What breed is this?

[Kev]

I agree with production reds, especially if eggs were brown. however it's not unknown for fertile egg market flocks to have hens of X and roosters can be "anything goes". So they could be something like ?? roo bred over production red hens.

If leghorns were involved almost assuredly they will have dominant white, which turns black pigments to white. Those have plenty of black pigmentation, making leghorns not very likely at all.

 

[Johnnycake]

The eggs were procured from a small fruit and veg supermarket that stocks local produce. The egg colour was light brown if that helps.

 

[Kev]

yes likely production red hens laid those eggs at least. Wont be sure if theyre pure production reds or not until they're fully grown.

 

[WalkingOnSunshine]

It's also highly possible the eggs were laid by some form of red sex link. RSL are the majority of my laying flock. And since RSL can be made using most red roosters (production Red, New Hampshire Red, Rhode Island Red) over a few different kinds of white or Columbian hen (White Rock, Silver Laced Wyandotte, Rhode Island White, Delaware, Columbian Wyandotte) and different hatcheries use different "recipes," there could be lots of different choices for breed in the hen. Figuring out the father in the breed mix is going to be even trickier.

I sell my eggs to a local supermarket, and if the person who sold them was anything like me, I keep roosters partly for my personal amusement. So right now I have a RIR rooster which helps me make more sex links, an Ameraucana to help me make more EEs, and a Marans because the lovely person who gave me the Ameraucana had an extra Marans as well, which I had room for.

Your babies don't look like EEs, so an Ameraucana as the rooster is probably out, and they don't have feathers on their legs, so a French Marans is out, but there are a ton of other possibles for the rooster. I don't think that you have pure production Red, or something like a Speckled Sussex which doesn't lay super well and often lays very pale medium sized eggs.

 

[normanack]

If it doesn't ruin the fun, you could look at the egg carton and contact the chicken farm (the seller might also help).

 

[WalkingOnSunshine]

If it doesn't ruin the fun, you could look at the egg carton and contact the chicken farm (the seller might also help).

Now why would they want to go do something so reasonable when it's so much fun to speculate?

 

[Kev]

I did consider red sex links. The numbers are quite small, only 4 chicks.. with none of them showing any dominant white, figured the chances of red sex link as mothers was somewhat low. Red sex link hens bred with something like production red or RIR would give half chicks with the black replaced by white. Had any of them showed this trait, red sex link hens would have been instant top guess for me.

It's also highly possible the eggs were laid by some form of red sex link. RSL are the majority of my laying flock. And since RSL can be made using most red roosters (production Red, New Hampshire Red, Rhode Island Red) over a few different kinds of white or Columbian hen (White Rock, Silver Laced Wyandotte, Rhode Island White, Delaware, Columbian Wyandotte) and different hatcheries use different "recipes," there could be lots of different choices for breed in the hen. Figuring out the father in the breed mix is going to be even trickier.

I sell my eggs to a local supermarket, and if the person who sold them was anything like me, I keep roosters partly for my personal amusement. So right now I have a RIR rooster which helps me make more sex links, an Ameraucana to help me make more EEs, and a Marans because the lovely person who gave me the Ameraucana had an extra Marans as well, which I had room for.

Your babies don't look like EEs, so an Ameraucana as the rooster is probably out, and they don't have feathers on their legs, so a French Marans is out, but there are a ton of other possibles for the rooster. I don't think that you have pure production Red, or something like a Speckled Sussex which doesn't lay super well and often lays very pale medium sized eggs.

 

[normanack]

Now why would they want to go do something so reasonable when it's so much fun to speculate?

True.