White Egg Layers?

[julesapple]

Every colour egg but white....




Recommendations for large fowl white egg layers?

A lot seem to be very flighty, so I'm looking for something a bit more grounded.

Ta!

[chris]

Leghorns?

I've a white star (hybrid) - not been off lay for 1 day and for the size of the bird lays huge white, rock hard shelled eggs.

[darcyvuqua]

Light Sussex?

[Bill HH]

Sussex eggs are not white (Pure white) they tend to be slightly coloured, most pure white layers derive from leghorns. We produced brown eggs from rhode island reds and in the 60's there was an upsurge in imported American leghorns/hybrids (thornber 404's) laying white eggs. The reason for this was they are smaller birds and producers could squeeze 5 or six birds into a battery cage that would only hold 3 rhodes. This gave them a tremendous commmercial advantage, a producer could keep twice as many birds with the same financial outlay. The fact that most people didnt want white eggs seemed to make no difference. Almost every egg for sale in supermarkets was white. Unfortunately these birds brought with them devastating diseases, fowl pest, Mareks disease and infectious bronchitis which our healthy home produced birds had no resistance to. We lost thousands of beautiful point of lay birds on the one hand to disease and lost sales because of the commercial advantage of smalller birds. Vaccines were later developed but it came too late. Eventualy brown eggs fought their way back and now most eggs are brown. The other nail in the coffin for Rhode island red was the egg size, most of their eggs were well over the large size, so every time we sold a dozen large eggs we were effectivly giving away free egg. later hybrid brown eggers such as Warrens (deveoped from Rhode x leghorns) layed smaller eggs just making the weight to large for the majority of the eggs.
Leghorns do tend to be flighty and I hate the little buggers.

[Mikey]

Like Chris I have a white star hybrid, I believe its the layer of choice for the American market as it lays large white eggs in relation to its size (they prefer this to a brown egg apparently), she's quite diminutive in stature, she can be a bit flighty and wary of being handled, but I think that has more to do with the fact I got her at POL rather than a chick. She is a lovely docile quiet girl though, it takes a lot to get her squawking.

If you saw the eggs you would think they came from a much larger bird mind, I've attached a piccie in my not so small male hands. They weigh in at approx 75g for a 2 year old bird that still lays 5-6 days out of 7.

[julesapple]

Quite fancy a Brown Leghorn, Chris.

We have a Light Sussex, her eggs are a pale pinky tint. My god, she's got a gob on her if you heard her, without seeing her first, you'd think she was a goose!

We once hatched a load of white Leghorns. The ebay seller told us they were an unusual breed, forget what now, so I bought a dozen eggs. They all hatched, they were all white leghorns and not the golden colour chooks we were under the impression we had bought. They were the most skittish things ever, from day one. We got rid of them to a free range poultry place. (consequently the ebay seller was banned - he ripped a load of buyer off)

It's lethal looking at chook breeds. Glad we haven't a 'bator any more!!

[chris]

Mine isn't flighy - skittish yes, but I haven't spent a lot of time with her. I was thinking about picking another up, as her eggs are the ones I always poach I have the same (but less, obviously!) as you JA - and wanted a white one to complete the colouring

They are small framed birds, compared to my bluebell (who no joke is the size of a cockerel - oh on that note... amusing to me someone near us has obviously got chickens, I think perhaps young pullets/POLs - bar one.. Who is the loudest bleeding cockerel you've ever heard). Bet their neighbours were annoyed, and no doubt bought them from the rubbish hole that is a battery place near me... anyway yeah it's mad as when I pick up the bluebell to have a look to make sure all is well, then grab the white star I almost throw her over my head due to the weight difference. She is very fast on her legs, much faster than the others.

[RichmondHens]

Minorcas lay pure white eggs and generally they weigh in larger than leghorn eggs. I keep both leghorns and minorcas although am winding up the leghorns and only going to continue with the minorcas. Minorcas are slightly larger birds than leghorns and mine are quite calm. However they don't like being handled and wriggle endlessly when being dusted/examined but are otherwise reasonably easy birds.

[ploshkin]

I too had every egg colour but white. I went for some Exchequer Leghorns, very striking birds. They have been laying at 5 eggs each a week for several weeks now.

[Floyd]

Our crazy Polish lays pure white eggs, however she has only started laying again this week after a barren spell of about 5 months. They're a funny little breed and completely crackers, but I wouldn't recommend them to anyone wanting a regular supply of eggs from them.