Buckeye Chicken

Buckeye Chicken is an American breed created in 1896 by Nettie Metcalf of Warren, Ohio, making it the only American chicken breed known to have been developed by a woman, notwithstanding that women had long managed poultry flocks throughout American history. Metcalf crossed Barred Plymouth Rock, Buff Cochin and black-breasted red game stock to produce a functional dual purpose bird suited to harsh Midwestern winters, and gave it a mahogany-red plumage with black tail feathers deliberately chosen to echo the seed color of the Ohio buckeye tree, matching the state's Buckeye State nickname. The breed is valued for meat and brown eggs, has yellow skin, and is notable as the only purely American chicken breed to carry a pea comb, a trait that contributes to its strong cold hardiness; standard males average about 9 pounds and hens about 6.5 pounds. Buckeye Chicken is now listed as threatened by the Livestock Conservancy as of 2022 and included in Slow Food USA's Ark of Taste catalogue of heritage foods at risk of disappearing, with fewer than 5,000 breeding birds remaining in the United States.