Delaware

An American dual-purpose breed developed in 1940 by George Ellis of Delaware by crossing Barred Plymouth Rock males with New Hampshire Red females, selecting offspring with fast early feathering and a clean white plumage with limited black barring. Delawares are white chickens with distinctive black barring restricted to the neck hackle, tail, and primary wing feathers — a clean, attractive pattern that camouflages well in farmyard conditions. Originally developed for the commercial broiler industry of the Delmarva Peninsula, Delawares produced most of America's commercial chicken meat throughout the 1940s before being almost entirely replaced by the Cornish Cross hybrid in the early 1960s.