Chickens in nether

1. By "stronghold", do you mean "fortress"?
2. Is there a portal anywhere in the vicinity?
3. Have you found any eggs on the ground nearby?

1. Yes, sorry - meant fortress,
2. Portal is at 21 86 3; fortress is approx. -100 65 -50
3. Yes, found an egg.

Version 1.7.4 today: Also spotted chicken with egg in Nether more than 200 blocks from nearest portal.

Is this a improperly spawned baby zombie chicken jockey?

I know Zombies and zombie-pigmen sgare some code.

I know I'm quoting the Wiki (which I shouldn't as its incomplete) but it makes sense on what its says with:
"If the player goes far enough away, the baby zombie despawns but the chicken does not, leaving a regular chicken behind." so having a zombie pigman riding a chicken then despawning would make sense.

I have the same bug. Except I'm getting a lot more chickens since I've got a nether perimeter set-up but not complete. They spawn on the fortress and just around the nether. I have screenshots too if this needs more confirmed. They won't despawn right? So this could cause some problems.

I'm running on 1.7.4 on Mac OSX 10.6.8

Will this bug be reopened? Or do I need to resubmit?

confirmed 1.7.4 - SSP and SMP
Too many are spawning to be the de-spawned versions of Baby Zombie riders. Its occurring in groups of 3-4.

Not just in the nether as well. You can find chickens everywhere now. Even in the overworld as low as y=6

FYI, this is basically a duplicate of MC-42174

Why that?
MC-42174: Chicken Jockey causing lag
MC-41929: Random chickens in the nether

As far as I can see, this is hard to fix, as the Chicken Jockey is just a baby zombie riding a chicken, and they're not really connected to each other, this is just a result of that.

That's kind of my point. All of these are symptoms of the same issue, which you stated. The one I posted simply has more votes and more information.

Issues linked-

This should have been fixed due to the change that Chicken Jockeys despawn together now.
But I'm not sure, so I'm gonna keep it open.

I am still experiencing this on 14w03b (I can't edit the affected versions to add it), although much less rarely. I did a /kill @etype=Chicken to ensure all existing ones were dead, but after a few hops in and out of my nether hub, I started finding a few chickens (without a jockey on them) in the nether.

EDIT: I've noticed what might be a pattern, the chickens appear either in or very near to a portal when entering the nether. I have zero outdoor portals in my world (and no indoor chickens) so I know they aren't transferring that way. Not sure if that will help troubleshoot it, but thought I would pass it on.

They will despawn in time. They're a result of chicken jockeys that lost their rider.

Thanks, I had thought that they (as Galaxy_2Alex indicated) despawned at the same time as the rider.