Poultry Talk Ontario (pto.ca)

Hi, I understand that for pure brown egg laying ability I can't beat the hybrid hens. I have had the red sexlinked but wonder if the black sexlinked lay as well. I would like to alternate my replacement layers so I don't have to worry about banding birds.

well now thats a great idea!

I loved my 2 black sexlinked birds. They laid 5 eggs per week as pullets. Even as she got older my Nearly laid 2/3 perweek at 4 yrs and was just starting to lay again when she was killed. Lovely nature too and great little foragers.

Do they lay as well as the red sexlinked though?

Never had the reds - sorry!

do they lay an extra large egg every day for most of the year KB?

Except at moult. Now I only had 2 so a small sample size!

I only have one BSL, who was already 3 when I got her. She is one of my favourite hens, personality-wise.
She has laid 5-6 eggs a week all during the warmer months for the two years I've had her, and she had a hard moult in January of last year, and it didn't take long for her to resume laying. She's 5 now, and this winter stopped laying in late January when she went into her annual moult again. It's a slow moult this year, so she hasn't resumed laying again yet.
Since I've had her, she has sometimes had challenges with the quality of her eggs shells, in large part because she's getting on in age and it's harder to pull calcium and nutrients in general from what she eats. I think too, that pumping out so many eggs almost every day of her life is a factor in shell quality. Fermented grains seem to help with the thickness of her egg shells, she gets plenty of greens that are high in calcium such a chard and kale in the summer months, and I'm going to try adding liquid calcium to her diet when/if she starts laying again this year.

Jaye give her raw sesame seeds- chickens absolutely love them and they are packed with calcium.
http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/nut ... cts/3070/2

Sadly, Robbie, I have tried raw sesame seeds, several times, but none of my hens seem to like them. Go figure. I could keep trying, but at the cost of them, I'm giving up on sesame seeds for now.