golden chickens at the Farmer's Union for 10,000 G!

Besides golden eggs you can also ship mayonnaise, which sells for 300 G. You can convert eggs into mayonnaise if you have the mayonnaise machine. Usually the machine will appear in Lucus' Shop after you have shipped enough eggs, although I'm not 100% sure how many eggs are required (possibly 100). When you buy the machine for 30,000 G it will appear next to your fodder bin in the fist chicken barn section. The easiest way to convert eggs into mayonnaise is to pick up 1 egg, walk over to the machine, press the A Button to throw it into the machine, and then press the B Button to put the mayonnaise into your ruksack. If you collect all of the eggs first and then try to make mayonnaise out of them, you'll discover that the primary slot in your ruksack doesn't automatically populate with the next egg after you convert it into mayonnaise. You'll end up having to open up your system menu (by pressing Select), going to Bag, then switching the mayonnaise that's in your ruksack with a regular egg. Talk about taking extra time!

If you're playing the girl version then you are going to need the mayonnaise machine before you can ship mayonnaise. If you're playing the boy version, you only need to buy the Mayonnaise Book from Lyla's Book Shop. After that your partner will randomly convert eggs into mayonnaise when you ask her to "M-E-W" or "Anything".