Poultry Breed Basics

Chickens come in a wide variety of shapes, sizes, and colours as the result of selective breeding over the past few hundred years.  There are now more than 350 recognised combinations of physical features in chickens. This section will cover the four main systems used to classify or define the different poultry breeds.

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By Class-Breed-Variety

The class-breed-variety system first divides breeds of chickens into classes based on the geographic region where the breed originated. 

Breeds themselves are defined a group of birds that common physical features such as body shape, skin colour, number of toes, or the presence or absence of feathers on the shanks that will reliably be passed onto offspring if two birds of the same type are mated.  Breeds can be further subdivided into varieties based on features such as plumage colour, comb type, and the presence of beards or muffs.

 

Another term you may hear used in this system is strain, which are subdivisions of a breed and/or variety with much tighter physical and performance characteristics.  Strains are most often found in commercial production systems where it is important to have birds that are uniform in size, shape, and productivity.

Click here for more details about this classification system.

By Size

Breeds can be divided into heavy chickens, standard chickens, and bantams.   Bantams are usually just miniature versions of standard breed chickens.  The exceptions are Silkies, D’Uccles, Bearded Belgians, and Mille Fleurs which don’t have a standard size counterpart.  Bantams typically weigh about 25% of what a standard chicken weighs – so about 0.8kg to 1kg.

By Purpose

Breeds can be divided into meat breeds, egg laying breeds, and dual purpose breeds based on the primary purpose of the birds.

By Genetics

In New Zealand, most commercial broilers are Ross or Cobb genetics while most commercial layers are HyLine Brown or Shavers.  These strains have been specifically bred to perform well in commercial production systems.  It is difficult for backyard poultry keepers to directly purchase commercial breed birds although some chicks may be sold by distributors and some layer farmers may sell hens that have reached the end of their production cycles. 

Most other breeds are classified as heritage breeds, which have a lot more variety in sizes, colours, and shapes.  Click here to learn more about the heritage breeds that are commonly kept and traded in New Zealand.

Common Breeds

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