Commonwealth countries The Commonwealth of Nations, often referred to as the British Commonwealth or simply the Commonwealth, is an international association of 56 member states, the vast majority of which are former territories of the British Empire from which i ...

, poussin (pronounced is less commonly called coquelet) is a butcher's term for a young

chicken The chicken (''Gallus gallus domesticus'') is a domesticated subspecies of the red junglefowl (''Gallus gallus''), originally native to Southeast Asia. It was first domesticated around 8,000 years ago and is now one of the most common and w ...

, less than 28 days old at slaughter and usually weighing but not above . It is sometimes also called spring chicken, although the term spring chicken usually refers to chickens weighing . The word is the

French language French ( or ) is a Romance languages, Romance language of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European family. Like all other Romance languages, it descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire. French evolved from Northern Old Gallo-R ...

term for the same thing. Normally a portion is a whole poussin per person. In the United States, ''poussin'' is an alternative name for a small-sized cross-breed chicken called Rock Cornish game hen, developed in the late 1950s, which is twice as old and twice as large as the typical British poussin.

External links

The British Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affair' definition of poussin and coquelet

The British Assured Food Standards organisation's definition of poussin.
Chicken as food {{poultry-stub