Until now, I have only hinted at my plans and dreams to start keeping chickens. I intended to get them last year, but didn't feel up to building a coop myself and with my father's illness and my husband's increasingly busy schedule, I hesitated to ask for help. Earlier this year, I discovered that Good's a local Amish business that sells sheds and swingsets, also had a small 4x6-foot chicken coop. I'd seen similar coops advertised for twice the price and so it seemed like a good deal. I ordered it in February and it took well over a month to get it delivered. I'll post about the coop at a later time.
Since last year, I had pretty much decided to get Plymouth Barred Rocks.
After all, these are the breed which started the Delmarva chicken industry. Then, I admired the flocks of Rhode Island Reds I saw at Rumbleway Farm and the Colchester Farm CSA, and decided to get a few of those as well. 
My friend Jeff, who has Dominiques, suggested I consider a heritage breed. So I went to the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy website, and found a great chart on heritage poultry breeds, their relative rarity, the types of eggs they lay, their meat qualities and their disposition.I remembered my brother's silky bantams--beautiful fluffy white birds--and the fact that I could not play in my own backyard because of one, evil rooster. Yes, I know they don't look very tough, but this rooster would fly at me whenever I ventured past the swimming pool toward the rest of the yard. The day our new neighbors moved in sometime in the early 1980s, he attacked their 4-year old son.
They were from the city, somewhere in Massachusetts; some welcome to the country and the south! When the rooster was in the coop and I had to collect eggs, I would stick a pole in and knock him around a little bit so he would be too woozy to attack. Finally--perhaps after the neighbor incident--we decided to get rid of the evil rooster. My grandmother did the deed and cooked him up for dinner. His flesh was purple like turtle meat, stringy, and basically inedible. His last revenge.
So I was intrigued when I read that the Delaware breed was gentle. Originally called "Indian Rivers" for a prime broiler area in Sussex County, Delaware, the breed was developed by George Ellis in 1940 for the burgeoning poultry industry. They were bred from the old stand-by Barred Plymouth rocks and New Hampshires. In the 1950s, they were replaced by the Cornish Cross breed that dominates today, but they sounded like a good dual purpose bird and they are considered critically low in numbers. In addition, they have a very good rate of lay for extra large to jumbo brown eggs, they grow fast and can be eaten at any age. My most recent issue of Backyard Poultry says they used to be the standard for "Sunday dinner chicken." 
I looked up New Hampshires, since they are the hens from which Delaware's were bred, and they are a pretty reddish buff, satisfying my desire for a colorful backyard bird. They also have a pedigree as an outstanding meat bird, having been the standard in the Chicken of Tomorrow contests. That sealed the deal for me. One of my favorite items in our archive when I was curator at the Delaware Agricultural Museum was the copy of the 1948 film, "Chicken of Tomorrow," which was filmed in Delaware. It is the typical newsreel-type film like the ones shown in theaters during World War II, dramatic music and all. I was pleased to discover you can watch "Chicken of Tomorrow" online.
New Hampshires are also "calm" birds, lay extra large brown eggs and are fast growing up to 7 and a half pounds.
So I ordered 12 Delawares, 12 New Hampshires and one Delaware male. The Delaware rooster, bred to any of those females, should produce chicks of the Delaware pattern. If I manage to raise broody hens, I want to do my part to keep the breed going. There is much more to come about my chicken adventure. You're going to have to wait for the baby pictures!
