Black and White Chicken Breeds in Australia: Names, Patterns and Picks

Silver Laced Wyandotte

The Showstopper

Black and white laced chicken. If any chicken deserves the label "Gothic elegance," it's the Silver Laced Wyandotte. Each feather is a work of art—silvery white centres outlined in crisp black lacing, creating a black and white speckled pattern that looks almost hand-drawn.

Originally bred in the cooler climates of North America, Wyandottes are naturally cold-hardy—ideal for keepers in Victoria, Tasmania, and the southern highlands. But don't count them out in warmer regions: with proper shade and ventilation, they handle moderate Australian heat surprisingly well.

They're steady layers of 180–220 brown eggs per year and have a calm, somewhat aloof personality. Wyandottes tend to be at the top of the pecking order without being aggressive—a quiet confidence that makes them easy to manage in mixed flocks.

Perfect for southern climates—see our Victoria & Tasmania Breed Guide on the main breeds page.

The Ancona

The Starry Night

Black and white speckled chicken. A Mediterranean masterpiece. Black feathers with white V-shaped tips give them a distinctive mottled look that resembles a starry night sky—one of the most sought-after black and white speckled patterns in poultry. No two Anconas are patterned exactly alike, making each bird uniquely beautiful.

They are incredible layers, producing 220+ eggs per year of white to cream-coloured eggs. Being from Italy, they handle the Australian heat better than almost any other monochrome breed—their light body weight and active foraging habits keep them cool and productive through summer.

Anconas are energetic, alert, and excellent free-rangers. They're more independent than some breeds, which makes them ideal for larger backyards where they can explore and forage to their heart's content.

Austra White

The Hybrid Layer

White chicken with black spots. The Austra White isn't a heritage breed in the traditional sense — it's a cross between the White Leghorn and the Black Australorp, first developed by an American hatchery in the early 1900s. Despite the name, it isn't genuinely an Australian breed; "Austra" refers to its Australorp parentage rather than its country of origin. It's a genuinely useful cross to know, though, and turns up regularly on Australian hatchery lists and in backyard flocks.

Visually, it's one of the more distinctive patterns on this page — a white body flecked with black spots, inherited from crossing a solid-white Leghorn with a solid-black Australorp. That's a different look from the barring, lacing or mottling of the other breeds here, and probably the closest match on this page to a true "white chicken with black spots."

Temperament is typically calm and easygoing — less flighty than a purebred Leghorn, about as relaxed as an Australorp — and they lay reliably, with most sources putting annual output somewhere in the 200s to high 200s of light brown to off-white eggs. Like their Australorp parent, they're generally considered good in both heat and cold, though as with any breed, shade and fresh water still matter through an Australian summer.

Telling one apart from its parent breeds comes down to the flecking: a purebred Australorp is solid black with that iridescent green-black sheen in the sun, a Leghorn is solid white, and an Austra White sits visually in between — white plumage scattered with black speckling.