Chicken Breeds

The Chicken Breed Selector: Standardised Breeds

Chicken Breeds pages can be seen by clicking on the links below. From the large fowl like Australorps or Orpingtons to the smaller bantams like the Dutch, Belgian or Japanese, there’s usually a breed of chicken that will tickle your fancy!

This page lists all 93 chicken breeds that are standardised in the British Poultry Standards. References are given to pages in other standards around the world where applicable.

Whilst Hybrids are technically not pure breeds, we have also included a section for Hybrid chickens such as the Black Rock due to their popularity.

Ancona Light: Soft Feather	Andalusian Light: Soft Feather	Appenzeller Barthuhner Light: Soft Feather	Appenzeller Spitzhauben Light: Soft Feather
Araucana Light: Soft Feather	Rumpless Araucana Light: Soft Feather	Asil (Aseel) Asian Hard Feather	Australorp Heavy: Soft Feather
Barbu d’Anvers Belgian Bantam	Barbu d’Uccle Belgian Bantam	Barbu de Watermael Belgian Bantam	Barbu d’Everberg Belgian Bantam
Barbu du Grubbe Belgian Bantam	Barnevelder Heavy: Soft Feather	Booted Bantam True Bantam (Rare)	Brahma Heavy: Soft Feather
Brakel Light: Soft Feather (Rare)	Campine Light: Soft Feather (Rare)	Cochin Heavy: Soft Feather	Croad Langshan Heavy: Soft Feather
Dominique Heavy: Soft Feather (Rare)	Dorking Heavy: Soft Feather	Dutch Bantam True Bantam	Faverolles Heavy: Soft Feather
Fayoumi Light: Soft Feather (Rare)	Friesian Light: Soft Feather (Rare)	Frizzle Heavy: Soft Feather	German Langshan Heavy: Soft Feather (Rare)
Hamburgh Light: Soft Feather	Houdan Heavy: Soft Feather (Rare)	Hybrids Not Pure Bred!	Indian Game Hard Feather

Ixworth Heavy: Soft Feather (Rare)	Japanese Bantam True Bantam	Jersey Giant Heavy: Soft Feather (Rare)	Ko Shamo Asian Hard Feather
Kraienkoppe / Twentse Light: Soft Feather (Rare)	Kulang Asian Hard Feather	La Flèche Heavy: Soft Feather (Rare)	Lakenvelder Light: Soft Feather (Rare)
Legbar Light: Soft Feather (Rare) Autosexing	Leghorn Light: Soft Feather	Lincolnshire Buff Heavy: Soft Feather	Malay Asian Hard Feather
Marans Heavy: Soft Feather	Marsh Daisy Light: Soft Feather (Rare)	Minorca Light: Soft Feather	Modern Game Hard Feather
Modern Langshan Heavy: Soft Feather (Rare)	Nankin Bantam True Bantam (Rare)	Nankin Shamo Asian Hard Feather Extinct in the UK	New Hampshire Red Heavy: Soft Feather
Norfolk Grey Heavy: Soft Feather (Rare)	Ohiki True Bantam (Rare)	Carlisle Old English Game Hard Feather	Oxford Old English Game Hard Feather
Old English Game Bantam Hard Feather	Old English Pheasant Fowl Light: Soft Feather (Rare)	Orloff Heavy: Soft Feather (Rare)	Orpington Heavy: Light Feather
Pekin Bantam True Bantam	Plymouth Rock Heavy: Soft Feather	Poland Light: Soft Feather	Redcap Light: Soft Feather

Rhodebar Heavy: Soft Feather (Rare)	Rhode Island Red Heavy: Soft Feather	Rosecomb Bantam True Bantam	Rumpless Game Hard Feather (Rare)
Satsumadori Asian Hard Feather	Scots Dumpy Light: Soft Feather	Scots Grey Light: Soft Feather	Sebright Bantam True Bantam
Serama True Bantam	Shamo Asian Hard Feather	Sicilian Buttercup Light: Soft Feather (Rare)	Silkie Light: Soft Feather
Spanish Light: Soft Feather (Rare)	Sulmtaler Light: Soft Feather (Rare)	Sultan Light: Soft Feather (Rare)	Sumatra Light: Soft Feather (Rare)
Sussex Heavy: Soft Feather	Taiwan Asian Hard Feather	Thai Game Asian Hard Feather	Thuringian Light: Soft Feather
Transylvanian Naked Neck Heavy: Soft Feather (Rare)	Tuzo Asian Hard Feather	Vorwerk Light: Soft Feather (Rare)	Welbar Light: Soft Feather (Rare) Autosexing
Welsummer Light: Soft Feather (Rare)	Wyandotte Heavy: Soft Feather	Wybar Heavy: Soft Feather (Rare) Autosexing	Yakido Asian Hard Feather (Rare)
Yamato Gunkei Asian Hard Feather	Yokohama Light: Soft Feather (Rare)

Chicken Breeds Classifications

There are two sizes of fowl that exist – ‘Large Fowl’ (often abbreviated to L.F) and ‘Bantam’. Not all breeds of large fowl can be found in bantam size and vice-versa. Where there is a bantam size only, these are called ‘True Bantams’. For many large breeds, bantams are created afterwards as a miniature version by selecting the smallest birds repeatedly for many generations, sometimes crossing out to other small bantams in the process to reduce their size.

As well as Large Fowl and Bantam sizes, there is another distinction made with ‘Hard’ and ‘Soft’ Feather breeds. Generally, hard feather breeds are ‘Game’ varieties, who historically were cock fighting birds. These have a tighter feathering than the soft feather chicken breeds, who are more fluffy.

The Poultry Club of Great Britain classifies ‘Rare’ breeds as those without their own breed club or society. The Rare Poultry Society looks after these breeds.

Thanks

This page has been a rather big project. A special thank you to Rupert Stephenson who has spent many years visiting shows to capture many of these chicken breeds photographs and has helped me enormously to create these pages.