Which Type of Chicken Best Suits You and Your Space?
Choosing the right chicken breed is an important part of raising chickens. Do you want lots of eggs, friendly chickens, or just something fancy? There are so many chicken breeds out there; it can be overwhelming! Here are some things to consider when choosing the best breed of chicken for your backyard coop.
Which Types of Chickens Should You Get?
When it comes to choosing your chicken breeds, there are more breeds out there than you can shake an eggbeater at! We’re talking about hundreds of different breeds—lots of choices!
One of the delights of this step is learning some of the types of chickens and their charming names: Silkie, Showgirl, Silver-Laced Wyandotte, Rosecomb, Redcap, and Russian Orloff, to name a few.
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Plus, if you’re raising chickens, you don’t have to choose just one breed! Fortunately, chickens of all different breeds typically get along just fine, and your egg basket will be much more colorful if your flock comprises a variety of chickens.
Maybe you do want colorful eggs. Or, maybe, you want breeds known for their laying prowess. Perhaps, docile, kid-friendly breeds are a consideration. Or maybe you live in a cold climate and want to be sure the breeds you choose will be well-suited to your area.
Choosing Chicken Breeds
The chickens you ultimately choose will depend on what criteria are important to you and your family.
First, let’s consider WHERE you live and your type of climate. Not all chickens like cold climates, and some struggle in heat.
Heat-Tolerant Chicken Breeds
If you live in an area that’s warm and humid for much of the year, then choosing heat-tolerant breeds will be important. Their smallish, sleek bodies and large combs help them stay cool in extreme heat.
- Phoenix
- Minorca
- Andalusians
- Leghorns
- Penedesencas
Cool-Weather Chicken Breeds
Conversely, if you live in a cold climate, then a larger-bodied chicken with a smaller comb will do better. Here are good choices:
- Brahma
- Chantecler
- Australorps
- Barred Rocks,
- Buff Orpingtons
- Cochins
- Wyandottes
Besides weather and climate, it’s important to know if you need a breed that is a super-productive egg layer, especially if this is for a small business.
Medium-production layers are plenty for a family. Bantam chicken eggs are small; to complement their yolks, you’ll need more whites than most angel food cake recipes call for.
Most Productive Egg-Laying Chickens
While no chicken lays an egg daily, a good layer will supply your family with five to six eggs a week during the spring and summer months. If maximum egg production is important to you, then you can’t go wrong with these breeds known for their egg-laying prowess.
- Australorp
- Barred Rock
- Delaware
- Leghorn
- Rhode Island Red
- Sussex
Friendly Chicken Breeds
If you have small children, or just desire a flock of friendly chickens who will love to sit on your lap and eat out of your hand, then consider these chicken breeds:
- Australorps
- Brahmas
- Buff Orpingtons
- Cochins
- Faverolles
- Silkies
You might also consider raising bantams. They’re about half the size of standard breed chickens, so they can be less intimidating for little kids, and they come in a wide variety of different breeds.
Chicken Breeds and Egg Color
There’s nothing more exciting than a multi-colored egg basket! While egg color shouldn’t necessarily be your first consideration, choosing some breeds that lay different-colored eggs is always fun.
Most chicken breeds lay brown eggs, although most of the Mediterranean breeds lay white eggs.
Brown Eggs
Marans lay dark chocolate brown eggs.
Blue Eggs
Ameraucana, Araucana, and Cream Legbar lay beautiful blue eggs.
Green Eggs
Isbar chicken produces a light green egg. Olive Eggers lay olive green eggs.
Easter Eggs
And Easter Eggers are the most fun of all. Each Easter Egger will lay a different color egg, anything from blue to green to pink or cream. You don’t know what color egg you’ll get from a hen until she starts laying.
Fancy Chicken Breeds
If you want pretty chickens, then choose some fancy chickens for a visually pleasing flock! While not known for being the best layers, these fancy breeds will entertain and delight with their unique appearance.
- Cochins (feathered feet)
- Faverolles (feathered feet)
- Marans (feathered feet)
- Ameraucanas (cheek muffs and “beards”)
- Polish (crazy hairdos)
- Frizzles (feathers pointing every which way
A Few Favorite Chicken Breeds
As longtime experts in raising chickens, we’ll also share our favorite breeds
- I kept Rhode Island Reds and Barred Plymouth Rocks, both of which are usually available from a local hatchery. These are docile, not particularly noisy, high-laying, dual-purpose chicken breeds that take confinement well. They gave me 75 percent egg production—that is, a dozen chickens produced nine eggs a day while they were laying.
- Another favorite of mine is the Jersey Giant. It is black or white, and large. (My black Jersey Giant rooster was 16 inches at the saddle!) The hens are medium- rather than high-laying chickens, but the eggs are larger than those of the Plymouth Rock or Rhode Island Red. This breed is calm and docile but needs more room because of its size.
- Araucanas tend to be flighty (not docile), but they thrive in almost any climate, take confinement well, and are quiet. If you want to make them more calm and docile, try hypnotizing them (and no, we’re not kidding!) Plus, the green-shelled eggs are a novelty. (One of my Rhode Island Red hens mated with an Araucana cock and gave me a hen that laid olive eggs!)
- My dream team would include Easter Eggers. They are similar in temperament to Araucanas and lay those blue or green eggs. It may take me a while to track them down, but—hey!—the dream team is worth it.
In the end…
No matter which breeds of chicken you choose to raise, you will be rewarded with baskets full of delicious, fresh eggs and hours of relaxing entertainment, watching your little flock roam the yard softly clucking, chasing bugs, and scratching for weeds.
What kind of chickens do you raise in your backyard? Tell us in the comments below!
More of Raising Chickens 101
See more of our beginner’s guide to raising chickens:
Lisa Steele
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So, I live in Southern California, it can get around 110 F in the summer and 20 F in the winter. I want to have about 4 chickens, but what breed should I go for? I was thinking the ones that are more heat tolerant, but how to I keep the coop warmer during the winters? (without installing a heater, if possible)
You don’t have to worry about heat if you’re only getting down to 20°F, it regularly gets down to 0°F where I live and up to 105°F, adult chickens will be fine. I would just go with Rhode Island reds and or Plymouth barred rock as they are pretty much bulletproof and available anywhere. Just make sure you have shade and good ventilation for the heat, and plenty of water.
Ok…now for some helpful advice from everyone…BROODY HENS. How to best break this?
Hi Geri... I separate the broody hen and isolate it (usually in a medium size dog crate). Just make sure they have food and water but without nesting material. I leave a 2x2 in the crate so it can roost. After about 5-5 days, I let her out.
I live in Central Missouri where it gets below freezing every winter and into the triple digits every summer. What are the best layer breeds that should I get?
I've got Road Island Reds, Buff Orpingtons, Smokey Pearls, Aracuna, Australorps. looking for Marans, & Barr rocks to complete my dream team.
My mother always raised white chickens that laid white eggs. They were not people-friendly and were quite flighty. I never liked chickens all that well, growing up. When the uncertainty of the pandemic hit, eggs were the one thing we were lacking and I decided I needed to get some chickens. After a good deal of research, my first laying hens were Black Stars AKA Black Sexlinks. I love these chickens. They are docile. They are beautiful. They lay huge brown eggs and LOTS of them. I believe they are a cross between a Rhode Island Red and a Barred Rock. The females are always iridescent black with many of them having some rust-colored feathers around their neck or just on the front of their neck, and on their breast. Occasionally, one is all black. I think the males are red and white. I would highly recommend them to anyone. They seem to tolerate both heat and cold, although, like all chickens, their production greatly dropped when it was ten degrees and below for an entire week. I really thought Black Stars would be listed in this article and was a bit surprised that they were not. I did see that another reader also mentioned this breed.
Are there any chicken breeds for Northern California that are less likely to be red tail hawk food? I love and prefer to free range my ladies but my flock of 14 in October is now down to 1. When I first started losing them I started leaving them in their run but it seems they're disappearing faster now because the birds find their way in!
Chicken is on everyone’s menu. We even have bears and bobcats. I recommend Icelandic hens. Hearty, smart, resourceful. Natural foragers.
Les in New Hampshire
Your pen needs to have some sort of netting or chicken wire roof over the whole pen. The fencing needs to have 1"x 3' vermin wire on the bottom dug 18" inches into the ground. The gate needs to have a landscape timber cut to fit and trenched tightly under the gate and the gate should be tight to the posts on each side and have a treated 1x4 across the top right above the gate with very little gap between it and the gate. It may not be just red tail hawks as owls, raccoons, skunks, foxes, and members of the weasel family love to dine on chicken. I worked on a state game farm and raised pheasants for 17 years and had to deal with every kind of predator you can think of including coyotes. The vermin wire prevents animals from digging under your fence, and not just predators, wood chucks like to eat chicken food too and if they dig under you fence it provides a highway for the predators.
