There are many reasons people own chickens. Chickens provide eggs and meat, which you can sell or use in your own kitchen. Other people keep chickens to show in competitions and exhibitions or as pets!
Fluffy chicken breeds are in demand. Many of them make excellent show chickens because of their unique plumage, but their real draw is that they’re just plain adorable.
And just like their plainer-looking cousins, they’re just as useful on a farm or homestead. Fluffy chickens can be prolific egg-layers, while other breeds are enthusiastic brooders who will happily incubate their own or even other birds’ eggs.
Remember that looks aren’t everything when choosing a fluffy chicken to add to your flock. You must consider how much space they need, whether they can be free range if they’ll get along with other breeds of chicken, the skill level required to care for them, and what you intend to use them for.
4 Fluffy Chickens That Are Brooders
Brooders aren’t always the most productive when laying eggs, but they are excellent at incubating eggs until they’re ready to hatch. Hens stop laying when they start incubating.
If one of your egg producers lays a clutch of fertilized eggs, you can give them to one of these breeds to incubate and raise to keep egg production going.
You can also use brooders to incubate eggs for more active breeds less inclined to sit on a clutch for long periods. Several fluffy chicken breeds are ideally suited for this task.
1. Silkies
Not only are silkies the fluffiest of the fluffy chicken breeds, but they’re also renowned for being excellent brooders.
Silkies are small chickens native to China. Their feathers are so fine they feel almost like hair, making these birds little puffs of fluff with talons and beaks.
Unlike most other chickens, Silkies have 5 toes on each foot. They also possess a rare gene that makes their skin, bones, muscles, and organs black. While white feathers are most common, you can also find these chickens in buff, gray, red, partridge, splash, blue, and black.
No matter their color feathers, all Silkie chickens will also have striking blue earlobes.
Silkies are known for their sweet, gentle temperament and motherly nature. While they are not the best egg layers, they are known for being one of the broodiest breeds and will happily adopt other chickens’ eggs.
You’ll have to take a couple of special considerations as a Silkie chicken owner. While their fluffy appearance is adorable, they’re not great at protecting chickens from the elements.
These birds do best in warm, dry climates and are not the best breed for free-ranging. Their feathers grow right around their eyes and can impede their vision, so you’ll want to trim or pluck them regularly.
2. Cochin Chickens
Cochins are another fluffy chicken breed that hails from China. They generally resemble most of the “normal” chickens you’ll see represented in children’s books and television programs about farms, only with extra fluff. They come in almost every color imaginable.
Full-sized Cochins are pretty large and can weigh up to 10 pounds when they finish growing. If the size concerns you, there is also a Cochin Bantam variety.
A Bantam chicken is a miniature variety of regular chicken. They are usually about half the size of your average chicken. A fully-grown bantam-sized Cochin will weigh 2 or 3 pounds.
Cochins are mediocre egg-layers but excellent brooders who will happily adopt and raise chicks. They are also known for their fantastic personalities.
They are docile, good with children, and love to cuddle, making them suitable for indoor pets. Their layers of fluffy feathers actually make them more resistant to the cold than other breeds.
3. Burmese Chickens
Burmese Bantams are what is known as a “true” bantam breed. Instead of being a miniaturized version of another breed, Burmese chickens are naturally smaller.
They are incredibly rare and were considered extinct from 1914 until 1970 when a founding member of the Rare Poultry Society received one as a gift from another chicken enthusiast.
These chickens were originally found in Myanmar, formerly known as Burma. They usually weigh less than 3 pounds when fully grown, and their dense feathers are almost always pure white. Because of their white feathers, you will need to keep their coup very clean to help them look their best.
Burmese Chickens are very fertile and excellent at laying and brooding eggs. Since they are such a rare chicken breed, experts prefer that they not be used to produce eggs for consumption. Instead, as many eggs that can be fertilized and hatched should be.
As ornamental chickens, many people keep them for exhibitions and shows.
4. Dorking Chickens
Described as fluffy and plump with short legs, Dorking chickens are rotund and adorable. They are also a very gentle, submissive breed and make excellent mothers. Since they prefer incubating eggs and raising chicks to laying eggs, they are an ideal breed to use as brooders.
These chickens are originally from the British Isles and have been around for centuries, but they are rare these days. This is another reason to let them incubate fertilized eggs—especially their own—instead of using them for commercial egg production.
Fully grown, Dorking Chickens can weigh anywhere from 8 to 15 pounds and come in various colors. They are excellent free rangers and thrive when given a large space to roam and forage for insects and weeds.
4 of the Fluffiest Egg Layers
One of the most significant reasons people keep chickens is egg production. Having your own egg-laying chickens can help you save money on your grocery bill, give you more control over the quality of your food, and can even serve as a supplemental income stream.
If you want chickens that are both adorable to look at and great at feeding your family, several fluffy breeds are also known for egg production.
1. Dominique Chickens
Dominque chickens are among the most popular chicken breeds for farms of all sizes and backyard homesteads.
They are one of the oldest chicken breeds in North America, and their fluffy black and white barred feathers were a very common material used for stuffing mattresses and pillows during the colonial era. They are medium-sized chickens weighing 5 to 7 pounds once fully grown.
A well-cared-for Dominique chicken will produce several eggs a week, around 250 a year. They have gentle, tame dispositions and are rarely aggressive to other chickens, animals, and people. They like brooding eggs just as much as laying them if you decide to breed the next generation of your flock.
Dominique chickens like to roam and require a slightly larger space than other breeds. A big backyard should have plenty of room.
2. Ameraucana
The Ameraucana is another popular fluffy breed great for beginners and backyard suburban homesteaders. They were developed in the 1970s from the Araucana breed and belonged to a group of chickens known as Easter Eggers.
Easter Eggers are remarkable for producing eggs in a range of colorful pastel shades. The Ameraucana is known for producing light blue eggs.
Ameraucana comes in eight different colors, often with several shades scattered throughout their plumage. In addition to their fluffy bodies and tails, they also have a lot of fluff around their heads. They are an average-sized chicken breed weighing up to 5 or 7 pounds.
Ameraucana chickens usually produce 3 or 4 eggs each week. They are very resilient and alert, making them an excellent choice for free range. They are social with people but do not like being handled too much.
3. Chanetecler
Bred to withstand the cold of Canadian winters, these chickens are known for looking like cotton balls on their legs. Their fluff comes from their double coat. While the top layer of feathers is smooth, the underlayer is fluffy and soft to trap heat and keep them warm in even the harshest winters.
Chentecler chickens come in three different colors: partridge, buff, and white. They usually lay about 4 large brown eggs a week, giving you more than 200 eggs yearly.
This breed is known for being sweet but also very independent. They are very energetic and prefer to spend most of their time free-ranging.
Because they are so cold-hardy and resilient, they can pretty much free-range all year without a problem if you live in a cooler climate. Just be careful to provide them with plenty of shade and water if where you live gets hot in the summer.
4. Russian Orloff Chicken
As you might have guessed from the name, the Russian Orloff is also built to withstand extremely cold climates. As a result, it has a thick coat of fluffy feathers to help it stay warm.
If you live in a warm climate, this is probably not the bird for you. They are very adapted to cold weather and do not tolerate the heat well.
This chicken breed reaches an average weight of 7 to 9 pounds once fully grown. They are known to be easy-going and calm but are not the most cuddly chicken breed. A Russian Orloff could be a great choice if you’re looking for a low-maintenance chicken.
They come in white, red, black, and spangled. While they are better suited for meat production, they are also decent egg layers. They can produce around a hundred medium-sized light brown eggs each year.
4 Fluffy Show Chickens
We’ve seen many beautiful, eye-catching breeds on this list of fluffy chickens. While chickens were initially bred for food, favoring traits that lead to better meat quality and higher egg production, the 19th century saw a rise in breeding chickens for aesthetic purposes.
The first official poultry show, the Boston Poultry Expo, took place in 1849.
Today, people still breed and raise chickens for shows and competitions, with over a thousand shows nationwide each year.
Some fluffy chicken breeds are better suited to this lifestyle than egg-producing or brooding.
1. Polish Chickens
Polish chickens aren’t actually from Poland. One of their most distinctive features is a huge, fluffy crest of feathers that surrounds their heads and sometimes gets in their eyes.
This distinctive puff of feathers is where they got their name, as it resembles the large, square hats Polish soldiers used to wear.
You’d be forgiven for thinking that some of these chickens had bedhead, but that’s part of their fluffy charm. They are available in many colors, including buff-laced, silver, golden, and black and white. They are medium-sized chicken that grows to be between 5 and 7 pounds.
Polish chickens are neither great egg-layers nor meat producers. However, their distinctive looks and sweet, calm demeanor make them perfect for poultry shows and exhibitions.
2. Houdan Chickens
The Houdan is an average-sized chicken that hails from France. Their speckled black and white feathers are fluffy all over their bodies, particularly their heads and tails.
You might notice that these chickens resemble the Polish chicken, with a similar v-shaped crest of feathers sprouting from the top of their head to make it look like a little puffball.
Apart from their unique feathers, Houdan chickens also stand out from the coop because they have 5 toes on their feet instead of 4.
Once fully grown, your Houdan chicken will weigh somewhere between 6.5 and 8 pounds. They are decent egg-layers and can be used for meat production, but many people enter them into competitions because they look stunning and are easy to handle.
3. Sultan Chickens
Sultan Chickens, once known as the Serai Taook, come in a full-sized and bantam variety. A full-sized Sultan chicken is still relatively small at only 5 or 6 pounds, but the bantams rarely get larger than 2 pounds fully grown. This chicken was originally bred in Turkey.
Like the Burmese chicken, the Sultan chicken only comes in pure white. With their robust v-combs, large beards and muffs, and even feathered feet, they are pure balls of fluff from beak to tail. They are low-maintenance birds that will get along well in a mixed flock or as a family pet.
Sultan chickens have sweet, calm personalities and are very poor egg producers. On top of their unique appearance, this makes them very popular on the show circuit.
You will need to take extra care to ensure their white feathers stay white.
4. Yokohama Chickens
This breed—which comes from Germany, not Japan—was bred to be an ornamental and trophy breed. They have dense, luscious feathers all over their body, but their tails are especially impressive. A Yokohama’s tail feathers can grow up to 20 inches long.
Yokohama chickens come in either a white or red-saddled variety. Both have a pearly luster to their feathers, adding to their impressive looks. Though they are small, only growing to be around 5 pounds, they have big personalities.
Yokohama chickens are best suited for expert chicken keepers. They can be quite aggressive to other humans and animals. They also require particular living conditions. They don’t like confinement and will need ample space to roam.
You should also provide perches to keep their long tail feathers from dragging along the ground, especially if you intend to show them.
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Davin is a jack-of-all-trades but has professional training and experience in various home and garden subjects. He leans on other experts when needed and edits and fact-checks all articles.