Ameraucana

Green eggs and ham! Well, maybe not the ham part, but with a backyard flock of Americanas you can have Easter eggs all year long. With their beards and muffs these chickens look as unique as their eggs.

Although the personalities can vary, in general this breed is mostly calm and non-aggressive and takes well to confinement in smaller yards, although they appreciate free range. They are also very cold hardy.

The classic “Little Red Hen.” These golden colored chicks will grow up into rich, red fluffy-feathered adults with single red combs and feathered feet and legs.

Cochins are vigorous and energetic yet friendly and easy to raise, making them good backyard pets. Cochins can be good egg layers (brown eggs) and are also good at brooding (sitting on eggs in order to hatch them).

Cochins were first brought to Europe and North America from China in the mid-19th century.

Your backyard will bloom with a thousand flowers when these chicks grow up. These bearded, booted bantams develop striking adult coloration: each mahogany colored feather has a black bar crescent across it and a white V-shaped tip, leading to a floral pattern on the chicken. The pattern will become more intense after the first molt.

d’Uccles lay creamy white eggs and are quieter and less aggressive than other breeds. They tolerate confinement well although they are better at flying than other breeds so be sure to have a good fence if you want to contain them.

White-Crested Black Polish

Bad hair day? Not with this chicken in your yard! The White-crested Black Polish has an impressive mop of white feathers adorning its head, providing a stunning contrast to its shiny black body. It is a soft-feathered lighter breed, with clean legs (no feathers on its legs) and an upright tail. Polish chickens lay white eggs and tend not to go broody (want to sit on and hatch) their eggs.

It is rumored that the Polish crest requires extra care and maintenance and can obscure this chicken’s ability to see, however Polish kept in backyard conditions with just a few other coopmates and a secure roosting house tend to do fine. In severely muddy conditions the crest may need washing or drying.

Polish are a friendly breed suitable as pets and bred mostly for their stunning ornamentation.

White Sultan

Although as chicks they might resemble ‘Big Bird’, these tufty White Sultans are a rare breed once prized by Turkish rulers as fowl of power and good fortune.
They’ll grow up to be elegant pure white adults with full crests, muffs, beards and feathered feet with extra toes!

Sultans are a calm and non-aggressive breed that are easily handled and suitable for small yards and gardens as they are poor foragers and tolerate confinement better than other breeds.

Sultans originated in Southeastern Europe, were brought to Istanbul from England in 1850, and were imported to the U.S. from there.

If you have a smaller yard or want to raise your backyard chickens as pets, you should consider the Bantam varieties.

Bantams are smaller chickens that have been bred for a wide range of feather ornamentation and personality. Many Bantam breeds that we stock have been selected for their calm and friendly character, although individual temperaments will vary based on their handling when young and their living conditions. Bantam eggs are smaller than standard eggs.

Because of their smaller size bantams require less space in both the coop and run than Standard sized chickens, making them ideal for smaller yards. Allow 2 square feet per bird in the coop if chickens have free range during the day, or 6-8 square feet per bird if they are kept confined. Their tame and friendly character make them suitable as backyard pets.

Because Bantam chicks are so tiny, it is not possible to determine their sex when young. Thus, Bantams are sold as ‘straight run,’ a mix of males and females. As chicks develop their adult feathers, roosters will have pointed tail and saddle feathers, and when they reach puberty, will be easily identified by their distinctive early-morning cock-a-doodle-doo. Please note that the city of Portland does not allow roosters to be kept as backyard chickens. Hens will begin laying eggs around 18-20 weeks of age, depending on the season.