I'll just post them anyway I guess. These came from a person with a beautiful RIR rooster that had the nice dark color, but the hens were light so I guess my hens would count as production reds but I like to call them my pet quality RIRs.
the term 'production red' is a rather unfortunate term, imho.
they are descended from rhode island reds, although some in some places used NH as a cross with the RIR. Why, i can't figure out, if one wanted a laying machine............
Production reds are simply non show quality, non standard bred RIR (in at least some, if not most cases, excepting those which are part NH).
lovely birds, and i have a bunch and will be breeding them
I just got some" Production Reds" as we are refering to them; all of my chickens are hatchery grade. Theses guys are second generation from McMurry stock. The mature birds mine came from looked great. As I understand it, NHR and RIR have been mixed together in the past to increase egg production. There are "Pure Bred" RIRs, but they are very dark red and a smaller more compact bird. I'm looking forward to crossing my RIR rooster with a White Rock and see if I can breed sex links.