HelloWelcome To BYC and Happy Holidays! I would say the two most popular breeds for pets are Silkies and Cochins, both tend to be really friendly, but they both tend to go broody a lot so are not the best egg layers. For decent egg layers a lot of the heavier brown egg laying breeds are pretty nice, ie Sussex, Wyandottes, Orpingtons, Delawares and Plymouth Rocks. The Red Sex Links (Red Stars, Golden Comets etc) and RIR are usually super layers, I do find them rather bossy at times, but if you are going mainly for egg production you can't really beat them. The light breeds, like Leghorns or Minorca (a lot of the white egg layers) tend to rather flighty or spooky, they can be friendly, but they tend to be a lot more reactive than the heavier birds. I would avoid the real game breeds, but mostly I would try to avoid having roosters in general to start with, they tend to be a lot more problems than the girls. The Henderson chicken breed chart compares some popular breeds. http://www.ithaca.edu/staff/jhenderson/chooks/chooks.html#j
My Buff Orpington is the friendliest. Always under foot.
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