Expert: Roger Lederer - 8/24/2011

Question
QUESTION: I asked my father what the difference was between bird and a fowl was? His answer was. A bird brings the food to the young and a fowl brings the young to the food. Is that a good explanation to that question or is there a better one that you being an expert could give me? Thank you for your reply.

ANSWER: Well, here are a bunch of answers:
1. All birds have feathers and everything with feathers is a bird. ALL fowl are birds but not all birds are fowl. Very rarely, birds are called fowl in general, but not often.
2. Fowl are those birds that belong to two bird groups, waterfowl like ducks and geese and swans and those in the chicken family - chickens, turkeys, quail, peacock, etc.
3. Fowl are those birds that are raised for food - chickens, turkeys, ducks, geese.

So there is no difference between birds and fowl; fowl are just certain kinds of birds and it has nothing to do with how the young are fed.

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: If you think about the statement I made about food and young. Chicken, Turkeys, Ducks, Geese, Ostrich, and Swans bring their young to the food and are are considered fowl.
Robins, Blue Birds, Black birds, and all song birds bring the food to the young and are considered birds. True they all have feathers.
I believe that the statement is just as true as what you said.

Answer
Well, you have a point, but that is no definition I ever heard of and it's confusing to try to distinguish fowl from birds as they are all birds. Secondly, cranes,  oystercatchers, and others bring the young to food after a few days of age and they are not considered fowl. Neither is an ostrich. And the brush turkey of Australia doesn't care for its young at all and is a fowl.
There is no difference between fowl and birds. It's an artificial and not very useful distinction.