Heritage Breed Chickens, How To Choose the Best For You

There are numerous breeds of chickens available to the modern day homestead. Of course what you ultimately choose will depend on many different factors! It seems a simple thing, to choose a chicken breed to raise but there is so much difference in breeds, quality, purpose, and location that it is not as cut and dried as it would seem. Within the various breeds are areas like egg production, egg color, temperament, meat production, broodiness,and survival skills in various situations, as well as personal preference for a certain coloring or pattern. SO, then, the first thing is to identify why you are buying the poultry in the first place. Will you use them primarily as as bug control, egg production, meat, or show? Do you want chickens that are more aggressive, say, if a coyote comes into the yard? Or, would you prefer a breed that is more gentle around children and needs more protection?

Does the look of the chicken make a difference to you? Do you have alot of hawks? Traditional white chickens will get picked off much quicker by a hawk than will a dark patterned bird. Docile hens, like Buff Orpington, will cower down when a predator stalks them rather than try to seek shelter. A more aggressive breed, like a Dutch, might fare better with a dog but also chase your children pecking at their legs!

Birds that are good egg layers are often not good meat producers! However, heritage breeds are not genetically engineered to be specialized and so lay eggs as well are produce tender, delicious meat.

Leghorns are kept for egg production. They lay white eggs. They are able to forage for themselves and so are good for free range situations, although they do not go broody as well as some of the other breeds. Basically this means that they are not good about hatching their eggs if you want to raise chicks on your homestead. They also don't produce alot of meat.

Bantams lay tiny eggs that are the delight of my smaller children. two of these minuscule eggs fried and on a plate with a toast triangle is a magical breakfast. The eggs are often colorful pastels. These birds are small and make good pets or show birds for children.

Plymouth Rock is a heritage breed. AS with most heritage breeds y ou will find that it is multipurpose. It is a good egg layer, a good brood hen, and produces a fair amount of meat. It is a docile breed.

Rhode Island Red - another heritage breed that is dual purpose and lays abundant numbers of eggs and is probably one of the best dual purpose breeds for a small homestead.

Delawares are excellent egg layers, a good dual purpose breed. They are listed as critical on the American Livestock Conservancy list.

Holland, another breed on the critical list. This is currently one of the rarest of the heritage breeds and one of the few that lays white eggs.

Wyandottes are not particularly rare, however they are a heritage breed. I add these because the last chickens we raised (we now have Barred Rocks) were Golden Laced Wyandottes and they were beautiful!

There is, of course, nothing in the world like the taste of your own farm fresh, organic eggs and meat. Chickens are an easy way to begin food production on the homestead and work a little closer to self sufficiency. Be sure,when you are ordering your chicks, to have the vaccinated and then use nonmedicated feed. In this way you will not have to worry about residual medications in the eggs or meat. It is very relaxing to sit and watch chickens and for me, they are what puts the home in homestead!