When I breed sexlinked olive eggers, I always sell out pretty darned fast. I just don't have enough pens to consistently breed them. Crossing my black silver or blue silver marans cock over the legbar hens yields sexlinked olive eggers, where you get barred cockerels and solid pullets. This...
Most of the breeds posted aren't particularly weather hardy. Orpingtons have the body mass. Bantams are cute and all, but hardly a productive group. People typically start off wanting egg layers, but the mediterranean types like white faced black spanish, leghorns, and others with that body type...
Chantecler are wonderful cold hardy chickens from Canada, they need more breeders. Take a look at partridge chanteclers. Big, beefy dual purpose bird from the Abbey of Notre Dame du Lac in Oka, Quebec.
I like my Marans best, pretty weather tolerant. If I were to get a new breed, it would...