Welcome back! We had a chicken hiatus when a bobcat wiped out our flock out at the farm, but then the town ordinance changed to allow chickens in town and we jumped back in with 6 chicks from Meyer.
What we did was make a list of breeds offered by the hatchery we wanted, eliminating the ones that cost more than we were willing to pay (anything over $25), and separated the breeds by egg color. Then each of us (husband and two kids) picked a breed and we had a family round table discussion to pick the last two breeds. We picked the hatchery based on location, Meyer offers pick up and we have a friend in Ohio so the original plan was to drive to pick up chicks and visit, but an unexpected medical expense made us switch to having them shipped.
For us the main goal was a colorful egg basket. 14yo wanted white eggs but also a cool looking bird (first choice was the cookies and cream which was initially not available for our hatch date, second choice was ancona) 11yo wanted a good egg layer and chose RIR because the description said they lay lots of eggs. I wanted a cream legbar for the blue eggs and autosexing making an oops rooster extremely unlikely (no roosters allowed in town). And husband chose a blue laced red wyandotte because he's been obsessed by the pattern for a while. As a family we agreed on the sapphire jewel and olive egger for more colored eggs. I definitely would have pushed for a frizzled easter egger or sapphire jewel if they hadn't been twice the price of their nonfrizzled counterparts with only a 50% chance of frizzled feathers.
What traits are you looking for in your chickens? Egg color? Broodiness or non-broodiness? Do you have hot or cold temperature extremes to consider? Feathered feet or non feathered? Some of these factors could narrow down your choices a little.
Glad you re-joined.
