Comercial layers for back yard?

[Don Jr]

What yall think? And maybe cross with RIR!

 

[dragonlair]

I had a couple (Free Bird and Loosey) of commercial pullets that managed to escape from one of those horrible hen transport trucks on their way to the egg farm. They were the red sex links and did great in my flock of EE's. They lived in a coop at night with free range during the day.

 

[Don Jr]

I already have sex links. I want some comercial leg horns to cross with a RIR.

 

[melody123]

My father picked up some white leghorns at an auction cheap. They looked horrible, especially with their mutilated beaks an tattered feathers. I was totally prepared to hate the breed and believed them to be stupid and inferior to other chickens.

But they turned out to be wonderful chickens. Once they got over their initial scare of being outside a cage, they did wonderfully. Their feathers, which had been dull and dirty, cleaned up beautifully. They took to free ranging like they were born to it and outlay all my other birds. They are now in the 3-4 year range, continue to lay up a storm, and are nice and friendly chickens.

It's a crime that these nice birds are confined to a cage when they are meant to be free.

Get some leghorns, and some Rhodies, and some easter eggers, and some wellsummers or maurans. That way you will always have a rainbow of eggs.

btw - leghorn crosses can lay white, cream, or light brown eggs. You won't really know what they will lay until they start laying.

 

[Marlinchaser]

Quote:
Okay in what world were leghorns meant to be free, they were breed to be egg laying machines(which they are) they have one of the if not the best food to egg conversion ratio. If leghorns were free and running wild there would be just as many WILD leghorns as there are now. 0 There is a reason why White there are no wild Leghorns. Because in the GAME of Nature, white is the easiest to be spotted and becomes pray for the same reason.

 

[Bunnylady]

I had a few Pearl Leghorns at one time. "Egg laying machines" about sums it up! I don't know how she did it, but one bird was putting out 3 eggs every 2 days for the first year or so. Whoppin' great big eggs, too! How anyone managed to squeeze such a big egg-laying apparatus into such small hens, I'll never know. These girls were all business. They weren't cranky or nasty, but they weren't really friendly, either. You might say that ours was more of a professional relationship. They liked free-ranging a little too well - I had to keep their wings clipped to keep them inside the pasture fence.