Chicken breeds aren't developed the way you may think. They don't have pedigrees like dog breeds do. Learn how breeders develop chicken breeds in this blog post, or watch the video below.

How chicken breeds are made

Chicken breeds aren’t what you think they are. People think that chickens are breeds based on their bloodlines. So, for example, people think that Plymouth Rock chickens all come from the same stock from somewhere back in history. They all must share this Plymouth Rock blood from somewhere.

But that’s not actually how chicken breeds work at all.

Chicken breeds are instead based solely on looks—and sometimes egg color—but not on bloodlines.

So, every chicken breed has a standard—I say every breed, there are some exceptions, but for most of the breeds we know, there’s a standard for them. And a standard just describes the most perfect version of that bird. In the U.S. it’s the American Poultry Association and the American Bantam Association who come up with most of our standards, and they can be somewhat arbitrary, but that’s a different topic.

And breeders try to breed their chickens to fit these physical standards. So, let’s think about what that means.

Let’s take the Plymouth Rock as an example, and the Barred variety. The Barred Plymouth Rock chicken is a chicken that looks a certain way – it has a barred feather pattern, yellow legs, a single comb, and many other features set by the standard.

But the actual bloodlines don’t matter, and so that means that your Barred Plymouth Rocks may have a totally different heritage than my Barred Plymouth Rocks. Mine might have some Cochin and Dorking mixed in somewhere. Yours might have some Spanish mixed in.

The Plymouth Rock breed standard was formalized in the late 1800s and a whole bunch of different breeders at this time had already worked on their own varieties of barred chickens that were close to that standard, and so even though those different breeders used different breeds to make their Barred Rocks, their barred chickens were then all considered the same breed because they looked similar.

And this means that you could, with a lot of hard work and time, you could make your own Barred Plymouth Rock from scratch by mixing other chicken breeds together over generations. And in fact, this has been done for some breeds.

Case study: modern-day Sultans have no relationship to the original Sultan breed

So, for example, let’s take Sultan chickens. Sultans are an incredibly old Turkish breed of chicken, and they went almost entirely extinct during the world wars in Europe. There were still some in Britain, but they were otherwise lost, and so the breed was then reconstructed by mixing other breeds together until a breed was made that fit the physical standard.

And that means that the vast, vast majority of Sultan chickens we have today, don’t have any of that original Turkish Sultan blood. They were concocted from entirely non-Sultan breeds.

Different varieties of the same breed may have no relation

And one last interesting thing to think about. Some varieties of the same breed are not actually related at all. So, let’s look at Orpingtons, for example.

The Black Orpington was made from crossing Minorcas, Black Plymouth Rocks, and Langshans.

The Buff Orpington, on the other hand, was made from crossing Golden-Spangled Hamburgs, Dark Dorkings, and Buff Cochins.

So Black and Buff are two different varieties of one breed—Orpingtons. But the two varieties were created from totally different breeds.

Can you identify crossbreed chickens?

And I wanted to just share this little tidbit about chicken breeding with you today, because I recently received a message from TrippingOverDogs asking me about what breeds her chickens might be or what crossbreeds they might be.

So, this reader has a chicken who’s supposed to be a Silkie, but the chicken has, in her words:

“..gorgeous, soft, large white feathers.” So, not silky feathers.

And she goes on to say that”

“Four kinds of chickens were hatched from one batch of “Silkie” eggs bought at a sale. All were white. Some had silky feathers with red combs, yellow beaks, and feet.”

Red combs, yellow beaks, and yellow feet are not Silkie features.

TrippingOverDogs then goes on from there, but basically, all these chickens had some Silkie features and some non-Silkie features (according to the Silkie standard).

And then she asks me, “I’m thinking they may have been crosses between Sultans and Silkies. Any ideas?”

So, TrippingOverDogs, maybe there’s some Sultan in there. However, Sultans don’t have yellow beaks or feet. So, these aren’t pure Silky-Sultan crosses. And maybe they don’t have Sultan at all. I don’t know. They could have any number of breeds mixed in somewhere in their lineage.

And it’s kind of impossible to know where these characteristics are coming from without talking to the breeder, but it sounds like the breeder you used hasn't perfected his Silkie strain yet because if these chickens are supposed to be Silkies, then they shouldn't have that much variation.

I personally wouldn't care—I love all chickens and I just want them to be healthy. And it sounds like you are happy with your chickens too, whatever they are.

Breeders mix in outside breeds to improve their flocks

And another thing is that a lot of times breeders will mix in another breed into some generations to keep them from being too inbred, for one thing, and also because that other breed may have a quality they need more of in whatever breed it is they're working on.

So, for example, if someone's Plymouth Rock strain isn't fluffy enough, they might add a Cochin into the breeding mix and then they'll breed that Plymouth Rock-Cochin hybrid back to more Plymouth Rocks. And then whatever of those offspring have the best traits that the breeder wants, he'll breed those.

So breeding chickens is a really complicated process. It’s not straightforward. Breeders come up against a lot of challenges and they handle those challenges in a lot of different ways.

And so, TrippingOverDogs , since you bought hatching eggs, you're seeing a lot of the "imperfect"—from a breeding standpoint—offspring. If you were just buying Silkie chicks from this same person, he'd probably just sell you the chicks that looked like Silkies.

So, I'm sorry I can't answer your question in more detail than that. I have no idea what breeds have been mixed to form your beautiful chickens. But if you're really curious, the breeder could answer that for you.

Either way, your chicks sound absolutely adorable and I hope you have the best time raising them!