What chickens to get? (srsly)

[Road_Warrior]

We've decided we are going to get 2 maybe 3 chickens for our yard. For no other reason than because we can, but also for eggs and to keep some of the insects and other junk in the garden down. We will be getting hens for laying only and will have the run of our backyard which is a typical 1960's size suburban back yard (i.e. big)

Question for those who have chooks: is there any particular breed that is better than others for laying? We don't want 50 billion eggs a day, but we don't want 3 slack *** hens that do stuff all but eat all the time either. We have been told that certain varieties of chook are better layers than others, and have a longer lifespan (we don't want to get hens that only have a 12 month lifespan).

Anything else I should know? We've got a chook run in the works so that's covered.