With more than a hundred breeds of chickens to choose from, it can be challenging trying to figure out which breeds you want to raise. Here’s my advice—plus, see this page for a free beginner’s guide to gardening which includes my four-season guide to raising chickens!
If you’re raising chickens, you don’t have to choose just one breed! Fortunately, chickens of all different breeds get along just fine and your egg basket will be much more colorful if your flock is comprised of a variety of different kinds of chickens.
Maybe you do want colorful eggs. Or maybe you want breeds known for their laying prowess. Maybe 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 breeds you ultimately choose will depend on what criteria is important to you and your family. Consider the following factors:
Climate
While pretty eggs are fun to collect, your initial consideration when choosing a breed of chicken should be the climate in which you live. Although most chickens are generally okay in cold climates, there are many breeds that struggle in the heat.
If you live in an area that’s warm and humid for much of the year, then choosing heat-tolerant breeds will be important. Some good choices would be the Mediterranean breeds such as Andalusians, Leghorns, and Penedesencas. Their smallish, sleek bodies and large combs help them stay cool in extreme heat.
An Australorp hen rests among thyme and hostas.
Conversely, if you live in a cold climate, then a larger bodied chicken with a smaller comb will do better. Australorps, Barred Rocks, Buff Orpingtons, Cochins, and Wyandottes would all be good choices.
Egg Production
If maximum egg production is important to you, then you can’t go wrong with an Australorp, Barred Rock, Delaware, Leghorn, Rhode Island Red, or Sussex. These breeds are known for their egg laying prowess. While no chicken lays an egg every day, a good layer will supply your family with 5-6 eggs a week during the spring and summer months.
Rhode Island Reds are great egg-layers.
Temperament
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 Australorps, Brahmas, or Buff Orpingtons are a great choice. These breeds are known for being extremely docile and friendly: Cochins, Faverolles, and 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 eggs come in all sorts of colors—no dyeing necessary!
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 breeds lay brown eggs, although most of the Mediterranean breeds lay white eggs. Marans lay dark chocolate brown eggs. Ameraucana, Araucana and Cream Legbar lay beautiful blue eggs, while Olive Eggers lay olive green 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.
An Olive Egger carefully combs the grass for tasty grubs.
Fancy Breeds
If you just want pretty chickens, then choose some with feathered feet, like Cochins, Faverolles or Marans; a few with cheek muffs and “beards” such as Ameraucanas; some with crazy hairdos, like Polish chickens; or Frizzles that have feathers pointing every which way. You’re sure to end up with a visually pleasing flock! While not known for being the best layers, these fancy breeds will entertain and delight with their unique appearance.
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!
Lisa Steele, a 5th generation chicken keeper and Master Gardener, and author of the popular books 
Reader Comments
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Favorite Chickens
Several years ago my husband and I discovered "Icelandic" chickens. They are a rare breed from Iceland known for their winter hardiness. They do well in the summer also. They are gentle and calm. The roosters are excellent at defending against predators. The nicest thing I love about them is their color variations. The feathers of both the hens and the roosters have every color of the rainbow and the eggs are large, with many colors.
end of life for chickens
I am very interested in raising a few chickens after I retire. However, and please don't make fun of me, when a hen gets old and stops laying, I really can't see myself killing her and putting her in a stew pot. And I also can't see sending her to a locker to have someone else do my dirty work for me. Can old hens just live their lives out as pets? How long do hens live?
Chickens as Pets
Old hens can certainly be kept as pets or companions to younger chickens! Egg-laying tapers off after about 3 years, but chickens tend to live about 5-7 years on average—though it’s not uncommon to hear of particularly well-kept and healthy hens living nearly double that.
We talk more about this subject in our article When Chickens Stop Laying Eggs!
Chicken breed
My wife and I have decided to Jersey giant s .
Wish I had chickens
The wife and I moved to the country two years ago. We had a friend who needed to get rid of his birds so, we took them from him. They were New England Reds, two female, one Roo. Mean as a "wet hen". We quickly got rid of them, but the wife was fixated on having chickens. I said no to the idea. Well, since we had the coop for the Reds in the back yard she bought some birds to occupy. She purchases a couple of Wyndots? and a couple of Orpingtons. One of the Wyndots died so she replaced it with four more birds. Next we acquired Marins then Easter Eggers, Cream Legbars, Silkies, Frizzles, Bantams, Old English Bantams, D'ucles but not a single chicken. The wife read where if you are not going to eat them, they are pets, not chickens. Well, tired of not having chickens, in December we bought two Manderins and two Ring Teal ducks along with two Lady Amherst pheasants. We now have seventy pets and not a single chicken. Yall be blessed.
Chickens!
We used to have chickens,but my husband gave them away.I sure would like to have some more.We used to get all colors and sizes. They were really pretty. Now we get eggs from a women and they are a dark pink color.They are so good too. Thank you for letting me talk.
Kinds of chickens we have
We have many Americana Chickens that are good layers and friendly. Some have been broody though. This year we have Ideal 236 Leghorns. Haven't started laying yet but they are suppose to be prolific layers.
Australorp
Having raised chickens for 'decades' for eggs and to help deal with the tick population, I am sold on black Australorps. Here in Northern MN and in the deep woods there are many critters that would like to eat chickens including hawks, owls, and bald eagles. A pair of bald eagles have a nest by the lake less than a hundred yards from the coup and have for many years. Yet over the years I have not lost one chicken to these potential predators and my thirty or so chickens run free daily. (I close the pen at night when they come in to roost to keep them safe from skunks, raccoons, coyotes, and fox.) I have a theory that the black chickens are mistaken for crows or ravens by the sky-borne predictors and are left alone, a form of mimicry something like the relationship between Viceroy and Monarch butterflies.
Using chickens to control ticks, hive beetles and fire ants?
Is it possible to use chickens to control lawn insects and especially ticks and fire ants. Fire ants (I live in east central part of Oklahoma) have destroyed over five of my beehives so far this summer! I work hard to provide what the bees need in order to have a successful honey harvest. The ants carry out the honey faster than the bees can accumulate it and it causes the bees to leave as they have no defense against the small critters. So would chickens or Guineafowl be better at controlling these ants?
Fireants
Chickens will eat ticks, but I am told that guinea are even better at that. To my knowledge, chickens don't eat fire ants. We don't have them in Maine, but from others who do live in the South, they say their chickens don't touch the fire ants. I would go for guinea hens instead I think.
Chickens in the 'Burbs
We have Delawares, Rhode Island and New Hampshire Reds and they have all been great layers. The Delawares are large and in charge and a real hoot and the Rhode Island Reds are the most precocious. All are very social and fun to watch.
We are currently incorporating a new flock of 2 Buff Orpingtons, another Delaware and Rhode Island Red. They new flock has great personalities and we are enjoying them immensely. I can't imagine not having chickens.
Buffs
Oh you'll love the Buffs. They're such a friendly breed.
Urban Chickens
Having tried a variety of breeds, so far I've found red-sex linked to be the best choice. In their first two years, they laid well even through most of the winter. They've been docile and engaging. This year, I'm trying the black sex linked.
Easter eggers are pretty birds, but they seem to be escape artists, and only lay a small egg and drop off production to rarely in the winter months. Bantams are a pretty little bird, but also a small egg, low production, and winter in the Northeast seemed a bit tough on them. I tried straight Rhode Island Reds and found them unimpressive. I think some of the lines have been so closely bred that a cross gives them that hybrid vigor.
Production Breeds
As far as laying, the production breeds (Sex Links, etc.) really are the stars. The blue egg layers do tend to stop laying early in the winter and not pick up again until spring, but those eggs are so pretty! The heritage breeds like Rhode Island Reds, Wyandottes, Buffs, and others seem to be the hardiest.
Chickens
To Terry Milligan: Cornish Game Hens are the fastest growers for a meat bird and the best tasting. You get the game hen in 6 weeks and a small fryer at 2 months. Been there, done that. Right now we have a mixture and they all get together except one and I couldn't tell you why but the others pick on her if they are all together so we have to segragate her from the rest.
Chickens
Is there breeds that are raised for their meat? Is there a breed with the best tasting meat?