Production Reds

[KaelaM]

I want to get a couple production reds, and I wanted some opinions on them based on your experiences. I have also heard that they do not live very long because of how much they lay. Is this true?

 

[Darklingstorm]

I have 3 production hens now 1.5 years old and still laying very well. My three girls are work horses and spend all their time eating and laying, there for spend little time worrying about a pecking order (of which they are in the middle). Their egg production has changed to slightly smaller eggs but I think it has to do with the heat here more than anything.
They will eat out of anyone's hand as long as they get food. They don't eat more than another chicken but they are not timid about getting their food either.

I have not heard of them dieing off early because of egg production but stop laying sooner yes because they lay so many. IMO I think any well taken care of chicken can live a long life no matter the breed.

 

[Fred's Hens]

The established breeds, those accepted by the APA, for example, have a standard, an objective standard to which to breed and critique them.

The difficulty in making generalities or applicable statements about a production red is that there is no objective standard or definition of what that bird even is. It's all subjective and anyone can make pretty much breed a reddish rusty bird and call it a production red. This is also true of any non-standard bird, hybrid, mixes, not bred to type chicken.

This doesn't mean such birds are bad, or poor, or anything like that. It just means that there simply is no standard to which to judge and it is pretty much a wide open, almost anything goes deal. Predicting longevity is difficult to impossible.