If you want to add one or more solid black chickens to your flock you have a big diverseness from which to choose. Since many breeds have black feathers — and some tied have black skin and kernel — there is no dearth of options !
In fact, there are 46 black chicken breeds recognized by the American Poultry Association. This is capital news program because there are unlike reasons for having a troop of chickens, so you can find the breeds that will work good in your backyard or on your farm.
Raising Black Chickens: Which is best for your flock?
Black chickens come in a kind of sizes, arsenic well as temperaments and permissiveness to different climates. They have unlike sizes and shapes of comb, which work good ( or worse ) in different climates. While most have clean legs, a few have feathered legs .
If you have a small flock of four to eight hens for your own fresh eggs, it ’ sulfur playfulness to have unlike breeds so that you can get to know them as individuals. And the easiest way to be able to tell them apart is to choose birds with unlike feather colors, patterns, combs, and feather feet or not .
many of these breeds are excellent egg layers. Depending upon the breed, you can get black hens that lay ashen, brown, or blue eggs .
Black chickens are not popular as kernel birds because of the black pin feathers that can be seen after plucking. This is why commercial kernel chickens are white. People who are not familiar with chicken anatomy may think the chicken skin is dirty when they see black pivot feathers. however, if you simply rub it with herb before cooking, those peg feathers could blend right in .
Jersey Giant
This is the largest breed of wimp. When I first heard this about 20 years ago, I thought they would be a great chicken to raise for kernel. But they are very decelerate to reach adulthood, so by the time they reach that massive size, the kernel is not that offer .
If you want to fry or roast the kernel, or do anything other than stew the chicken, they truly need to be processed by 4-5 months of historic period, and the Jersey Giant has not come anywhere close to its optimum slant by then .
Since they are a very bombastic chicken, that means they lay extra large eggs. If you have a backyard flock and use all of your own eggs, no problem ! But if you are planning to sell your eggs, you will have to buy particular cartons to hold the eggs. Otherwise the carton won ’ thyroxine close .
If you are planning to sell eggs and get licensed as an egg producer, the eggs in a single carton indigence to be the same size so they can be graded as humble, metier, large, or extra large. That means you would have to have chickens that lay eggs of similar size. In other words, Giants would not fit well into a assorted batch of egg layers .
Silkie
Black Silkie Hen This bantam breed is one of the smallest breeds of solid bootleg chicken. I fell in love with Silkie chickens when I first saw them at the Garfield Farm Museum Rare Breed Show in the late-1990s. They look like they have fur, but that bleary stuff is indeed feathers .
Even though this Silkie hen has white feathers, she still has black skin, bones, and meat. They are one of only four solid black chicken breeds that have black skin, kernel, and bones. In hurt of that, their feathers can be black, white, buff, blue and other colors .
My friend, Tammy Gallagher, from Shady Paddock Farm in Texas has been raising Silkie chickens for about four years now .
Black Silkie Rooster “ so why all the bustle about these fishy little fagot balls ? ” asks Tammy. “ It good takes a few minutes with one, and you will find that it is always so easily to fall in beloved with these gentlest of chickens ! They have an amazingly mellow personality, which, in my impression, is one of their finest attributes. To date, I have never been challenged by any of my Silkie roos. This makes them an excellent darling chicken breed for children. Their minor size lends them to being a bang-up choice for those who want to have chickens in a suburban area. And the fact that they can not fly over the fence, into your neighbor ’ s cubic yard, is another bonus. ”
“ As with anything fantastic, there is always a down side, ” she continues. “ For the Silkie, it is their leaning to go broody, which always seems to interrupt their lay cycle at the most inconvenient time, so we just accept that with patience. They are besides not the most winter hardy bird, but can do well with adequate shelter and a few accommodations for cold areas. ”
Like all bantams, Silkies lay adorable little eggs. They weigh approximately half angstrom much as a large chicken egg, so I always use two bantam eggs when a recipe calls for one. The smaller eggs are perfect for small children that can ’ deoxythymidine monophosphate consume a whole egg, and many children love peeling those bantam boiled bantam eggs .
The downside to the modest eggs is that you can ’ thyroxine sell them as a attest egg manufacturer because they are not even adult enough to be graded as minor. In most states you would be able to sell them american samoa ungraded to friends, family, and neighbors .
Another thing to note about bantams laying eggs is that they don ’ thymine lay much. Depending upon how many eggs you want or need, this could be a professional or a bunco. We are presently certified testis producers, but if at some target in the future we decided to fair have hens for our own eggs, I will decidedly have a bunch of bantams in my flock because they are the cutest chickens !
Australorp
This breed happens to be the favorite of Lisa Steele, author of Fresh Eggs Daily. She loves them for their composure demeanor, a well as their ability to lay lots of embrown eggs. She says they lay 4-5 eggs a workweek during their premier, and they are besides good mothers .
Photo courtesy of Lisa Steele of Fresh Eggs Daily Lisa says they can handle both extremes of hotness and cold temperatures. The breed has done well in their flocks when they lived in Virginia and immediately in Maine .
Is there a downside to Australorps ? Lisa says that they can be a bit expansive .
Years ago my daughters raised Australorps for a 4-H undertaking, and we besides found that they were easy to handle, even for children .
Photo by courtesy of Lisa Steele of Fresh Eggs Daily Although they are solid black as adults, don ’ thyroxine be alarmed if you order them as day-old chicks and they are jaundiced on their chest of drawers and belly .
Cochin
This is one of the most sandbag breeds on the tilt due to its abundance of feathers, including its feather legs ! Cochins come in several colors and patterns, and they flush come in a bantam size ! That is reasonably ironic because the standard-sized cochin is one of the largest chicken breeds, weighing 8 to 11 pounds .
Cochin Pullet If you want hens that will go brooding and hatch their own eggs, this is one of the few breeds even known for doing therefore .
Cochins are besides known to be one of the most calm and easy breeds. In fact, when we had a children ’ mho camp at our farm, I specifically got bantam cochins for the children to play with, and it worked excellently. even with a new group of 20 children every workweek, the bantam cochin chickens were fantastic .
Orpington
Of all the blacken chickens, the Orpington is one of the most common breeds, and it comes in a variety of colors .
Buff Orpingtons are the most common color in this breed, with black being harder to find. A rooster is in the foreground with two hens in the background. We have had buff Orpington chickens on multiple occasions. They have constantly been very well in both weather extremes when the temperatures are above 90 degrees and when winter weather plunges below nothing.
They tend to be good layers of brown eggs, although the roosters are not a great choice for kernel unless you buy from a serious breeder. When we have purchased Orpington chickens from a hatchery, the males grew so lento that the total of kernel was still less than 4 pounds by 4 months of age. even though they look large, you can tell that they are all feathers when you pick them up .
Ameraucana and Araucana
These are two different breeds that are closely related, and they come in a huge variety show of colors. They are frequently loosely referred to as Easter Eggers because they lay gloomy to bluish green eggs. Hatcheries have paid little attention to the color of feathers, focusing rather on the color of the eggs, but they do come in solid black. If you want any specific color of Easter Egger, you will probably have to go to a breeder who specializes in individual feather colors .
Learn more : Ameraucana Chicken Ultimate Care Guide > >
Araucana
Minorca
Minorca chickens come in total darkness, white, and buff, and unlike most breeds where the color is the entirely difference, in Minorca chickens, the black diverseness, weighing 7.5 to 9 pounds, is purportedly about a cypriot pound to a beat and a half larger than the white or buff .
Minorca cockerel Minorcas besides come with two different comb types — single comb and rose comb. Chickens with a rose comb are preferred by some people who live in northern climates because it is much less likely to get frostbite. Although frostbite on a comb doesn ’ t campaign death or disability in a chicken, some people don ’ triiodothyronine like the way it looks. If the tips of a single comb freeze, they will just fall off .
Java
I beginning became mindful of the Java chicken breed in the late 1990s when I attended the Rare Breed Show at Garfield Farm Museum. At that meter, the Java chicken was about extinct, with less than 100 left .
Black Java The Java is the second oldest chicken engender developed in the United States. According to the L ivestock Conservancy, the Java was used to create the Plymouth Rock and the Jersey Giant breeds .
We were golden enough to have some Javas in our flock around 2005 to 2010. They are a calm chicken and lay brown eggs .
Java chickens have yellow skin, which may be unappetizing to some mod eaters. I could see some people thinking the dame had bitterness, if they were not expecting it when butchering them. I knew this before butchering them but was still surprised when I saw it myself .
Japanese Bantams
We incidentally wound up with japanese bantam chickens in 2002 when they were mistakenly sent to us by a hatchery when we ordered turkeys ! But it turned out to be a fantastic surprise when we realized what breed we had .
japanese bantam chickens come in a variety of colors, including solid black, and have a beautiful upright stature that is unmatched by other breeds. Their very abruptly peg and identical long buttocks feathers makes them truly striking to look at .
Crèvecoeur
Crèvecoeur chickens were developed in France primarily as a kernel chicken, which means they don ’ thymine lay a batch of eggs. But if you want eye sugarcoat, the peak on top of their head surely gets attention and may be a great reason to add to your batch .
This is a great exemplar of how feather color has nothing to do with testis color as Crèvecoeur chickens dwell white eggs. Unlike some of the other breeds discussed so far, this one can alone have bootleg feathers. It besides has a unique V-shaped comb, adding to its ocular appeal .
“ We have been keeping and breeding Crèvecœurs for about 8 years on our farm, ” says Jeannette Beranger, Senior Program Manager at The Livestock Conservancy. “ We had just finished the Buckeye convalescence project and with that breed doing well, we decided to help out a breed that needed attention. We decided on the Crèvecœur because they were literally on the brink with less than possibly 50-100 birds left. ”
“ It took me months to find some lineage from a long time breeder and it ’ s taken all these years to start to get them to meet APA standard size, ” Jeannette continues. “ They are now living up to their reputation as a fabulous table bird. They are delightful. I ’ ve besides done across-the-board historic inquiry and have found that they have a wonderfully rich people history that few know about. so as a plan it ’ mho been big playfulness for this poultry geek. ”
Jeannette and one of her Crèvecoeur
Hamburgs
prior to doing the research for this article I had no theme there were solid black Hamburgs. I ’ ve owned and loved silver-spangled Hamburgs, which are a medium-sized wimp that lays medium-sized white eggs. bouncy adult weights are only about 4-5 pounds with hens being smaller, of course .
This is the perfect chicken for you if you think that a standard chicken is besides big and a bantam is excessively little .
They are slightly docile though, and these are actually the merely chickens we have ever owned that had trouble being added to our existing flock. even though we didn ’ triiodothyronine understand peck, we kept finding the Hamburgs shroud in whatever crevice they could find .
Marans
Maran chickens are another breed that comes in a variety show of colors, including blacken, which should not be confused with the black copper Maran. The black copper Maran seem to be easier to find than the solid black chickens. This breed ’ randomness claim to fame are their dark cocoa colored eggs. For those who want an egg basket with a diverseness of colors, this is decidedly a breed to consider .
LaFleche
This is one of the most rare breeds on the list, and as you might guess from the name, it is primitively from France. In the US, it is listed as “ critical ” on the Conservation Priority List of the Livestock Breeds Conservancy, meaning that there are less than 500 breeding birds in the U.S .
It has a classifiable v-shaped comb and lays large white eggs. They can only be solid black in color. They weigh 6.5 to 8 pounds .
La Fleche Flock
Langshan
The Langshan may have feathered feet like the Cochin, but it is a discrete breed of asian black chicken. Their survive fledged system of weights is about 7.5 to 9.5 pounds, making it one of the larger breeds, but not angstrom large as the Cochin or Jersey Giant. Although the Langshan was in the first place a solid black chicken, the APA besides recognizes whiten and blue now .
Langshan Pullet
Ayam Cemani
The Ayam Cemani chicken is another solid blacken chicken that is a in truth melanistic chicken breed, meaning that it has black skin, black feathers, black bones, black kernel, and even a black comb and beak. They are on the smaller side, weighing merely 4.5 to 7 pounds, and are poor layers of cream colored eggs. They used to be fabulously hard to find in the US but are nowadays available from some of the larger hatcheries .
Ayam Cemani
Other all black chicken breeds accepted by the American Poultry Association
This is in truth barely the beginning, as there are 20 standard size solid bootleg chickens and 26 bantam size chickens accepted by the APA that have total darkness feathers. As already mentioned in some of the above breeds, however, it can be a challenge to find them with total darkness feathers as other colors have become more popular .
In fact, anterior to writing this article, I had no idea that some of these breeds were available in solid black, even though I ’ ve owned the more popular colors for the breeds. We bought silver-laced Wyandottes and buff Orpingtons when we foremost moved to our grow in 2002, and I was not mindful they besides came in solid black .
Swedish Black Hen It ’ mho fascinating to think of the hypothesis of having a batch of solid black chickens that all look identical different from one another because of their size, style of comb, egg color, and condition of feathers on their feet .
Struggling to find curious chicken names ? Let us help you out with this post – 500+ Funny Chicken Names.
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