If I had to stake my life on it, I would agree with something like you said. My guess is that the predecessor of the chicken was some primitive ocean swimming creature that laid eggs to reproduce, like so many other sea creatures. One day, some of them crawled onto land, and their scales gradually modified into feathers( due to the incredible built-in metamorphorsizing abilities of the original gene that originated life (maybe fell in a comet? Maybe airborne O2 causes a different genetic reaction than water-bourne O2?). This became the chicken.

I'm always fascinated by the gene's ability to do what is necessary.... like if we (humans)were forced back into the sea, would we naturally just start getting webbed fingers and toes( ala Waterworld), without mutation? Just by the genes activating the "waterborn" subroutines, instead of the airborn ones

One of the basic tenets of Bhuddism, is that "conciousness is an intrinsic part of the cosmos". On a level we don't understand, I believe conciousness can control how our genes function.....turning things on/off as needed. This probably corresponds to the Christian "hidden-hand-of-God" branch of evolutionists.

</moment of sanity>