Mixed brown layers

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You haven't seen articles on the Rainbows because they're not really a breed. They're a mix of the hatchery only knows what. Coloring is all over the place, but they all tend to be large, meaty birds. I'm intrigued by them and had planned to add some to my flock for meat birds.....then I ordered 5 dark Cornish hens to be broody mommas as well as add some bulk to the flock, and got an Oops rooster I simply fell in love with. Now my plan is to breed some Dark Cornish for meat birds....plans change! I also want to put my Danny over my partridge Rock and Wyandotte mix hens to see how the cockerels come out....but that's off topic.

I agree the Pioneers seem to be great homestead birds. There are folks here who have held the pullets over for layers and are happy with them. Not sure how they'd do breeding for several generations, but honestly most backyarders bring in new blood every few years anyway.
 
Romoshka said:
Thought I had posted this reply but I don't see it in the thread so here goes...again. Since first starting this thread back on 7/3/14 I had figured that leghorns lay white eggs and have determined that my white birds are Rhode Island whites.

After donrae's post above I went hunting data/information and am now certain that the big birds are indeed Pioneer, also known as Dixie or Rainbow Dixie. Thank you donrae! These are fast developing, heavy/meaty birds that lay 280-300 eggs/year, are docile/even tempered and seem, to me based on what I've now read about them, to be the idea dual purpose homestead bird but I've never seen this bred mentioned in any dual-purpose/homesteading articles.

Since so many have been so helpful perhaps I can get some help in identifying the rest of this flock. Having identified the Pioneer and the Rhode Island whites there are 3 more breeds. While my interest is purely academic others may benefit from this exercise so I'll post pictures.
Click to expand...

Oh, I would have guessed White Plymouth Rocks as they are more common and not as many hatcheries have Rhode Island Whites. Now have to go look at what the differces would be.
 
farnorth said: Oh, I would have guessed White Plymouth Rocks as they are more common and not as many hatcheries have Rhode Island Whites. Now have to go look at what the differces would be.

Well it certainly looks like you're probably right. When attempting to ID these mixed flock I googled pure white brown egg layer and Rhode Island White came up and the photos looked similar enough that I was satisfied. Now researching more I see that RIWs are rather rare. The internet pictures seem to focus on roosters but the hen pics don't show me much difference. The scarcity of the RIWs would strongly indicate that I most likely have white Plymouth Rocks.

Thanks for educating me.
 

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