Does anyone have a link....

[Backfourty,MI.]

to the different breeds of chickens?

Someone posted it here quite a long time ago & I had saved it in my favorites, well I decided I wasn't getting chickens because we have ducks & deleated it.

Now I may want to get just a few chickens but wanted some that were decent layers & also kinda pretty not just the white chickens.

Feed store is doing their poultry orders & I can choose from 14 different breeds but have no clue what any of those breeds are really.

[olivehill]

http://www.ithaca.edu/staff/jhenders...ks/chooks.html

[chickenista]

http://www.feathersite.com/Poultry/BRKPoultryPage.html

[Backfourty,MI.]

Thanks Guys, I saved both of those sites & will thouroughly look both of them over & compare them to the list of breeds offered at my feed store.

Chickenista, yours is the link I had saved before but both of them look like really good sites!

I'd like an egg color different than my duck eggs as I won't be getting a rooster & will want to hatch some of my duck eggs & I probly won't be able to tell the difference between some chicken eggs & my duck eggs if they all lay together especially.

[olivehill]

You shouldn't have any problem telling the difference between duck and chicken eggs. Duck eggs are usually larger and the shell and coating are completely different. They are smoother and waxy.

[Backfourty,MI.]

That's good to know, I have never had chickens before & a couple of my runners eggs are not huge like my White crested.

I was going over the above links & am leaning towards the Silverlaced Wyandotte or Golden Laced Wyandotte. Would those breeds be OK for a first time chicken owner?
Would just want them for eggs, not really for meat but would have no objection to butchering any if I didn't like them.

[olivehill]

Yep, I don't see any reason they wouldn't be good for a first timer. I will say that the Wyandottes, ime, are not the greatest layers. It depends largely on what strain you end up with and hatchery birds will almost always be better layers than breeder/show type of the same breed, BUT Wyandottes as chickens go tend to be a bit on the slow to mature side and aren't terribly prolific. YMMV.