Brown Egg Laying Hens

[elpelon8185]

What are the 4 best brown egg laying hens?

Which one lays the biggest egg?

 

[lazy gardener]

If you want lots of large brown eggs, choose a sex linked bird. I'm partial to black sex links b/c I like the darker coloring. But they come in lots of different colors. You can plan on 2 good years of eggs before they quit, then you'll have to replace them for continued production. If you don't want to replace your flock every 2 years, choose a heritage breed that will give you nice eggs, not quite as frequently, but will lay for more than 2 years. check Henderson's chicken breed chart, then do a thread search re: the breeds that interest you. Happy hunting. That's half the fun of keeping BYC.

 

[One Chick Two]

You could try Australorps, Barred Rocks, Black or Red Sex links, or Speckled Sussex. All beautiful dual purpose breeds.

Very dark Brown egg layers: (They don't lay as many eggs overall, but they are much darker brown eggs.)
Marans (love this breed. Some lay very large, dark speckled eggs) and Welsummers (speckled eggs usually)- both gorgeous birds.

Although Heritage RIR are very lovely, their overall laying ability is currently up for debate.

I love our Production Reds (we have 83 of them) and they are the best layers! But, the colors and sizes of the eggs vary all over the place. The eggs are mostly mediums. They are supposed to be large brown egg layers, but the colors range from pastel beiges, pink, peach, light-dark tan, with only a few brown and one who almost has a purpley-hued egg. Some are speckled.

Because of all of the surprise colors of our PR, we do have FBCM Marans to fill in some dark eggs for our egg basket. This year we also hope to add some blue/ green egg layers and make olive eggers (Blue or green egg layer mixed with Marans or other brown egg layer.)

Good luck!

 

[Kelsie2290]

Probably the best/biggest brown egg layers on average are the commercial red sex links like Red Stars, Golden Comets, ISA Browns etc. The commercial Rhode Island Reds / Production Reds are probably next. Australorps maybe third. There are a lot of other brown egg layers that are quite popular that are good layers if not quite as many, Delawares seem to lay a nice big egg, Plymouth Rocks, New Hampshire Reds, Orpingtons (broody though), Wyandottes, Sussex, Naked Necks etc.