Raising Every Breed of Chicken

[SwoopKing]

Hello, friends!

This was just on my mind lately: has anyone accomplished something such as raising every breed of chicken? Of course there are thousands of undocumented breeds but maybe someone who has raised all breeds the APA acknowledges or perhaps someone who has raised at least one of every 156 breeds listed here on BYC. I don't necessarily mean at the same time either, maybe throughout one's life. Although picturing a farm with 100+ different breeds would surely be a sight to behold.

It's something I'd like to do one day, to be able to say I've raised one of every major breed of chicken and then some. Because let's be honest, when it comes to breeds, why should you have to choose? Just get all of them because they're all good in their own way. Hypothetically, it would not be practical to raise that many at once without all the proper housing and taking certain considerations for each breed. Would you consider a standard and bantam of the same type to be two different breeds? Just something to think about, what do you think?

PS. New Egg here, sorry if this is in the wrong section or anything

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[Michael OShay]

I was just trying to total up the breeds by looking at some lists and adding up the ones I've had in my head, and it appears that I've raised 30 breeds over the past 50 years. This figure does not include the individual color varieties of each breed that I've had, or the hybrids that I've raised--just APA recognized breeds.

 

[SwoopKing]

I was just trying to total up the breeds by looking at some lists and adding up the ones I've had in my head, and it appears that I've raised 30 breeds over the past 50 years. This figure does not include the individual color varieties of each breed that I've had, or the hybrids that I've raised--just APA recognized breeds.

I did a similar count and got about 18 different breeds in 15 years. For quite awhile we kept them breeding with each other until there was risk of inbreeding so we ended up with a lot of hybrids which I didn't count. Coloring is something to consider as well. I think some have fairly subtle differences whereas other breeds such as Sebrights or Silkies have more noticeable differences. I would consider them the same breed in terms of the question I'm asking; although in the imaginary land of my dream farm I would consider them two separate "types" of breed because they would be noticeably different and I would want one of each