Chicken

Chickens are domestic birds descended from the red junglefowl of Southeast Asia, and people keep them for eggs, for meat, for exhibition and as backyard companions. For anyone choosing birds, the breeds sort into a few practical types: egg layers, meat birds, dual-purpose farm breeds, bantams and ornamentals, colored-egg breeds and gamefowl. Countries have reported more than 1,400 local chicken breeds to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, a backyard hen usually lives six to eight years, and a pullet lays her first egg at about 18 to 22 weeks old. Readers who have settled on a breed can look through the Creatures directory of chicken breeders and farms and narrow it by breed and state.

Below, the breeds come first, grouped the way a flock is usually planned, then what chickens cost, how long hens live and lay, housing, feeding and health, hatching chicks, buying birds and the flock records worth keeping. Every topic gets a short summary and a link to the full guide, and the free Creatures tools appear where they are useful, among them a chicken name generator and a pedigree chart maker that covers chickens. Chickens need no gestation calculator: a chicken egg hatches in about 21 days.

Chicken breeds and types

Every chicken breed belongs to the same species, so a Silkie and a Jersey Giant can produce fertile chicks together. What separates breeds is selection for a job or a look. Countries reported 1,409 local chicken breeds to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization in its 2022 status report on animal genetic resources, far more than for any other bird (ducks were next with 264), and the same report names chickens as the bird with by far the most breeds at risk. In North America the main show standard comes from the American Poultry Association, whose accepted breeds and varieties list carries more than 50 large fowl breeds and about 60 bantam breeds, most of them in several color varieties. Further down this page, the full breed list gives each of several hundred breeds its own page of breeders and public profiles. For choosing a bird, though, purpose matters more than the full list.

One species, many breeds

Scientifically, the chicken sits in kingdom Animalia, phylum Chordata, class Aves, order Galliformes, family Phasianidae and genus Gallus, alongside its wild ancestor the red junglefowl, Gallus gallus, in the Integrated Taxonomic Information System. The domestic bird is usually written Gallus gallus domesticus. Turkeys and quail belong to the same order, while ducks and geese are waterfowl in a different order, and pigeons belong to a third.

Chickens were domesticated more recently than many people assume. A 2022 study of chicken remains from about 600 archaeological sites in 89 countries found the earliest unambiguous domestic chicken bones at Ban Non Wat in central Thailand, dated to roughly 1650 to 1250 BCE, and concluded that rice and millet farming drew red junglefowl into human settlements. The red junglefowl is not the only ancestor: the gene behind yellow skin, common in domestic chickens and standard in American breeds such as the Plymouth Rock, came from the grey junglefowl, so the domestic chicken has a hybrid origin.

Learn the vocabulary before you read a sale listing:

• Hen and cock: an adult female and an adult male, a year old or more. Most people say rooster for the male.
• Pullet and cockerel: a female and a male under a year old. These are the standard show definitions, as the Ameraucana breed club’s standard page lists them.
• Chick: a young bird still in down or early feathers. Point of lay describes a pullet a few weeks from her first egg.
• Straight run: chicks sold unsexed, so expect roughly half to be cockerels. Sexed pullets are chicks sorted as female at the hatchery.
• Large fowl and bantam: standard-size birds, and miniatures about a quarter of that size or less. A true bantam has no large fowl version at all.
• Sex-link: a crossbred chick whose down color shows its sex at hatch.

How breeders and shows group chickens

Large fowl breeds are grouped by where they come from, and the classes tell you a lot about the birds in them. In Purdue Extension’s guide to choosing a chicken breed, the American class holds dual-purpose farm breeds such as the Plymouth Rock and Rhode Island Red, the Asiatic class holds the massive, feather-legged Brahma, Cochin and Langshan, and the English class holds white-skinned dual-purpose breeds such as the Orpington, Sussex, Australorp and Cornish. The Mediterranean breeds (Leghorn, Ancona, Minorca) are active, flighty, rarely broody layers of white eggs; the Continental breeds come from mainland Europe and include crested and bearded ornamentals such as the Polish and Faverolles; and everything else, from long-tailed Phoenix to the blue-egg Araucana, sits in All Other Standard Breeds. Bantams are classed instead by comb and leg type: single comb clean legged, rose comb clean legged, all other combs clean legged, feather legged, and the game classes. The APA treats frizzled feathering as a trait that can appear in any accepted breed rather than as a breed of its own.

To find the club behind a breed’s standard, check the Creatures registry directory, which groups registries and clubs by species. The sections below follow the way a keeper chooses: by what the birds are for.

Egg-laying breeds

Egg breeds are light, active birds that put their feed into eggs rather than body weight, and Mississippi State University Extension’s breed guide notes they may lay 250 to 300 eggs a year or more. The Leghorn, developed from small, prolific landrace hens around the port of Livorno in Tuscany, is the classic white-egg layer. The Livestock Conservancy notes that industrial-type Leghorns dominate American white-egg production, while the old non-industrial type survives with small breeders. A Leghorn hen weighs only about 4.5 pounds, and Poultry Extension warns that commercial White Leghorns are too flighty to do well in most home flocks, so many backyard keepers choose a calmer brown-egg layer instead.

The Australorp is the record setter. Australian breeders took the English Black Orpington and bred it for laying, and from the 1920s their birds set world laying records, including a hen that laid 364 eggs in 365 days. The Rhode Island Red has been used to produce many modern brown-egg hybrids, including the sex-links, and the name now covers two different birds: the dark, heavy standard-bred Red and the lighter, harder-laying hatchery “production red”.

Many of the best backyard layers are not breeds at all but first-generation crosses. In MSU Extension’s description, sex-links are crossbred chickens whose chick color differs by sex and which can often lay 300 eggs a year or more. A Black Star comes from a Rhode Island Red or New Hampshire rooster over a Barred Rock hen, and a red sex-link from the same roosters over a White Rock, Silver Laced Wyandotte, Rhode Island White or Delaware hen. The trick works only for that first cross, so two Black Stars will not produce more Black Stars. Commercial brown-egg strains such as the ISA Brown, Lohmann Brown and Red Shaver come from the same kind of breeding, and University of Minnesota Extension notes that some commercial brown-egg layers lay nearly as well as White Leghorns. For a hot climate, the small, flighty Egyptian Fayoumi is a heat-tolerant landrace that matures early but lays small eggs. Best Egg Laying Chickens compares the top layers, and When Do Hens Start Laying explains the seasonal swings.

Meat chickens

Commercial chicken meat comes from fast-growing broilers built on the Cornish, which MSU Extension calls the heart of the commercial broiler industry. The small-flock version is the Cornish Cross, a cross of White Cornish and White Plymouth Rock that Purdue Extension says reaches 4 to 5 pounds in six weeks. USDA’s Economic Research Service reports that market broilers are generally slaughtered before they reach two months of age. The Cornish itself is a broad, meaty English breed, and the commercial broiler strains sold to farms, such as the Ross 308 and Cobb 500, belong to the same fast-growing type. Growing that fast strains the bird. The Merck Veterinary Manual describes sudden death syndrome in healthy, fast-growing young broilers and notes that slowing growth in the first three weeks reduces it. A small-flock keeper raising Cornish Cross should follow the hatchery’s feeding guidance and expect a bird built for a short life.

Keepers who want slower-growing meat birds that forage outdoors have two main choices. One is a colored “ranger” type broiler; MSU Extension describes the Freedom Ranger as a slower-growing alternative to the Cornish Cross, developed in France in the 1960s. The other is a heavy heritage breed. The Jersey Giant, developed in New Jersey between 1870 and 1890 to rival the turkey as a table bird, has roosters of 13 to 15 pounds but takes 8 to 9 months to reach a good harvest size. The Delaware served the broiler industry until Cornish crosses replaced it in the late 1950s, and the Naked Neck has roughly half the feathers of other breeds, so it is quicker to pluck. In France the black, V-combed La Flèche was once a premier table bird.

The Livestock Conservancy’s Heritage Chicken definition sets out what a heritage meat or egg bird must be: an APA standard breed recognized before the mid-20th century, mated naturally, able to live a long productive life outdoors, and slow enough growing that it reaches market weight in no less than 16 weeks.

Dual-purpose breeds

Dual-purpose breeds lay a useful number of brown eggs and carry enough meat to be worth raising for the table, and the Merck Veterinary Manual calls breeds such as the Plymouth Rock, New Hampshire, Rhode Island Red, Wyandotte and Orpington a suitable choice for most backyard owners. They are calmer than the Mediterranean layers, they handle cold well, and many hens go broody and raise chicks.

The Plymouth Rock is the American farm hen; the barred black-and-white variety, the Barred Rock, is the one most people picture, and the Livestock Conservancy puts its laying at around 200 eggs a year. The English Buff Orpington belongs to the breed that coachman William Cook introduced in Orpington, Kent, in 1886; Orpingtons are big, fluffy, gentle birds, with males around 10 pounds and hens around 8. The Wyandotte, accepted by the APA in 1883, is a cold-hardy bird with a low rose comb, and Silver Laced was its original variety. The Sussex is an old English table breed, most often seen in its Speckled variety, and the New Hampshire, selected from Rhode Island Reds for quick maturing, is now listed as threatened. American Chicken Breed Guide goes deeper on the American class.

The Asiatic breeds are the giants. The Brahma, developed in America from very large fowls imported from China through Shanghai in the mid-1800s, has feathered legs and feet and roosters of about 12 pounds, and it was considered the leading meat breed from the mid-1850s to about 1930. The Cochin is feathered right down to the toes and is one of the best broody hens there is, often used to hatch the eggs of other birds. Both handle cold far better than heat. The French Salmon Faverolles, bearded and five-toed, is bred mostly for exhibition but works as a dual-purpose bird too.

Heritage and rare breeds

Many of the old American and European breeds are now scarce. The Livestock Conservancy’s Conservation Priority List currently ranks the Holland, Cubalaya and Java as critical among North American breeds, along with older imports such as the La Flèche, Malay and Redcap, and lists more than two dozen others as threatened or on watch. Keeping a standard-bred flock of one of these breeds, and recording its pedigrees, is one of the most useful things a small poultry keeper can do.

Several have stories worth knowing. The Dominique is recognized as America’s oldest chicken breed, present since at least the 1750s and included in the first APA standard in 1874; by 1970 only four known flocks remained. The Java, the second-oldest American breed in MSU Extension’s account, is a slow-growing forager in black, mottled or white. The Buckeye was developed by Nettie Metcalf of Warren, Ohio, and is the only breed in the American class whose creation is credited entirely to a woman; its pea comb makes it very cold hardy. The Chantecler, created by Brother Wilfrid Chatelain at a Cistercian abbey in Oka, Quebec, is considered the first Canadian breed, and its tiny cushion comb and almost absent wattles were bred to survive Canadian winters.

Some rare breeds are not in the APA standard at all. The Iowa Blue is an American farm bird that, despite its name, is silver and charcoal rather than blue. The bearded Russian Orloff, threatened on the priority list, is known for its hardiness in extreme cold. The Rhodebar is a British autosexing version of the Rhode Island Red whose chicks can be sexed by down color at a day old.

Bantams and ornamental breeds

Bantams are miniature chickens, a quarter or less the size of large fowl in Purdue Extension’s description, and they eat less, need less space and are easier for young 4-H members to handle. Most bantam breeds are scaled-down versions of large breeds, such as the Cochin bantam, but true bantams exist only in miniature. Many keepers choose bantams for looks and personality rather than eggs, and several make excellent broody hens.

The Silkie is the best known. Its feathers lack the tiny hooks that zip a normal feather together, so the plumage hangs like fur, and underneath it the bird has black skin, a crest, feathered legs and five toes on each foot. The APA carries the Silkie only as a bantam, in the feather legged class. Its black skin comes from a mutation called fibromelanosis, and a 2011 genetic study found the same mutation behind the dark skin of the Ayam Cemani and the Swedish Svarthöna. Silkies go broody constantly, which makes them poor egg producers and superb mothers, and they need dry ground and shelter because their feathers do not shed rain.

The Sebright is a true bantam created by Sir John Sebright and introduced in 1810, with gold or silver feathers sharply laced in black and males weighing about 22 ounces. The Serama, from Malaysia, is the smallest chicken in Guinness World Records, with males of up to 500 grams (17.6 ounces) and some birds as light as 350 grams. The Japanese bantam, with its huge upright tail and very short legs, carries a lethal short-leg factor: the Livestock Conservancy notes that about a quarter of any hatch dies in the shell, a quarter has long legs and only half has the short legs the standard asks for. The Belgian Bearded d’Uccle is a feather-legged, bearded true bantam, and the Azteca bantam is a loose name for tiny Latin American game-type bantams rather than a standardized breed.

Some show traits bring welfare problems with them. MSU Extension notes that the large crest of the Polish obscures the bird’s vision, which puts free-ranging Polish at greater risk from hawks and owls, and a 2025 review of chicken genetics links large crests such as those of the Polish and the Sultan with cerebral hernia. A frizzle has feathers that curl outward; the same review notes that birds with two copies of the frizzle gene have more extreme curling and more fragile feathers.

The long-tailed breeds are a world of their own. Japan’s Onagadori, a Special Natural Monument, has roosters whose tail feathers do not molt and can grow for years, and the related Phoenix and Yokohama are the long-tailed birds Western keepers are more likely to find. Japanese Chicken Breeds covers more of them.

Colored-egg breeds: blue, green and chocolate eggs

Egg color is set by breed and has nothing to do with nutrition or taste; MSU Extension is plain that brown eggs are no healthier than white ones. As a rough rule, hens with white earlobes lay white eggs and hens with red earlobes lay brown, though the colored-egg breeds break it.

Blue shells come from a single dominant gene, and the 2025 Poultry Science review of chicken trait genetics explains the color mixing: the blue pigment runs through the whole shell, so it gives a blue egg on a white-shell background and an olive-green egg when a brown coating is laid over it. The blue-egg gene traces to the Mapuche fowl of Chile and also occurs independently in Chinese breeds such as the Dongxiang and Lushi.

• Araucana: rumpless, with tufts of feathers sprouting from the ears, and a layer of blue eggs. The tuft gene is lethal when a chick inherits two copies, with most such embryos dying at 17 to 19 days of incubation, which is why the Livestock Conservancy calls Araucana hatching a challenge even for experienced breeders. The breed is critical on its priority list.
• Ameraucana: developed in the United States in the 1970s and accepted by the APA in 1984, with a tail, a beard and muffs, and blue eggs. The breed club’s standard disqualifies ear tufts and birds without a beard and muffs.
• Easter Egger: not a breed. Poultry Extension describes Easter Eggers as crosses of Araucanas with other breeds that lay light blue, green or pink eggs, and their looks vary from bird to bird. Purdue Extension notes that a bird laying pink, green or olive eggs is not a purebred Ameraucana, whatever it was sold as.
• Olive Egger: a cross of a blue-egg layer with a dark-brown-egg layer, giving olive-green eggs. For a standardized green-egg breed, look at the Swedish Silverudd Blue, and What Breed of Chicken Lays Green Eggs? explains the crosses.
• Dark brown eggs: the French Marans, best known in its Black Copper variety, lays dark, chocolate-colored eggs, and Purdue Extension lists the Dutch Welsummer as a layer of very dark brown eggs. The Catalan Empordanesa and its cousin the Penedesenca lay some of the darkest eggs of all.
• Cream Legbar: a British breed whose blue eggs carry the same South American blue-egg gene as the Araucana’s.

Gamefowl and Asian and landrace breeds

Gamefowl were bred for fighting, and their upright stance, hard, tight feathers and heavy muscle show it. The Aseel, an ancient breed of the Indian subcontinent, was developed for the sole purpose of cockfighting and was accepted by the APA in 1981; the Shamo and the Malay are related game types, and all three are critical on the Livestock Conservancy list. Purdue Extension notes that the Old English Game descends from fighting birds but is now kept for exhibition, while the Modern Game is purely an exhibition breed. Cockfighting is a federal crime in the United States: 7 U.S.C. 2156 makes it unlawful to sponsor or exhibit an animal in an animal fighting venture, or to buy, sell, possess or transport one for that purpose. Keep gamefowl for conservation and the show ring, and plan separate housing, because mature males often cannot live together.

In much of rural Asia, Africa and Latin America, backyard flocks are still mostly local, unselected village chickens, as the Merck Veterinary Manual notes, and many regions have named landraces of their own. The Ayam Cemani of Indonesia has dark skin, comb and internal tissues from the same fibromelanosis mutation as the Silkie. The Vietnamese Dong Tao is a heavy, slow-growing meat bird famous for its enormously thick, scaly legs. The Mikawa is a rare buff Japanese layer on Japan’s official native breed list, and the Banaba is a Philippine native chicken associated with Batangas. India has both ancient breeds such as the Aseel and improved rural varieties such as the Giriraja, a dual-purpose bird released in Bengaluru in 1989, and the Vanaraja. Most of these are hard or impossible to buy in North America, and a bird sold under a rare landrace name deserves extra questions about where its parents came from.

What chickens cost to buy and keep

Buying the birds costs little. When the How Much Does a Chicken Cost? guide checked US mail-order hatcheries in July 2026, day-old chicks of common production breeds ran about $4.50 to $5.65 each straight run and about $5.30 to $7.15 as sexed pullets, before shipping, and point-of-lay pullets about $35 to $46 at the three hatcheries it could compare. Rare and exhibition breeds cost much more per chick; the same check found a rare Ayam Cemani chick listed at $44.99 at one hatchery and $57.08 at another. Mature laying hens sell mostly farm to farm, with no reliable published price.

The real money goes into housing and feed. A safe coop with a covered run, a feeder, a waterer and bedding commonly costs a few hundred dollars to $1,000 or more for a small flock, so the first year of a four-to-six-hen flock commonly runs from a few hundred dollars to $1,500 or more. Feed is the steady cost: a laying hen eats roughly a quarter pound of feed a day, so ten hens go through a 50-pound bag in about 20 days, according to Alabama Cooperative Extension’s guide to feeding the laying hen. Hens keep eating through molt, winter and old age, when they lay little or nothing, and a sick-bird visit to a vet can run to tens or hundreds of dollars. As the cost guide explains, home eggs rarely beat store prices once the coop is counted; people keep chickens for the birds and the eggs’ quality rather than the savings. How Many Chickens Should You Get? helps size a flock to your space and budget.

How long chickens live

A backyard hen usually lives six to eight years. University of Wisconsin Extension gives that range for hens in backyard flocks and adds that most flocks lay for three to four years, with fewer eggs and weaker shells each year. The University of Illinois College of Veterinary Medicine says chickens can live as long as eight years with good care and no major health problems. The oldest chicken on record, a Red Quill Muffed American Game hen named Muffy, lived 23 years and 152 days.

Laying ends long before life does. University of Florida IFAS Extension describes a laying cycle that starts at 18 to 22 weeks, peaks at about 90 percent production six to eight weeks later and falls to about 65 percent after a year, and it notes that many hens decline significantly after two or three years. Commercial chickens live far shorter lives because of that curve: USDA’s Economic Research Service puts a table-egg hen’s first laying cycle at 14 to 15 months, and broilers rarely see two months. A backyard hen kept for life will spend years as a pet that lays little, so decide early whether your flock is a retirement home. The Livestock Conservancy’s heritage standard asks for breeding hens that stay productive for five to seven years, which is a breeding target rather than a measured average.

What ends backyard hens’ lives also changes with age. Marek’s disease, a viral cancer, hits young birds hardest, while reproductive tract disease becomes common in hens past about two years old. How Long Do Chickens Live? goes through the evidence, the warning signs and the records that help.

Housing: coop, run and predators

A coop needs to keep chickens dry, ventilated without drafts, safe at night and roomy enough that birds do not pick on each other. Poultry Extension recommends at least 3 to 4 square feet per hen indoors and 10 square feet per hen outdoors, and warns that crowding leads to feather pecking and cannibalism. Penn State Extension’s small-flock guide suggests two nest boxes for the first four hens and one more for every four after that, with roosts 18 to 24 inches off the floor, spaced a foot apart and away from the nests.

Predators are a constant risk to a backyard flock, and the fix is physical. Poultry Extension’s predator management guide notes that least weasels can squeeze through holes a quarter inch across, so they get through chicken wire, and that raccoons will pull a bird’s head through wire mesh. It recommends a run covered with welded wire, hardware cloth buried at least 12 inches deep against diggers, and a secure house with every door closed at night. Hawks and owls are federally protected, so you may not shoot or trap them; a covered run is the answer. Building a Chicken Coop covers the build and Protecting Your Flock From Predators explains how to read an attack.

Climate matters too. MSU Extension notes that birds with large combs, such as the Mediterranean breeds, do better in hot regions, while small-combed birds suit cold ones; the Wyandotte, Buckeye and Chantecler are all cold-hardy choices. Keeping Chickens Through Winter and Keeping Chickens Cool in Summer cover both ends of the thermometer. Before you build anything, check your city or county ordinance and any homeowners’ association rules: many towns limit flock size, and University of Minnesota Extension notes that most city ordinances for backyard chickens prohibit roosters.

Feeding chickens

Feed chickens a complete, formulated feed matched to their age, and treat everything else as extras. University of Minnesota Extension describes the standard sequence: chick starter for the first six to eight weeks, then a grower or developer feed, then a layer feed once pullets start laying at about 20 weeks. Poultry Extension’s guide to feeding laying hens says layer feeds should contain at least 14 percent protein (16 percent is more common) and 2.5 to 3.5 percent calcium for eggshells, and it warns that growing birds need only about 1.2 percent calcium, because too much can damage their kidneys. Do not switch pullets to layer feed early.

A few extras matter. Many keepers offer crushed oyster shell free choice so heavy layers can take the calcium they need; thin or easily cracked shells are the sign a flock needs it. Birds that eat whole grains, scratch or pasture need insoluble grit to grind it, and oyster shell is too soft to work as grit. Scratch grains and kitchen scraps dilute a balanced ration, so Poultry Extension advises giving no more than the birds can finish in about 20 minutes. Clean water must be available all day, every day. What to Feed Chickens and Grit, Oyster Shell, and Chicken Supplements go deeper.

Hens also respond to daylight. Poultry Extension notes that a flock needs at least 14 hours of light a day to stay in lay year round, which is why many unlit flocks stop laying through fall and winter. That pause is normal, not a sign of illness.

Health and biosecurity

Find a veterinarian who sees poultry before you need one, because poultry vets can be hard to find in some areas. Prevention starts before the birds arrive. Marek’s disease, the viral cancer behind many deaths in young backyard birds, has no treatment, but current vaccines are highly protective, and the Merck Veterinary Manual notes they are given at hatch or to embryos on the 18th day of incubation. That means vaccination is something you buy, not something you add later: ask the hatchery to vaccinate your chicks, as Minnesota Extension advises.

• New birds. New birds can carry disease with no outward signs. Poultry Extension’s biosecurity guide recommends quarantining them for at least two weeks, and Adding New Chickens to a Flock recommends about 30 days apart before a slow introduction.
• Mixing species. Merck recommends keeping birds of similar ages and species together, because mixing species and sources raises disease risk. If you are thinking of adding ducks or geese, read up on their needs first; Poultry Extension notes that waterfowl droppings are over 90 percent water, so a shared run turns wet fast.
• Bird flu. USDA asks keepers to report sick or dying birds to the state veterinarian or to USDA at 1-866-536-7593, and its list of warning signs includes sudden deaths, swelling of the head or comb, purple discoloration and a drop in laying.
• Parasites and everyday illness. Mites, lice and worms are common; see Chicken Parasites and Common Chicken Illnesses and Warning Signs. A hen dropping feathers in fall is usually molting, which Chicken Molt explains.
• Medicines and eggs. Some poultry drugs are not approved for laying hens and leave residues in eggs; University of Florida IFAS Extension gives sulfa drugs as an example. Ask your veterinarian before treating a laying hen, and write down how long to discard her eggs.

Chickens can also make people sick. The CDC’s backyard poultry advice is to wash your hands after touching birds or anything in their area, not to kiss or snuggle poultry and then touch your face, to keep poultry out of the house, and not to let children under five handle chicks or other poultry.

Living in a flock: pecking order, roosters and numbers

A chicken spends its day foraging, roosting and dust bathing alongside the rest of its flock, which is why the RSPCA recommends keeping at least three hens that get on well together. Every flock sorts itself into a pecking order, the social ladder first described by the scientist Thorleif Schjelderup-Ebbe, and Poultry Extension notes that in small groups of pullets the order is typically settled by around eight weeks of age. New birds upset it, which is why introductions need patience.

Hens do not need a rooster to lay eggs. Poultry Extension explains that a hen lays perfectly well on her own, and a rooster is needed only for fertile eggs, at about one rooster for every ten hens. Roosters crow, can be aggressive and are banned in many towns, so think hard before buying straight-run chicks, and decide in advance what will happen to the cockerels. The RSPCA advises against keeping cockerels together unless they grew up together and get along.

Hatching chicks: incubation, broody hens and sexing

A chicken egg hatches in about 21 days. Mississippi State University Extension’s incubation guide recommends holding a forced-air incubator at 100°F for the whole period (a still-air incubator runs warmer), turning the eggs at least four to six times a day, and stopping the turning for the last three days while the chicks move into hatching position. Hatching Eggs in an Incubator walks through temperature, humidity and timing.

The easier way is a broody hen. Silkies, Cochins and many dual-purpose hens will sit on a clutch and raise the chicks themselves, and Broody Hens: Hatching Eggs Naturally covers how to set her up. Incubator chicks need a brooder instead: Minnesota Extension recommends starting at 90 to 95°F and lowering it by about 5 degrees a week until the chicks no longer need heat. Raising Baby Chicks covers the brooder and the first six weeks.

About half of any hatch will be cockerels. Hatcheries sex chicks by hand, which is accurate but not perfect, while sex-link crosses and autosexing breeds such as the Rhodebar can be sorted by down color, and purebred Barred Rock cockerels hatch with a larger white head spot than their sisters. Breeders should also plan matings around the lethal genes described above: two tufted Araucanas, or two short-legged Japanese bantams, lose a share of every hatch.

Hatches produce a lot of numbers worth writing down: eggs set, eggs that were fertile, chicks hatched and losses. Chicken Hatch Records shows how to keep one batch traceable from eggs to identified chicks.

Where to find chickens and what to ask

Where you buy decides what you know about the bird. These are the usual sources:

• Mail-order hatcheries and farm stores. Cheapest and easiest in spring, with sexed pullets and many breeds, but you rarely know the parents, and shipped chicks face some transit risk.
• Local breeders. They cost more but offer known parent stock, birds raised in your climate and someone to call later. You can search chicken breeders and farms in the Creatures directory by breed and state; most entries are compiled from public sources, so confirm the details with the farm itself.
• Breed clubs and poultry shows. The best route to standard-bred birds of a specific breed, especially rare and heritage breeds.
• Swaps, auctions and rehoming. Cheap birds, sometimes ex-commercial hens or surplus roosters needing homes, but mixing birds from many sources is how disease spreads, so quarantine everything.
• Online listings. Chicken listings on the Creatures marketplace are few right now, so set a listing alert and let the right birds come to you.

The Merck Veterinary Manual recommends buying from hatcheries and breeders that take part in the National Poultry Improvement Plan (NPIP), whose flocks are routinely tested for pullorum and fowl typhoid. NPIP is a flock-level testing program rather than a health guarantee for the individual bird in your hands, so ask the same questions of every seller: How old is the bird, and what is its hatch date? Was it vaccinated for Marek’s disease? Does the flock take part in NPIP, and in which classifications? Are these sexed pullets or straight run, and what happens if a cockerel turns up? Is this standard-bred stock or hatchery quality? Be wary of Easter Eggers sold as Ameraucanas, of rare breeds offered without photos of the parents, and of anyone guaranteeing a hatch rate on shipped eggs. Where to Buy Chickens goes through every source and the red flags in detail.

Records to keep from day one

Chickens look alike, so records are what let you tell a three-year-old hen from a one-year-old, a molt from an illness, and a good layer from a passenger. Write down, on the day it happens:

• each bird’s or batch’s hatch date, source, breed and variety, and Marek’s vaccination status;
• the source flock’s NPIP status and the band number of any bird you keep individually;
• daily egg counts and the number of hens in lay;
• molts, broody spells, feed changes and added light;
• symptoms, treatments and vet visits, with the date each hen’s eggs can be eaten again;
• for breeders, which rooster ran with which hens, eggs set, fertile eggs at candling and chicks hatched;
• every bird added, sold, lost to a predator or dead, with the date.

Tracking Egg Production shows how to turn egg counts into decisions, and Chicken Flock Counts explains how to keep a flock’s history without naming every bird.

Any bird worth following on its own can have a free Creatures profile carrying its hatch date, breed, photos, pedigree and the records listed above, plus reminders for vaccinations and recurring care. Birds you manage as a group can live in a count group instead, with each change in numbers explained, and a hatch recorded on the hen’s profile creates a group for the chicks that you can split into individual profiles later. Selling a bird? Its profile can be transferred to the buyer, history and all. Show breeders can print a three-generation pedigree with the free pedigree chart maker, and the chicken name generator has ideas for the new arrivals. The help articles on tracking animals without individual profiles, recording births and creating a litter and health and medical records show the steps.

Frequently asked questions

How many chicken breeds are there?
Countries have reported more than 1,400 local chicken breeds to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, far more than for any other bird. In North America, the American Poultry Association’s accepted list carries more than 50 large fowl breeds and about 60 bantam breeds, most in several color varieties, and Creatures lists hundreds of breeds on this page.

What are the main types of chickens?
Egg layers such as the Leghorn and sex-link hybrids, meat birds such as the Cornish Cross, dual-purpose breeds such as the Plymouth Rock and Orpington, and bantams and ornamentals such as the Silkie and Sebright. Colored-egg breeds, gamefowl and rare heritage breeds round out the list, and shows group large fowl by origin into American, Asiatic, English, Mediterranean, Continental and All Other Standard Breeds.

What species is a chicken, and what is its scientific name?
The domestic chicken is Gallus gallus domesticus, the tame form of the red junglefowl, Gallus gallus. It is a bird (class Aves) in the order Galliformes and the family Phasianidae, the same order as turkeys and quail.

How long do chickens live?
Most backyard hens live six to eight years, according to University of Wisconsin Extension, though laying slows after the first two or three years. The oldest chicken on record lived 23 years and 152 days.

Which chicken breed lays the most eggs?
Leghorns and sex-link hybrids are the top layers, and MSU Extension says sex-links can often lay 300 eggs a year or more. The Australorp is famous for an early world record of 364 eggs in 365 days. Every hen lays fewer eggs each year after her first.

Do hens need a rooster to lay eggs?
No. A hen lays eggs without a rooster; they are simply infertile. You need a rooster only if you want to hatch chicks, and many towns do not allow them.

What is a small chicken called?
A small chicken is a bantam, a miniature about a quarter of the size of a standard bird or less. Guinness World Records names the Serama of Malaysia as the smallest chicken, with males of up to 500 grams (17.6 ounces).

How much does a chicken cost?
In a July 2026 check of US mail-order hatcheries, day-old chicks of common breeds cost about $4.50 to $7.15 each and point-of-lay pullets about $35 to $46, before shipping. The coop, run and feed cost far more than the birds, often a few hundred dollars to $1,500 or more in the first year for a small flock.

What do chickens eat?
A complete feed matched to age: chick starter, then grower, then a layer feed with about 16 percent protein and extra calcium once hens start laying. Add oyster shell for heavy layers, grit if they eat grains or forage, clean water at all times, and only small amounts of scratch and scraps.

How many chickens should I start with?
At least three, because chickens are flock birds; the RSPCA recommends a minimum of three hens. Four to six hens is a common starting point for a family, once you have checked how many birds your local rules allow.

Do this next on Creatures

Whether you are choosing your first breed, bringing home chicks or already hatching your own, these are the useful next steps, in the order most chicken keepers need them.