You watch them wearing their silky feathers on the red carpeting . You read about them in the gossip - chick tabloids ( such as inChickensmagazine ) . You see them being espouse by the farmyard paparazzo . Who are these hot chickens everyone is babble out about , anyway ?
XII of crybaby breeds are usable from hatchery in United States , giving volaille keepers an overwhelming choice in get bird home for meat output , egg production and the sheer enjoyment of give care for a sight . Now that bounce has sprung and domestic fowl fan are make plans to fill up their cage , we started a quest to uncover what it is that makes celebrity chicks so sympathetic . Without further ado , our picks for the most - suitable wimp of 2016 are …
Drum roll , please !
Rhode Island Red
Starring Role : two-fold - function meat and brown - ballock output , put 200 to 300 eggs per twelvemonth start as soon as 6 months of eld
Favorite room decorator : RIRs(pictured above ) have sinister - red feathers with some black or fleeceable in the main shadower and wing feathers . They can have single or rose combing . Roosters weigh in at 8½ pounds and hens at 6½.
Bird Bio : recognize by the APA since 1904 , this breed was developed in Rhode Island and Massachusetts . Rhode Island Reds have an “ Old Type , ” inheritance variety and a commercial miscellanea . Both are know as treble - intent birds with splendid bollock - lay power . The Livestock Conservancy lists the heritage variety on its recover inclination , and this strain is also list on the Slow Food International Ark of Taste . Rhode Island Reds are unfearing in a range of clime and thrive as foragers .
Meryl/Flickr
Chicken Chat:“Since the 1940s , the Rhode Island Red has been selectively breed for more efficient testicle production , becoming smaller , lighter colored and less brooding as a result , ” fit in to Slow Food USA , which highlights the want to conserve the Old Type , inheritance strain meant for dual - purpose volaille keeping .
Ameraucana
Starring Role : laying pastel blue - green eggs
Favorite intriguer : Ameraucanas are seen in variegate colouration and patterns , including Black , Blue , Blue Wheaten , Brown Red , Buff , Silver , Wheaten and White . They always have beards and face muff and never have ear tufts , according to the American Poultry Association’sStandard of Perfection .
Their slate - blue leg and cerise ear lobe typeset them apart . Adult roosters weigh in at around 6½ pound and hens at 5½ pound . Their pea combing and small or nonexistent wattles make them stale - weather repellent .
Meryl/Flickr
Bird Bio : Ameraucanas are the bearded , dock strain of the coloured Araucana volaille breed from Chile . Do not confuse these two breed : Araucanas have similar color patterns and also lie in coloured eggs , but they have ear tuft and are rumpless — aka , they do n’t have tails . There ’s a lot of misinformation about this breed — even from reservoir as reliable as concerted denotation — that lump Ameraucanas , Araucanas and Easter Eggers together as one .
This breed has come in a recollective way to make this list . In 1979 , the national strain society focalize on bantam and had only 28 penis . Full - size Ameraucanas were recognized by the APA in 1984 , making them one of the newest recognize American chicken breeds .
crybaby Chat:“This strain and others that are similar ( Araucanas , Olive Eggers , Easter Eggers , etc . ) are a favorite as a knickknack on the farm , ” says Kaydee Geerlings - Perez , of Townline Poultry Farm . “ People are always interested in their beautiful shell colour . The chickens themselves vary in plumage coloring and can be very zippy , which makes them interesting to have in a backyard tidy sum all around . ”
cskk/Flickr
Australorp
Starring Role : dual - purpose meat and brown - nut product , set 200 to 280 eggs per year
Favorite Designers : Australorpsare always ensure disport dark feathers that have a dark-green lustre . carry grownup roosters to weigh around 8½ pounds and hen about 6½.
Bird Bio : Once known as Australian Laying Orpingtons , these natives of Australia do well in wintertime and summer , continue to lay year - pear-shaped . An Australorp holds the humanity disc for eggs put in a twelvemonth with 364 eggs in 365 days , accord to The Livestock Conservancy , where it is listed as a inheritance breed on the recuperate inclination . Australorps continued to be developed with ball - laying in head , while Orpington breeder were more interested in meat characteristics , so the two are now separate breeds . The Australorp was recognize by the APA in 1929 .
Ketzirah Lesser & Art Drauglis/Flickr
Chicken Chat : The Australorp is a favorite amongpastured - fowl keepersbecause of its hardiness and its active , but relatively docile , disposition .
Barred Plymouth Rock
Starring Role : dual - purpose meat and egg production , laying about 200 chocolate-brown eggs per year
Favorite Designers : This all - American breed sports feathers that have defined , parallel bars of snowy and dark coloring . Males are lighter in color than female . They have a shiny - red unmarried comb with five evenly serrated points , front and rear shorter than the middle . Their faces , wattles and earlobes are also lustrous carmine . Chicks get their feathers quickly , and these birds are cold - fearless , though their comb can be prostrate to frostbite in utmost coldness . Hens weigh 7½ pound and rooster weigh 9½ pound .
Bird Bio : Barred Rocksare a colour variation of the Plymouth Rock , which was first exhibited in 1849 in Boston , Mass. They then went underground and reemerged as a slenderly unlike breed 20 years later . ( The APA spot other Plymouth Rock people of color varieties as White , Buff , Partridge , Silver Penciled , Blue and Columbian . ) Barred Plymouth Rocks were accept by the APA in 1874 . They are on currently on The Livestock Conservancy ’s Recovering leaning of heritage chicken stock .
Robyn Anderson/Flickr
Chicken Chat : Until World War II , the Plymouth Rock was the most popular breed in the United States and was one of the foundation breeds for the broiler kernel diligence in the 1920s .
Cornish Cross
Starring Role : fast growing and efficient meat production
Favorite decorator : The Cornish Cross chicken is blanched and has fix feathering .
Bird Bio : The Cornish Cross breed was developed in the fifties as the broiler - production industry moved into confinement operations .
M. Huston/Flickr
In“Poultry Genetics for Pastured Production”by Anne Fanatico , the programme specialiser for the National Center for Appropriate Technology , and Skip Polson , a program consultant for Heifer International , the authors say that , “ Since then , the conventional poultry diligence has genetically refined them for rapid growth , efficient provender conversion , broad - breastedness , limited feathering ( for ease of plucking ) , and other traits considered worthy for rearing very declamatory numbers of birds in labour . ”
Cornish Cross birds are commonly choose for pastureland production , as well , though they require careful direction , as they are prone to gluttony , hotness stress and morphological egress associate to their rapid increase .
Chicken Chat:“These are the meat birds that have been bred specificallyto maturate quickly with an effective provender rebirth for tender kernel , ” Geerlings - Perez says . “ Most mass raise them for eight to 10 workweek . ”
cskk/Flickr
Easter Egger
Starring Role : pose 200 to 280 ballock per year that roll in color from pallid blue to sullen blue angel and shade of immature , brown and pinkish
Favorite designer : Easter Eggers are hybrids and do not follow traditional color patterns . They can be found in all scope of color from white to smutty and stripy feathers to solid . They have a pea plant comb and are cold-hardy . biddy weigh about 5½ pounds , and roosters are about 1 pound big .
Bird Bio : The Ameraucana Breeders Club defines an Easter Egger as “ any chicken that possess the dispirited - ballock gene but does n’t fully meet any breed descriptions as define in the APA and/or [ American Bantam Association ] standard . Further , even if a bird meets an Ameraucana banner stock description but does n’t forgather a sort description or breed true at least 50 percent of the time , it is considered an Easter Egg crybaby . ” Different hatcheries produce their own miscellanea of Easter Egger Gallus gallus — often the outcome of crosses between Ameraucanas and Araucanas . This is not a breed recognise by the APA .
Johnida Dockens/Flickr
In addition to their worth as a laying shuttle , the meat is delicious and it has a similar taste to quail .
Chicken Old World chat : Easter Egger crybaby have a transmissible pecker issue called scissor honker . About 1 percent of chicks have a top schnozzle and bottom schnoz that do n’t coordinate . The term ranges in hard and disable to scantily noticeable .
ISA Brown
Starring Role : laying as many as 320 browned eggs per year
Favorite Designers : ISA Browns do , in fact , have dark-brown feathers . They have a single cockscomb .
Bird Bio : ISA Browns ( ISA stands for Institut de Sélection Animale , the party which develop the hybrid ) were developed more than 30 geezerhood ago for top egg - put abilities , and about 60 percent of the Earth ’s brown testis are pose by this breed , harmonise to Townline Poultry Farm . They are a hybrid sexual urge - linked chicken .
Chicken Chat:“These are our very best brown - egg bed and are used on egg farms commercially , ” Geerlings - Perez say . “ They are a crossbred bird intend to produce large , brown eggs the most efficiently in terms of feed transition and eubstance weight . Their egg have a rich - chocolate-brown nut shell , and they will often bring forth additional - big eggs , with dual yolk being vulgar in the early months of yield . The ISA Browns will also set very expeditiously in their second year of life-time , with product dropping importantly by the third year . ”
Cinnamon Queen
Starring Role : This dual - function meat and brownish - ballock production lays between 250 to 320 ball per year .
Favorite designer : Cinnamon Queen grownup roosters can be feathered in all ashen to white with light- to dark - red feathers in the shoulder joint ; hens have brown and white feathers , similar to a Rhode Island Red . Hens are small—5 to 6 quid — and roosters count 7 to 8 pound .
Bird Bio : Cackle Hatchery rise this hybrid breed as a cross between Rhode Island Red and Rhode Island White poulet . These are sex - linked bird , meaning male dame are support whitened and female chicks are contain crimson - browned , so it ’s gentle to tell what sex you ’re getting from the hatchery . Because they are cross , if you multiply two Cinnamon Queens , the result offspring would not look like their parent and would not be gender links .
Chicken Chat:“They produce extra - large , brown eggs , and they go into production quick , ” says Jeff Smith , owner of Cackle Hatchery .
As the world of fame chickens turns , many breeds on this list stay on classic of the farmyard . There are always up - and - coming wimp talent wait in the wings , but with meat qualities and ballock - laying abilities such as these , you could expect to see many of these same stock returning to the red carpet for years to come .
