I was wondering if you were aware of this:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=55798.0Its a pretty painless change to make as a temporary fix until toady gets around to putting balanced values in place. Since you are freely editing weapon balance yourself elsewhere in your mod anyway, I thought you might want to fiddle with the numbers there as well.
Also about chickens:
Custom reactions aren't able to use creatures as inputs or outputs yet, so you can't create a 'harvest eggs' reaction or anything of that nature. On the other hand, if you're willing to accept the farmer's workshop 'Milk Creature' job can be extended to egg harvesting, you can very easily add eggs to chickens. create a custom material template based on milk, but make copy its temperature states from cheese so that it's solid at room temperature. Anything 'milked' must go into a bucket initially, but after that its fair game.
Add something like this to the female chicken caste:
[USE_MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:EGG:CREATURE_EGG_TEMPLATE]
[STATE_NAME:ALL_SOLID:chicken egg]
[STATE_ADJ:ALL_SOLID:chicken egg]
[STATE_NAME:LIQUID:melted chicken egg]
[STATE_ADJ:LIQUID:melted chicken egg]
[STATE_NAME:GAS:boiling chicken egg ]
[STATE_ADJ:GAS:boiling chicken egg]
[PREFIX:NONE]
[MILKABLE:LOCAL_CREATURE_MAT:EGG:100000]
And add something like this to your material defs(copied from CHEESE, altered to be more like MILK).
[MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:CREATURE_EGG_TEMPLATE]
[STATE_COLOR:ALL_SOLID:YELLOW]
[STATE_NAME:ALL_SOLID:egg]
[STATE_ADJ:ALL_SOLID:eggy]
[STATE_COLOR:LIQUID:YELLOW]
[STATE_NAME:LIQUID:n/a]
[STATE_ADJ:LIQUID:n/a]
[STATE_COLOR:GAS:YELLOW]
[STATE_NAME:GAS:n/a]
[STATE_ADJ:GAS:n/a]
[DISPLAY_COLOR:4:0:1]
[MATERIAL_VALUE:1]
[SPEC_HEAT:4181]
[IGNITE_POINT:10338]
[MELTING_POINT:10078]
[BOILING_POINT:NONE]
[HEATDAM_POINT:10250]
[COLDDAM_POINT:9900]
[MAT_FIXED_TEMP:NONE]
[SOLID_DENSITY:1200]
[LIQUID_DENSITY:1200]
[MOLAR_MASS:NONE]
[IMPACT_YIELD:10000]
[IMPACT_FRACTURE:10000]
[IMPACT_ELASTICITY:50000]
[COMPRESSIVE_YIELD:10000]
[COMPRESSIVE_FRACTURE:10000]
[COMPRESSIVE_ELASTICITY:50000]
[TENSILE_YIELD:10000]
[TENSILE_FRACTURE:10000]
[TENSILE_ELASTICITY:50000]
[TORSION_YIELD:10000]
[TORSION_FRACTURE:10000]
[TORSION_ELASTICITY:50000]
[SHEAR_YIELD:10000] no data
[SHEAR_FRACTURE:10000]
[SHEAR_ELASTICITY:50000]
[BENDING_YIELD:10000]
[BENDING_FRACTURE:10000]
[BENDING_ELASTICITY:50000]
[MAX_EDGE:0]
[ABSORPTION:100]
[CHEESE_CREATURE]
[EDIBLE_VERMIN]
[EDIBLE_COOKED]
[ROTS]
[GENERATES_MIASMA]
I realize it doesn't entirely line up with reality, but them's the breaks.