The 21 Best Chicken Breeds For Your Backyard Flock 

With the many different choices of chicken breeds, choosing the right breed for your backyard flock can be overwhelming. It’s important to choose the right breed for your needs, climate, space, egg or meat production goals, and personal preferences. From dual-purpose, large breeds, good layers, and pure breeds, considering all these factors will help you narrow down the choices. Here you’ll find a breakdown of the best 21 chicken breeds to help you make a good choice for your backyard flock.

The basics of breeds of chickens

There are four main categories of chicken breeds:

Egg laying breeds 

-white egg layers

-brown egg layers, from tan to chocolate colored eggs

-Easter Eggers, from light blue, pink, light green, to olive green

Ornamental breeds

  This breed of chickens are often spunky, fun, little chickens

Dual-purpose breeds

This chicken breed, which are for egg production and are also meat chickens 

Broiler chickens

Often refered to as meat birds or meat chickens, which are bred for meat production

The best chicken breeds to consider for your backyard flock

ISA Browns

Sex-Links

Rhode Island Red

White Leghorn

Barred Rock

Australorpe

Buff Orpington

Black Copper Maran

Easter Egger

Olive Egger

Polish Crested

Silkie

Frizzle

Speckled Sussex

Wynadottes

Orpingtons

Delawares

Jersey Giants

Brahmas

Considerations when choosing the best chicken breeds

Climate and location

Some are suited better for cold, others can tolerate the heat. A great choice for cold weather breeds are Orpingtons, the black australorp, and the silkie bantam version. These are a hardy breed that will be prolific layers in the winter months. The best choice for heat tolerant chicken breeds are the leghorn chickens, new hampshire red, plymouth rock hens, and cinnamon queen.

Space and Housing

Will they be free range? Or a chicken coop and run? You may have a small farm where you can free range but not much space is required to be a backyard chicken keeper. Most chicken breeds will be friendly birds if kept in a chicken coop that has three and a half square feet per chicken. 

Egg or meat production goals

Do you need an excellent egg layer, meat birds, or the best dual-purpose breed?

Personal preferences

Do you want fancy chickens with docile personalities for your backyard flock, tinted egg layers, or just good egg laying chickens?

Let’s start with the prolific layers.

The Isa Brown Chicken

Or the Isa Brown Hybrid chicken tops my list. red sex links, black sex links, cinnamon queen, black star, red star chickens also fall into this category. These chicken breeds do well in hot or cold climates and are some of the best laying hens for eggs, coming in around 300 eggs a year! These hybrid chicken breeds lay for the first time around 16-22 weeks old. If you want production quickly, the ISA Brown hen or Red Sex-Link Hen is your best egg laying chicken and a very hardy bird.

Rhode Island Red or New Hampshire Red

This breed of egg laying chicken is a hardy breed that does well in any climate and are good egg layers. A Rhode Island Red hen will lay 260 eggs a year, with first time egg production around 18 weeks of age.  Rhode Island Red chickens are great for free ranging as they are good foragers but can be cooped as well.

White Leghorn chickens

These chickens are another hardy breed but tend to do better in warmer climates.  A White Leghorn hen that is well cared for can lay up to 280 large white eggs a year, making the Leghorn hen one of the best egg laying chickens to add to your backyard flock, starting egg production around 18-22 weeks old.  They do hold the breed standard of being a little bossy and wild but beautiful with solid white feathers.

The Barred Plymouth Rock

One of my personal favorites.  A beautiful chicken with black and white feathers and a red single comb. The barred plymouth rock has a great temperament making this breed of chicken good with young children and great as family pets. The barred plymouth rock comes in with high egg production at 280 eggs a year, being first time egg producers at 22 weeks of age.

The Black Australorp Chicken

The Australorp breed of chicken is another great breed that is friendly, making them good pets. With mostly black feathers, this black chicken has green, dark blue, or sometimes dark purple feathers as well.  They are good choice for egg layers, coming in around 250 eggs a year. The Black Australorp hen will start laying eggs around 22 weeks of age. 

The Buff Orpington Chicken

The Orpington chicken also deserves to be on the best egg producing chicken list, laying around 250 eggs a year.  They are also known for having extremely docile personalities, making it a good chicken breed for young children to raise, making great family pets. Orpingtons also make good mothers. Paired with high egg production they are a great addition to grow your backyard flock. The Orpington hen will start laying eggs around 22-26 weeks old. 

The Black Copper Maran

Black Copper Marans are also on my list of good egg layers by laying about 200 dark, chocolate large brown eggs every year.  The Black Copper Maran hen will start laying eggs around 26 weeks, at the earliest. Not only do they lay beautiful eggs but they are beautiful chickens as well, with black feathers that have an iridescent green to them. In my opinion, they may be the perfect chicken.

Tinted egg layers

The Easter Egger chicken or the Ameraucana is also a great choice to your backyard flock of chickens being tinted egg layers.  They are often small chickens that will lay about 200 eggs a year.  Easter Egger hens will start laying around 20-26 weeks old. An Easter Egger hen will lay one color egg for her lifetime and have been known to lay eggs up to 10 years old. Easter Eggers are truely tinted egg layers with eggs that can be blue, green, or sometimes pink shade.

But wait, it gets better…When blue eggs, such as an Ameraucana eggs , are crossed with a brown egg layer like the Black Copper Maran, the resulting hen’s eggs can be a beautiful green or olive color, known as an Olive Egger. Owning a  Easter Egger hens or Olive Egger hens can provide you with different colors of eggs each week, making them a great breed for good pets.

Let’s talk fancy chicken breeds

Adding the Polish Crested Hen, a Silkie, or a Frizzle Chicken to your flock is a solid choice as they are good egg laying chickens.

Their bantam size means they do not require much space. They are friendly birds that provide enjoyment with their fluffy crested heads and frazzled looks, making them great pets.

Silkie hens, in particular have a reputation for going broody so be ready for baby chicks if there is a rooster in the flock. It’s always fun to see what they hatch! They are good mothers in a bantam size.

 

Don’t forget to consider the best dual-purpose chicken breeds

-Dual-purpose birds are usually heritage chicken breeds so they are a hardy bird and healthy. Less prone to parasites.

-They can rebreed and hatch out more dual purpose flock. 

-High egg production if left to mature.Long life span. 

-Butcher ready around 14-20 weeks.

There are many popular dual-purpose chicken breeds

Popular dual purpose chicken breeds, such as the Speckled Sussex chickens, Wyandottes,  Orpingtons, and Delaware Chickens.  All of these dual purpose chickens will lay between 3-4 eggs a week and are large birds having a healthy butcher weight with plenty of meat. 

 

The best dual-purpose breed

The best dual purpose breed to add to your backyard flock if you want the meatiest chicken would be the Jersey Giant and the Brahma Chicken.  These two popular breed of meat chickens are large birds, and if left to mature, will be good egg layers.  The Jersey Giant and Brahma chicken will weigh in the heaviest of the dual-purpose chicken breeds.

What about meat birds?

When choosing the right breed for meat chickens there are some factors to consider. I will leave that in the right place on another post that’s all about meat chickens. For now comment below if you know what breed of chicken is crossed with the White Rock to get the popular breed of meat birds, the Cornish Cross. 

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