Delaware Chicken

Delaware is a chicken breed developed in the state of Delaware in the United States in the 1940s, arising from a naturally occurring color pattern, a mostly white bird with black barring on the neck and tail, that appeared as a byproduct of crosses between Barred Plymouth Rock and New Hampshire stock used in early broiler breeding programs. Breeders selected and fixed the pattern into a standardized breed, and for a period in the mid twentieth century Delaware was a significant commercial broiler breed on the Delmarva Peninsula, then one of the centers of the American poultry meat industry, before faster growing specialized hybrid broilers displaced it commercially by the 1950s and 1960s. It is a dual purpose bird, valued historically for both meat and egg production. Delaware survives today as a rare heritage breed conserved mainly by hobbyist and heritage poultry keepers.