Y ou have already decided to by your own chicken flock, however you still have doubts which breed is the most appropriate for you and your backyard. That’s why we will try to give you some suggestions based on your needs and conditions you will raise your chickens.
Having in mind all the sorts of chickens pure breeds and other hybrid, crossbreed chicken, although we cannot touch all of them, we will try to give you some basic guidelines analyzing the most important issues for you. So no matter you are raising your chickens because or eggs of meat, just from hobby or some other need these are the things you should know.
If you are real with this particular animals and enthusiastic for its look and attributes then you should definitely get one of the pure breeds, and the cutest one are for sure Chinese Silkie with silky feathers in pure white and other variety of colors. Much alike Chinese Silkie, other breed Pekin bantams are also convenient as a pet as they are well-known for their quiet temperament and as very devoted mothers. High place on the list takes also Barnevelder, Brahma, Dorking, Faverolles, Orpington, very famous and old breed Plymouth Rock, Sussexn and Welsummer.
However, if you are raising chickens for more commercial reasons, then you should definitely take into consideration some of the hybrid breeds as they are in general less susceptible to diseases. The best choice from the laying chickens’ breeds is Leghorn with more than 300 clear white eggs a year. In a number of eggs per year, just after them are black feathers Australorp chickens, developed from the Orpington chicken, with more or less the same number of eggs. These two are followed by Light Sussex chicken (260 – 280 eggs a year), Orpington chicken (220-240), Italian Ancona chicken (220-240) and The Rhode Island Red Chickens with 200 – 250 eggs a year that doesn’t refer much of the food and and so good housing conditions.
When it is about quality of the meat the best rated species are Cornish, Buckeyes, Dorkins and La Fleche all singled out with the best flavor. In this category again are mentioned Orpingtons and Plymouth Rocks.
If you don’t have so much experience with raising chicken then you may try already mentioned Plymouth Rocks, Orpingtons, Rhode Island Whites, Australorps and New Hampshires. This would be the best and most sure choice as these breeds got the highest overall scores including all mentioned characteristics: temperament, temperature tolerance, eggs size and production and at the end quality of meat.
However the last choice is yours!
