Barnevelder productivity?

[verlaj]

I thought I would start a new thread on this topic, which was recently mentioned in another thread pertaining to Barnevelders and their feather patterns.

I have 4 Barnie pullets, now about 5 1/2 months old, purchased from Ideal. They are lovely, peace-loving birds. They have not yet started to lay.

Recently, someone posted that from 20 Barnies the average daily egg production was 3! Is this what is typical of Barnevelders? I don't need a lot of eggs and got the birds for their good looks and hopefully some darker brown eggs (for fun), but 3 eggs/20 hens is pretty sorry.

I was thinking of getting Barnie hatching eggs this spring because I like my pullets so much, but maybe I won't if they hardly lay any eggs.

I'm posting a recent photo here of one of my Ideal pullets - I'm happy with their good looks, although they seem a little small to me. Time will tell what color egg they will lay.

 

[EweSheep]

Coming off from a hatchery, they probably woudl do better than their purebred breeder's stock.

I had Barnvelder bantams and they are so so in the laying department. I was lucky to get four eggs a week out of them for two months and the rest of the time, it was here and there. It has been about five years ago since I had them. Today, maybe they will be better.

 

[Chickndaddy]

Pullets that had just began to lay produced more eggs for me as well for a few weeks and then they slowed down to. They are also seasonal in my experience and do not lay throughout the year.

I have to say it is possible but not likely that a predator might have been getting the eggs as they were in a pen right off the woods and furthest from the house. However I collected eggs twice a day (usually) and the guineas, Welsummers, Marans, and the other birds in that row of pens never seemed to be unusually unproductive.

Egg color was also very light. The pullet eggs were a few shades darker than a typical Rhode Island Red egg but they lightened considerably. However they put a very distinctive 'bloom'
on their eggs; very glossy.

I raised the Barnevelder (and White Java) chicks with my bantam chicks because they seemed unthrifty and did not develop as quickly as my other large fowl breeds.

They are beautiful birds and if I ever get chickens I plan on getting some more despite some of their traits I find less than desirable. Perhaps one could work on crossing a more productive dark-laying breed into them and work for a while to establish a better Barnevelder.

By the way, mine were not Hatchery stock, I had them before any hatcheries that I know of did. They were supposed to be directly from Lowell Barber.

 

[astatula]

My Barne's have just started laying and I am getting an egg every other day from each of the two hens, and usually on the same day. I think you could expect 3-4 eggs each week from each laying hen.

My Americana lays everyday, a beautiful light blue egg. I never expected an egg every day but she is the ruler of the roost.

Barnevelders are such beautiful, polite birds, I would keep them even if they didn't lay at all.

 

[verlaj]

Well - 3-4 eggs/wk/hen is not too bad. More than enough for eating!
But I wouldn't want to be feeding 20 of them to get 3 eggs/wk!!

Astatula - where did your Barnies come from?

We'll see what mine do when they get started, if I can tell their eggs from the others. I agree about their sweet nature and beauty, though. Mine are quite shy, but they do not make any trouble with the other birds. Despite their passive nature (or maybe because of it), no one seems to pick on them, either.

Thanks, everyone, for your comments. I'll post when they lay eggs - to report color and number, if I can tell.