Well, for blue, green, and pinkish eggs, I would suggest the ever popular Easter Egger. These are mutt chickens mostly sold by hatcheries and are easy to find and care for. Being hybrids, they also tend to be healthier and grow faster than some pure breeds. Mine are absolutely the friendliest in my flock. Three of them like to come up to me and sit in my lap, and one will even hop on the top of the chair and try to preen my 'feathers' (hair). They are sweet. Now, if you're a pure breed kind of collector, you can also go with Araucanas or Ameraucanas, basically the pure forms of Easter Eggers, but those will be harder to find and you will have to get them through a breeder. If you want dark green eggs, you can cross a green egg laying hen of any of these breeds with a rooster whose breed lays a dark brown egg. These are known as olive eggers, and tend to look and behave like any other EE.
For dark brown speckled eggs, you pretty much can't go wrong with the Welsummer. These birds are usually not too hard to find, as they are becoming more popular because of their beautiful terra cotta colored eggs. Not all hens will lay speckled eggs, but that just adds to your color variety as you will get both solid and dark speckled eggs if you have a few of these hens. I have seen a lot of people say that these birds are friendliest in their flock. My experience is that they can be friendly, but mine do not like to be touched at all and they are a little noisier than my other breeds, and I have several kinds. If you can deal with that, then I would still recommend them. You can also go with Marans for dark eggs, but I have heard their temperament is not as good as the Welsummer, and the Welsummer also lays more eggs. Hope this helps! Happy collecting!
I used to have a rooster, too. Here's an old pic I found of him.
