What hens lay the biggest eggs?

[juilly]

Question for all you knowledgeable folk...

What bread lay the biggest egg?

One of my girls lay eggs which average about 64g but all the others lay ones 38-58g

[manda]

If you have a wander around the good old www my go to place is the Henderson's Chicken Breed Chart.
Out of the breeds - the eggs get larger as the hen gets older...but...Henderson's (after all these bods got together) decided that these ones lay the biggest eggs....and this i s what they said.

According to Henderson's, there are at least a dozen chicken breeds that produce large eggs. The chart lumps together large, extra large and jumbo into its "large" classification. There is also variation among hens of a breed, depending on their health and age. The older and healthier a hen is, the larger her eggs usually are. Egg sizes are jumbo, extra large, large, medium, small and tiny. Extra large, large and medium are the most common sizes available. Since one person's "jumbo" can be another person's "large," sizes are classified by the net weight in grams or ounces of a dozen eggs. Across the United States, the average weight of a single large egg is 5 grams (2.1 ounces). Whereas it takes 5 large eggs to make a cup, it only takes 4 jumbo or extra large eggs.


It is generally agreed among producers that the following five breeds are the best for producing the largest eggs.

Barnevelder - Developed in Holland in the late 1800s, the Barnevelder is famous for its very dark brown, jumbo-sized eggs. This is a dual-purpose meat/layer breed, and the chicks are slow to mature.

Red Star Sexlink - The Murray McMurray Hatchery and other hatcheries market a number of sexlink chicken varieties. Although the McMurray website describes the brown eggs as large, according to several producer testimonials, the Red Star Sexlink can produce extra large to jumbo eggs.

Rhode Island Red - Developed in New England in the 1800s, the Rhode Island Red gets the vote across the board for consistently laying large to extra large brown eggs. It is a hardy breed and adapts well to confinement or free range.

Commercial Leghorn - The leghorn is one of the most popular breeds in the world. As a historic breed it is a good egg producer. But the specially bred commercial varieties now available are egg "factories." They are hardy and they mature earlier than most breeds. Their white eggs are large to extra large, and they are thrifty in converting feed to egg production.

Delaware - This rare breed was developed in Delaware in 1940. It is hardy, calm and matures early. The hens lay large to extra large brown eggs.

There are several qualified runners up in the "biggest egg" debate. The Plymouth Rock, Andalusian, Chantecler, Minorca, New Hampshire, Welsummer, and Wyandotte are all listed by Henderson's Chicken Breed Chart as producing large eggs. Some producers report their Turkens (also called Naked Necks) lay the largest eggs of any of their chickens.

References: Henderson's Chicken Breed Chart; Blogs and testimonials by chicken hobbyists; Murray McMurray Hatchery website; Ideal Poultry website; Learn More About Eggs website.

Henderson's Chicken Breed Chart ...just because I love looking at it (not sure what that says about me LOL!!)

[juilly]

thanks as always Manda!

in one night I've added another 4 chicken breeds to the wish list - opps!

[Mo]

My favourites, Black Rock, are a cross between Rhode Is & Plymouth Rock, so their big eggs are predictable. And the White Star also laid big eggs and I see she was developed from Leghorn (early developer too and an egg machine in the first year but had shell problems after that).

[kitla]

My bantam leghorn used to lay very large eggs for her size, but every so often she
had problems with her shells. My bantam brahma is the same, I wonder if with some
breeds large eggs may mean shorter lives?

[chookmike]

Who's had the biggest egg then. Our RIR bitza regularly laid eggs in the 90g range and one of 102g!

Cheers

Mike

[HedgeHugger]

I have a trio of Welsummers.
Ruby regularly lays eggs in the high 90's and has gone over the ton too. In fact her smallest eggs are also in the 90's lol.
I weighed one the other day and it was 98g.
Through the first year of having laying hens I marked down who laid and what the egg weighed, bit of an anorak hehe. I haven't bothered in subsequent years.

The other 2 vary between mid 50's up to70's.
That's grams btw,

[juilly]

We had the biggest one so far in our chicken keeping adventure. 76g by Betty our H&N Brown Nick! The others lay around the 60g mark but some days we can get little tiddlers at 30-40g!!!

[JD1970]

We had a 100g egg once. On another occasion we had a 25g and 81g laid on the same day. All ex-bats.

[eitoof]

My ex batts always came out on top in the "biggest egg" competition! Quite a few double yolks too.....

[bikesandbirdsbob]

Hi , I will throw my two pence in .
Chap at work asked me why in Turkey they have white eggs and not in Britain . - I said it was the breed of girls . I brought a lovelly white egg in today , the colours can be so good . green, blues and browns and whites and everything in between .
bob

[Mo]

Hi , I will throw my two pence in .
Chap at work asked me why in Turkey they have white eggs and not in Britain . - I said it was the breed of girls . I brought a lovelly white egg in today , the colours can be so good . green, blues and browns and whites and everything in between .
bob

On that score - battery eggs always used to be white, as they breeds that laid most in shortest time on least food laid white eggs. But the public remembered proper Farmyard Eggs with brown shells. So the breeders went for egg- machines that laid brown eggs to keep in batteries.
OTOH the American public thinks White eggs are cleaner. (I think I heard)

[bikesandbirdsbob]

Hi ,not forgetting the taste of a fresh egg.So , colour ,size and taste.
That now depends on your own sense of taste as to which chicken bred is the best. So everyone is a winner .
Bob

[DaveEllon]

My generic little brown and white battery farm hen Clare, bought from an actual battery farm, lays eggs that are 80g on average and the biggest so far is 121g. They won't fit into regular egg boxes and still get the lid closed. She runs free all day, gets a lovely mixed diet from spilled feed up at the farm next door, bugs, grass, worms and dock leaves. I know that one day they'll probably run her over with a tractor but I had to weigh up her happiness being shut up in a coop all the time or running free with more risk. She pretty savvy when she's going up and down the farm track though. If she hears anything coming she's into the bushes in a flash. She even looks both ways before crossing it.

She sleeps in a straw filled tyre in the garage where she's snug as a bug in a rug. She's back there every night at before dusk and there's an egg in it every morning. I shut her in when it's dark to keep her safe and let her out again next day. She makes a big fuss of me every morning, clucking away to me and coming to be petted and then off for another day of foraging.

[Mo]

She sounds happy. Is she an 'only hen' or do you have more?
Welcome to the Lane.