wrote:
I was surprised when I looked up hens/chickens to see how many
varieties there are, even the bantams seem to have a few variants.
I was sort of hoping to find a couple of varieties to pick from
but there's too much choice really.

We get ours from he
http://www.cambridgepoultry.co.uk/chickens.html
(except not the bantams, they were given to us as teeny things by a friend
of Nick's - we were lucky they both turned out to be girls, cos they were a
bit young to sex a tht time!)

I have two options, one is too seek breeds further afield and the
other is to visit our local farmer (who the wife knows) to see
what they have as they do supply chickens.

Probably best. :-)

I think it will depend on what is available tome locally as I
don't want to travel too far so this might limit the availability
and I may have to accept what's available locally.

I'd strongly recommend the white leghorn, though. Huge white eggs (bigger
than they look like she ought to be able to lay!) and very reliable