This is my first time getting chickens. I ordered them from MyPetChicken.com, and they are arriving in July. I live in a big city, and have a small backyard, so I think about 6 chickens is the max I have room for (although the city says you can have 16 of them!).
Because I have a small backyard, and my climate is mostly cold, I knew I needed chickens that could take confinement well, and were cold-hardy. I also wanted friendly chickens, and I wanted clean-legged chickens because I can't stand poopy feathery feet. I don't need high egg production, so I stayed away from hybrids such as the gold comet (high egg producers tend to be flighty, and I didn't want flighty).
I decided to get one chicken of each breed, so I'd have a variety, and so that there were no two chickens of the same breed (trying to avoid chicken cliques).
So here are my breed choices:
1) Buff Orpington: Lays fairly well, cold hardy, bears confinement well, supposedly one of the sweetest breeds around.
2) Australorp: Lays fairly well, cold hardy, bears confinement well, and again, is supposed to be a friendly breed of chicken.
3) Copper Marans: Ok, I sort of broke one of my rules here. This chicken does have feathered feet, but not to the extent that say, a cochin has. I really wanted a dark chocolate egg, and the marans has that. I know it doesn't taste any different, but they look cool.
4) Silver-laced Wynadotte: Cold hardy (small rose comb!), bears confinement well, and oh-so-pretty!
5) Gold-laced Wynadotte: Cold hardy (small rose comb!), bears confinement well, and oh-so-pretty!
6) Easter-egger: I wanted a surprise in there. Who knows what color of egg I'll get? Will it lay sage-green eggs? olive-green? mint-green? Sky blue? Pink? or something else? I know it will only lay one color its whole life, but what color will it be? The ANTICIPATION! Plus, they are supposedly cold-hardy, bear confinement well, etc.
So those are the six breeds of chickens I ordered. I think that their temperaments should mix well together too. For example, I decided against getting a Welsummer, as I heard they can be overly bossy in a flock setting (although, I suppose it depends on each personal chicken). Yes, there will always be a pecking order, but I'm really hoping that no bird will be a bully. Bully birds (the unredeemable kind) get invited to dinner.
I can't wait for July to get here!