Lohmann Brown

Lohmann Brown comes from Lohmann Breeders in Germany. She is a hybrid: a planned cross made for egg farms, not an old village breed like a Rhode Island Red. The feathers you notice are reddish brown, with a red comb. That brown hen is the picture most people mean by Luman Brown.

The cross is sex-linked, which is why hatcheries like her. At a day old, female chicks are brown and male chicks are white or cream. Farmers can tell the future layers from the cockerels without a specialist.

She was bred to lay brown eggs, and to keep laying them. Published figures for the strain often sit well above 300 eggs in a laying cycle. Treat that as the reputation of the bird, not a count we promise from every hen in every season. Feed, daylight, health, and age all move the number.

The eggs are brown and, once she is in full lay, a useful table size. She is calm enough for a barn or a free-range yard. She is still a layer: her work is the egg. She is not a broiler, and she will not turn into a meat bird if you feed her more.

The brown color is a pigment the hen adds near the end of shell formation. It does not make the egg richer than a white egg from another layer. Crack both and you are looking at the same kind of food. Yolk color still comes from the diet.

If you want Lohmann Brown eggs, ask for them by name. If you want to keep the hens, ask for layers and say Lohmann Brown so we know you mean this bird and not a meat chicken.