Village chickens have been kept for millennia under patronage of smallholder farmers. Our study was intended at dissecting the signature of artificial selection and ecological variation on morphological structures of Ethiopian village chickens. This report was based on visual traits of 798 chickens and a concise one-to-one interview of 399 farmers for their preferences on chicken morphology. Significant population-specific differences in morphological counts were commonly found for rare morphological variants. Most of them were frequently seen in Jarso chickens, while some of them unique to Jarso chickens. This might be explained by the effect of location-specific evolutionary forces and differences in their breeding histories. The high within population variation in the frequency of morphological counts was observed among these panmictic chicken populations largely evolved under uncontrolled mating. Single comb was not (less) preferred by majority of the farmers (93.8 percent); it was thus present at a low frequency (26.7 percent). Farmers have shown high preference for yellow shank (42.3 percent), which was then frequently observed (61.1 percent). The reported reasons for morphological likeness were visual appeal, market demand and cultural and religious values. The absence of significant variation in preferences for chicken morphology among communities between the two study sites was attributed to their multifunctional needs.