Zombie Chicken


 * For the version in Plants vs. Zombies Heroes, see Zombie Chicken (PvZH).

Zombie Chicken is the ninth zombie encountered in the Wild West. It is released from a Chicken Wrangler Zombie after it has been damaged. They quickly rush towards the player's plants doing considerable amounts of damage. Lightning Reeds, Snapdragons, Spikeweeds, Spikerocks, Ghost Peppers, and Cacti are the best and quickest way to deal with them.

Almanac entry
TOUGHNESS: Fragile SPEED: Flighty

Once released onto the lawn chickens run at full speed to peck at your brains.

Ba-qwack!

Overview
Zombie Chicken absorbs 0.25 normal damage shots. Because of its extremely low health, it only degrades upon death.

Encounters
Player's House: Piñata Party

Wild West: Day 10, 18, 20, 22, 23, 24, 25, Big Bad Butte, and Piñata Party

Dark Ages: Piñata Party

Jurassic Marsh: "Rescue the Gold Bloom" Epic Quest - Step 10

Modern Day: Days 12, 32, and Highway to the Danger Room

General
While Zombie Chickens are very fragile individually, they have high strength and speed in numbers and can easily overwhelm defenses without any area-of-effect plants. Using plants that can attack multiple zombies at once, such as Bloomerang, Cactus, Phat Beet and Lightning Reed, will allow multiple Zombie Chickens to die with each attack. Snapdragons are fairly good because they can kill a very large group of Zombie Chickens in several shots, since Zombie Chickens tend to bunch together in a 3x4 area. Using a Cherry Bomb can also work, but it has to be planted far enough ahead that the Zombie Chickens do not run past it and are unaffected. Jalapenos can also be used to quickly deal with them, along with any other zombies in a lane. Alternatively, if area-of-effect plants are not available, using multiple fast plants like Pea Pod or Repeater can compensate for a lack of area-of-effect plants. Spikeweeds are good as well, as they can kill all Zombie Chickens that walk over them. Bonk Choy punches fast making it a good plant to use as well. Since Melon-pult and Winter Melon have splash damage, they can kill multiple Zombie Chickens with a single melon. In the Chinese version, Fire Gourd can kill multiple Zombie Chickens in a lane, as long as they are within the fire's range.

Planting Laser Beans or Fume-shrooms behind defensive plants is also very effective as Laser Beans and Fume-shrooms damage all zombies in the lane that are within range and the defensive plants help counter the Zombie Chickens' fast speed.

Moving a peashooting plant that has been fed Plant Food back and forth very fast on a minecart that covers all five rows is an easy way to get rid of a large crowd of Zombie Chickens, especially Threepeaters, Repeaters, and Peashooters. Split Peas can be used to get rid of chickens in the back if the minecart is in the fifth, sixth, seventh, or eighth column as well as damaging the zombies that are coming in as well. An exception to this tactic is the Pea Pod, Peashooter or Snow Pea with its costume in the Chinese version, and Primal Peashooter, as it will only fire three/five big peas that deal huge damage, greatly overkilling any chickens that are hit.

Cabbage-pults and Kernel-pults are very bad choices (unless fed with Plant Food) against Zombie Chickens because they fire half as fast as a Peashooter and can only kill one Zombie Chicken at once. In addition, butter is ineffective to Zombie Chickens because the hit is enough to kill them. Torchwoods are also useless, as they do not do splash damage and kill one at a time. In addition, Torchwoods powered with its Plant Food ability are also useless. Bowling Bulbs (unless fed with Plant Food) are also unless as their fire rate is slow and each bulb can only kill one at a time.

Homing Thistles (unless fed with Plant Food) are also bad choices as they do not splash damage and other zombies (like Prospector Zombie) can quickly serve a huge distraction to them while Zombie Chickens can eat the Homing Thistles up quickly. Magnifying Grass (unless fed with Plant Food) is also a bad choice as it can only kill one Zombie Chicken at a cost of 50 sun, requiring up to 650 sun. Citrons (unless fed with Plant Food) are worse than Cabbage-pults, Kernel-pults, Torchwoods, and Magnifying Grasses in dealing with Zombie Chickens, because Citrons shoot much slower than any other plant and there is no splash damage to kill multiple Zombie Chickens at once. Also, try not to use plants like Chili Bean, Sun Bean, Spring Bean, or Iceberg Lettuce (unless fed with Plant Food), since only one Zombie Chicken gets affected. Chompers are also very bad choices (unless fed with Plant Food, which can kill multiple Zombie Chickens at once), as it can only eat one Zombie Chicken at a time while the rest of the group can easily destroy your Chompers. Avoid using Blover (unless they are bounced by the Spring Bean's Plant Food effect), as Zombie Chickens cannot be blown away when hopping. In the Chinese Version, do not use the Pumpkin Witch since it does not affect them, and the Pumpkin Witches will lob so slowly that they will be eaten.

Hypnotizing Zombie Chickens also counts as a good idea, not only as it prevents the Hypno-shroom from being consumed after a peck, but it also allow themselves to serve as a distraction to other zombies and saves you sun for your future disposals.

Guacodiles are a very good idea to kill an entire lane of Zombie Chickens. It is best to combine this plant with Sweet Potato, so its rush attack can kill an entire lane of Zombie Chickens when the Sweet Potato gets destroyed. You can also use Banana Launchers with Sweet Potatoes so that its bananas can kill a lot of Zombie Chickens on the same lane at once. It is best to combine Sweet Potatoes with Sap-fling and Banana Launchers to perform this combo for Zombie Chickens. You can also use Ghost Peppers too, as its screams can kill an entire lane of Zombie Chickens.

Hurrikale is the perfect choice against Zombie Chickens. It not only chills the entire lane of chickens, but moves them back. Fire Peashooter when fed with Plant Food will burn any Zombie Chicken that will come too close. However, if you do not have its boost or Plant Food, it is not recommended. In extreme situations where Zombie Chickens come from a lane with no defense or lawn mowers, use Power Zap as it acts similar to Lightning Reed. Endurian can also be used as they attack and defend at the same time and destroy one row of Zombie Chickens and they will sometimes not bite it. However, plant them in groups if you want to defend more rows. You can also use Plant Food on it to make it a near-instant kill to Zombie Chickens and they will barely damage the Endurian.

Wild West - Day 22

 * See also: Locked and Loaded and Wild West - Day 22

Build two columns of Repeaters against them before the first wave or you will die automatically before you can even tap the Plant food button. Be careful when using Bloomerangs, as they only deal with three zombies at once and there are more than three Zombie Chickens per lane. However, they can help deal with other zombies that appear in the level.

Wild West - Day 20

 * See also: Not OK Corral and Wild West - Day 20

A Chicken Wrangler Zombie will appear in the middle lane in the final wave. Arrange the Coconut Cannon and a Peashooter in its lane and place all your other Peashooters in the lane above and below, Then when the wave starts, use the Coconut Cannon to kill the Chicken Wrangler Zombie, and your Peashooters will take care of the chickens. Lastly, kill the remaining zombies. This may be difficult because the Zombie Chickens' speed is very fast and they appear in groups.

Trivia

 * It is the fastest zombie out of all the zombies in the Plants vs. Zombies series, as it can move exactly two spaces in one second. It is also the weakest zombie in the series, with one quarter of a health point.
 * This shows that in just 4.5 seconds it can get to the Player's House.
 * Zombie Chicken, Ice Weasel, and Jurassic Imp are currently the only zombies that have "Fragile" toughness.
 * When it dies, its feathers appear. The same happens with Seagull Zombie, Zombie Parrot and Dodo Rider Zombie.
 * This does not occur in the Chinese version.
 * On iOS devices and some Android platforms, if defeated with a Lightning Reed or Power Zap, Zombie Chickens may turn into buckets of fried chicken.
 * This is also the icon for the achievement Fried Chicken.
 * The bucket of chicken resembles Kentucky Fried Chicken.
 * Zombie Chicken, Ice Weasel, and Wild West Gargantuar have the shortest Almanac entry of all zombies. Among all of these, this zombie has the shortest one, while the Ice Weasel has the longest one.
 * If a Chicken Wrangler Zombie is frozen, buttered, shrunken or stunned, its Zombie Chickens will not be released.
 * As much as 13 of these can be released from a single Chicken Wrangler Zombie.
 * So far, the Zombie Chicken, Zombie Parrot, Zombie Dodo, Ice Weasel, and octopus are the only biological animals in Plants vs. Zombies 2. The rest are robots.
 * Coincidentally, both Zombie Chicken and Zombie Parrot are birds and have "Flighty" speed.
 * Tiger Imp, Ice Weasel and All-Star Zombie (when charging towards a plant) are the only other zombies to have the same speed.
 * When the Chicken Wrangler Zombie is killed by an instant-kill plant or a power-up (except Power Toss), Zombie Chickens will still be released. Also, when a Chicken Wrangler Zombie (with its chickens and bailing wire intact) gets killed by a lawn mower, some Zombie Chickens will be killed but most will survive, possibly causing the player to lose the game.
 * It jumps every time it is moving, but it cannot be blown away by the Blover. This trait is shared with Jester Zombie and Bug Bot Imp.
 * There were Piñata Parties called Chicken Week featuring this zombie.
 * Zombie Chicken and the octopi thrown by Octo Zombie are the only zombies to explode into food after being defeated.
 * Coincidentally, they are both summoned by other zombies.
 * As of the 1.6 update, Zombie Chickens no longer played their zapped animations when being zapped by Power Zap or Lightning Reed. However, in the 3.0 update, it was restored, along with zapped animations for their Zombie Turkey counterparts in Food Fight parties.
 * It is possible through glitches for the feathers released by a Zombie Chicken's death to "eat" the player's brains.
 * It is impossible for this zombie to eat a Hypno-shroom.
 * This is because when the chicken does eat the Hypno-shroom, it gets hypnotized, but the Hypno-shroom remains.
 * This makes it the only zombie in the entire Plants vs. Zombies 2 to damage plants by eating yet be unable to eat a Hypno-shroom completely.
 * Zombie Chickens get hypnotized by biting a Hypno-shroom directly do change their color. However, Zombie Chickens released by a hypnotized Chicken Wrangler Zombie will stay white.
 * It is possible to butter a Zombie Chicken in Vasebreaker, however the butter does not appear. This can be done by using the Butter Zombie Power Up.
 * When doing this, the Zombie Chicken will not get killed. It's because the Butter Zombie power-up does not do any damage to zombies.
 * Zombie Chicken, Seagull Zombie, Zombie Parrot, Ice Weasel, and all Gargantuars from Plants vs. Zombies 2 are the only zombies that do not have any degrades.
 * It is possible to slow down a Zombie Chicken without killing it by using Snow Pea's Plant Food effect, Sap-fling's sap, Hurrikale's blow, or Stallia's fumes.
 * During the Piñata Party event of Food Fight, the Zombie Chickens were turkeys.
 * Oddly, its Food Fight 2015 counterpart lacked a zapped animation, leading to a sun sprite instead.