Brown eggs from white leghorns???

[TeaLady]

Last spring I got some "speckled sussex" from the feed store. If I had seen a picture of sussex chicks and / or one of white leghorn chicks, I probably would have kept looking for real speckled sussex. When the birds feathered out they looked a lot like white leghorns, & then I found a picture of white leghorn chicks and they were my babies, right down to that pale apricot at the base of the wings.

The girls have been laying regularly, and the eggs are brown, not white. Is there a breed that looks real leghornish but lays brown eggs? Do I have a set of three freak leghorns? Just curious.

 

[mikarod]

Could be White Rocks.

Do they have white earlobes or red earlobes? (The fleshy part just underneath the ear opening on the head.)

 

[rooster-red]

Leghorns only lay white eggs.

Sounds like you have white rocks.

Are their combs sticking up or floppy?

 

[TeaLady]

Red lobes.

 

[mikarod]

White Rocks.

To me they look totally different than Leghorns, but I can see how they could be confused.

 

[TeaLady]

And the combs stick straight up.

Sounds like White Rocks, then. They are a lot bigger than either the EEs or the Aussies, with deep plump breasts. They don't like to be held as much as the other birds, but they aren't terribly flighty either.

 

[TeaLady]

LOL, if I had ever seen leghorns, white rocks, or speckled sussex I might have spotted the difference.

Thanks so much for clearing up the mystery.

 

[joanc]

My white leghorns are significantly smaller than my buff rocks (i don't have any white rocks).
The combs on the leghorns are very floppy, whereas the combs on my rocks are smaller and stick straight up.
I have speckled sussex too, and they have a body size/shape somewhere in the middle between the leghorns and the rocks.
Hope this helps.