How did you pick your breeds and colors?

With breeding season fast coming upon us, it has got the wheels in my head turning.

What I really need to do is pick a breed or breeds and concentrate on them. Although I've had chickens on and off for quite a while, it was mostly just backyard mixed breeds of chickens. Year before last, I started looking at all these breeds. There are so many of them, and each and every one of them is beautiful and special.

So my neighbor and I put in an order of birds from a hatchery. I ordered a bunch of trio's of things. Well, of course things don't always turn out the way we plan. I ended up with trio's that all roosters, some missing roosters, some wrong breeds. Not a whole lot that I could really breed. But the good thing is, I had a bunch of different breeds that I could watch grow and see what I liked.

So I know that I really like Cochins, Silkies, BLRW, EE's and Polish. These are the main ones. There are others that I really like such as Brahma's, Booted Bantams, Frizzles, Barnies.... and so on. And that's just the breeds, not to mention the colors. I would love to have just about every color in all of these breeds. The trouble is, unless you have a lot of space you can't keep every breed and every color you want.

The last little while I've been giving it serious thought. I know that I want cochins, BLRW, silkies, EE, and to make my husband happy, an Egg Layer (I'm thinking Speckled Sussex since I think if I have to be the one to care for them, I might as well get something I enjoy looking at)

So for colors I think I have narrowed it down.
Cochins, Gold Laced (and maybe Silver Laced. I have a couple hens that I love)
Silkies, Blue (and the side
colors of blue)
EE's (Or Americauna's) Still have to pick a color...
Speckled Sussex
BLRW

But then I think of my beloved Polish (I only have a couple now)...

Still a pretty big list isn't it?

So how do you narrow it down?

How did you come to pick what you wanted to keep?

Hi, When choosing breeds I checked to see which were on the endangeered and critical lists and decided to try to find birds to help the populations. Well turns out many are not as scarce as I thought. STill hard to get any but not endangered.I wanted to raise barred rocks because it was the bird i grew up with. It was on the relatives farms . I had bought a pair of silkies for my grandson. They were lost to the wildlife. I replaced them and got myself a pair. They are delightful little birds. I chose Orpingtons because their description was something I wanted to raise. I have a trio now and they have me hooked. They are not the greatest quality and but until I can get more/better birds they will keep me entertained and provide me with eggs. The Penedesencas are great egg layers. I eventually want to show my birds. But, as with my dogs it will take some time to build a line.

I am also in the same dilema silkie!! I ordered 13 different varieties last year from Performance, and then I had 9 other varieties of eggs. I got to see which would work, and which may not work so well around my place. I have narrowed my list down substantially as alot of my birds did not do so well here. I am looking at buff orpingtons (which I don't have yet), Lavender orpingtons (also which I don't have, but did have until mid winter), black australorps, marans and ameracaunas. I will also have my silkies but they will be a novelty item. I also have decided to only keep my muscovies, and get some pilgrim geese this year. I have also been able to find a pair of royal palms, and am hoping to get a pair of bourbon reds if possible. I went with the chickens that were larger, but still decent producers of eggs. The ducks came down to which I liked the best, and the turkeys I went with the two that I really liked the most due to size and coloring.

I really hate the idea of frost bitten combs, so that narrowed it down for me. I wanted to be able to eat the left over cockerels from at least one of my breeds so that helped narrow it down a bit again. I am not a huge fan of feathered feet, I like them in other's yards but I feel sorry for mine when I see them in the mud!
So those things helped me come up with the Chantecler. I like a pretty bird so I went with the Partridge but I have to admit I am liking the one white pullet I have alot.

Now I am a fan of the coloured and dark eggs. I haven't found a small combed dark layer so I have gone with the blue eggs. When I first saw the Wheaten Ameraucana hens I fell in love, so they are the second breed I have chosen.
That is it for me. There will be some little side things that I do for my own interest, but those are the 2 breeds I will concentrate on. There are many other breeds I fancy and like, but I really don't like to spread things to thin and I find it to difficult with do many different breeds to do them all justice.
I usually have a few hens of other breeds in my laying pen, just for my own personal interest but not for serious breeding.
Good luck narrowing it down, you will find the ones you really love!

I chose based on egg colour, gentle temperment and egg size. I ended up choosing Orpingtons (love their personalities), Australorps (I really like how quiet they are and good egg layers), Ameraucana/EE (I found these not that friendly at first but I really like them now that they are full grown - they follow me everywhere and produce the best tasting eggs in my book), Welsummers for their dark coloured eggs (the roo is really a nice boy but the hens don't really take an interest in me- the food person) I did have Marans and I really liked them but unfortunately not one survived from the Mareks that went through my flocks last year. Now that I've experienced frost bite on some of my roos - I'm really liking the idea of having small combs so will be building my Ameraucana/EE flock - my Australorp hens didn't suffer like the roo did so I will be purchasing more hens of this breed as I can. I'm really
interested in the Chanteclers and maybe some day I'll get into those as well but will have to build another coop so it won't be for a while.

Sometimes I think they chose me. Over a decade ago my7 wife and I decided we needed some chickens, but wanted some that were a bit different. Eventually we choose Gold Laced Wyandottes, but ran into problems when the first ones got too old-hydro off for 9 days because of a wildfire, bird flu eliminating Lower Mainland flocks, Rochesters cancelling an order. We made a large order from McMurrays but a shunk killed all but one. Our order the following year was a success and we had many varieties of Wyandottes and Brahmas. Like others posting here we had the missing opposite sex in a few cases. A egg swap brough us Black Cochins which we sold, but have reconsidered and bought some others because some family really liked them. We had a large order to replace many of the Wyandottes and Brahmas last year, but the hatchery cancelled at the last moment. Friends gave us some Isabrowns which we sold and replaced last year, but we are going to replace these with Wyandottes this year. The Wyandottes by far outlaid the Isabrowns during our recent cold spell. Many of the Isabrowns had slightly frozen combs which the Wyandotte hens did not. I should include that we had a 5 hour hydro outage due to a snowplow accident on a night when the temperature was -30. Most roosters here have some frost damage. I particularly like the non McMurray BLRWs so we sold our originals and started with a more recent importation of these.

It is hard to choose, isn’t it?

I wish I could say I choose the breeds I did for more noble reasons, like being on the endangered/critical lists or to raise heritage breed awareness. That wouldn’t be true though.

Some of the chickens I’ve kept were picked based solely on looks, others for the colourful eggs they’d lay, and some just because I had read something about them that appealed to me. In the end, the breeds with staying power in my coop are the ones that bring me joy every morning when I step into the barn. These are the breeds I’m willing to invest time/money/whatever it takes, just to make sure the world has more of them.

So I say try every breed that appeals to you. Experiment. Have fun. You’ll know when you find ‘the right ones' for you.

Our start into poultry addiction happen when a stray rooster wandered onto our property one day. He was left behind when our neighbour couldn't catch him when they moved. That was 15 years ago.
At first, we just bought our birds from locals. There used to be one fellow who bred all sorts including polish. Then we learned about Rochestery Hatchery. This was around 2004 when Rochester used to offer all sorts of breeds and not the narrowed down selection they offer these days. We put in an order for their breeder birds and got all differernt kinds.

After trial and error, I suggested to the DH that because we have 5 acres and a small 630 sq ft barn that maybe we should focus on just 2 maybe 3 breeds?
We don't raise for meat but we do like eggs.
I am a crest lover. I also love wattles. Hands down we fell for Houdans and Polish.

Pros: Good layers with nice size egg. Friendly if handled.
Tolerates confinment well over winter months. Many varieties of color to choose from. Bearded varieties do well in winter.
Cons: Poms can get wet and freeze. Wattles can also freeze/frostbite. Roos can be very aggressive towards other roos.

I like friendly, beautiful and pretty eggs if possible. I have had a wierd unsettled past year or so, but it looks like it'll be just colours I like, in breeds I like. I may never have buff orpingtons, but love how docile my lavenders are.

I love the wheaten Ameraucanas, they are the prettiest birds I have and friendly too, but my lavenders aren't really, and as pretty as they are I'd keep the wheatens over the lavs, but the lav lay a pretty intense blue egg and the wheatens a pale one. And if a bird is silver it should be a Dorking here.

I like black birds so have the Penedesencas as there are not many black dark egg layers and none that are meat birds too. But I'll be getting some wheaten marans too as I love the wheaten colour and they are so friendly too. I love blonde barring of the EOs, and the blues and lavender and penciling...I love my wood grain chanties that lay eggs like crazy all winter when they are not broody.

So long answer is, you can't choose! If you end up with a few hens of this and that to make the barnyard look pretty, maybe you don't need a rooster of every single breed/colour, because that means building a ton more housing. Good luck deciding.