Why are there so many chicken breeds to choose from?  A lot of it is just looks.  Within the last century, dozens of types of chickens were developed with unique plumage that made them good bets to win a prize at the county fair, but these lookers are unlikely to be prime homesteading birds.  Not only is efficient egg-laying and meat production often ignored when breeding exhibition-quality birds, but chickens with feathered feet have a hard time scratching for their dinner, and those with fancy plumes can't glance up.  In general, fancy fowl tend to be eaten by hawks in short order, and they usually don't produce much compared to how much they cost to feed.  The serious homesteader will be better off giving these birds a miss.

The rise of fancy fowl is a relatively recent phenomenon.  In 1868, Charles Darwin (with the help of a "Mr. Tegetmeier") published a survey of the currently known chicken breeds, which included Game, Malay, Cochin, Dorking, Spanish, Hamburg, Crested or Polish, Bantam, Rump-less, Creepers or Jumpers, Frizzled or Caffre, Silk, and Sooty.  As you can tell, Darwin's descriptions were mostly categories rather than actual breeds as we consider them today, so it's not surprising that only thirteen types made the cut.

The heyday of chicken breeding didn't last forever, though.  The discovery of vitamin D not only made chicken keeping more economical for the homesteader, it also allowed large chicken farms to raise thousands of birds at a time.  During the same time period, many Americans were moving off farms and into the cities, and while some ex-farmers bred miniature chickens (bantams) to take with them, others decided it was simpler to buy their eggs and meat at the store.  Before long, homestead-worthy chicken breeds were dwindling and being replaced by types of chickens that did well in the cramped quarters of factory farms.

The more recent surges in backyard chicken-keeping of the 1970s and early 2000s have mostly focused on the breeds that already existed, although the choices were reduced to those that had survived decades of backyard disinterest.  And while most of the chickens that were alive at the time Darwin was writing were probably scrappy farmyard birds with no pedigrees who fit the farms they'd been raised on, the modern homesteader looking to develop a productive flock has more choices but a harder time finding productive genetics.  That's why, despite the wide variety of chicken breeds out there, it can be tough to find a good homesteading bird.  Thrifty Chicken Breeds is all about tracking down that productive breed that can feed your family at a low cost.

I hope you enjoyed this excerpt from Thrifty Chicken Breeds.  If so, why not read the whole thing for only 99 cents?  Or stay tuned for another excerpt here on the blog tomorrow.