Statistically, What is the Best Brown Egg Layer, excluding sexlinks.

[Celtic Hill]

I was wondering Statistically what is the Best Brown Egg Layer excluding sexlinks?

I did a search her but only got people's thoughts.

 

[A.T. Hagan]

Back in the day when they were still a commercially important bird Rhode Island Reds edged out Plymouth Barred Rocks by a small margin. They were two of the leading dual-purpose birds.

But that was decades ago. Nowadays it's all show birds or birds that haven't really been selected for anything other than looking more or less like the breed they are supposed to be.

 

[Celtic Hill]

Okay he second part of your post confused me.

So basically RIRs and Brs?

 

[speckledhen]

I would say RIRs or Rocks would be your best brown egg layers, other than sexlinks. Not sure if I've seen a recent study about that, though. Here, the Rocks rule.

 

[punky rooster]

I'm pretty sure Black austrolorp has the record with 364 eggs in a year

 

[cybercat]

Yes Punky is right. But this was not a hatchery chicken it was breed to perform. You will be very lucky to find one that lays anywhere near that. Now days the most you will see is 190. Barred rocks or RIR will get you close to that but you can breed up to it if you want to with both those breeds.

 

[Whispering Winds]

My neighbor told me the other day that he has 186 layers. All confined, never see sunlight . . .but Monday he got 183 eggs and Tuesday he got 186 out of 186 and he said the Red Sex links are unbelievable layers . . .he had leghorns, but wasn't as pleased with them as the others. . .and said this time he was going to order the black sex links . . .not really an answer to your question but I was amazed that with the cold cold weather we have been having that he got 100% return!!!

 

[Celtic Hill]

Quote:
But those must be unhappy chickens, that's cruel.

 

[Fred's Hens]

There are production strains of RIR that compete with the sex links of Warren/I.S.A. genetics groups.
Production Reds are hardly traditional RIRs, but nice birds that will lay 320 each of their peak two years.
There are also production version of the Barred Rocks, lighter bodied and bred to lay, but I haven't seen claims for numbers, but to call them production, they'd have to produce over 250, or I would avoid the label of "production".

Whether it sex linked or not, anything that is production level is going to be highly selected genetically for egg laying.

The sex link is merely crossing two production strains for parent stock. I personally don't see the difference in buying either the individual parent stock or buying the sex linked offspring.

 

[Fred's Hens]

Quote:
A producer who is as "bottom line" oriented as your neighbor isn't likely to like the black sex links nearly as well. They lay well, but as not well as what he has, the birds are bigger and their feed conversion isn't as efficient. It is possible that the neighbor uses floor system? You didn't say whether or not they were caged.