HI, thanks to everyone who helped me with my last question. Ive decided to get the chickens before the ducks now and have been offered some three week old 'hyline' chickens. They are brown in colour with some white flecks on the wings. I was wondering if anyone new anything about them - ie temprement, average eggs etc. Cheers joseph :)

-- joseph mccallum (joeral@cybanet.net.au), April 06, 2001

Answers

Sounds like someone's given a nickname to a breed or it's a mix.

-- ~Rogo (rogo2020@yahoo.com), April 07, 2001.

Never heard of them , but for free take them.

-- Patty {NY State} (fodfarms@slic.com), April 07, 2001.

I have a left over box that is about 2 years old that was used to mail 100 chickens from Privett Hatchery in New Mexico. It says Hy-Line Chicks all the way around the box and on top. It's the name of the box manufacture as it also says registered trademark Hy-Line Indian River Co, Des Moines, IA Where did the chicks come from? I've never heard of Hy-Line, but there are many out there, so it could be a breed of chicken. It might be a cross of some sort. I have some red sex link that are reddish brown with white spots. Rhode Island Red and White Rock cross. Should be excellent layers of brown eggs.

-- Kent in WA (kent@premier1.net), April 08, 2001.

I work as a bookkeeper in the poultry(egg layers) business. Hy-line is a distrubutor for hatching chicks. They sell several breeds. Kitty

-- Kitty in FL (wheate@earthlink.net), April 09, 2001.

Lookee what I found! I was looking up hatcheries in Canada for someone:

HYLINE W-36 and BABCOCK B300 - Super profit producers, these hens boast an extremely high egg peak, and they have an ideal early egg size (85% large at 43 weeks). Their eggs have superior shell quality, and are produced with low feed consumption - these hens are relatively quiet in disposition. As chicks, they won't disappoint you either, as they are so hardy.

-- ~Rogo (rogo2020@yahoo.com), April 11, 2001.

Thanks rogo - I bought the chickens in Bendigo, Victoria, Australia - so maybe they are a different breed to the ones bred over in the usa - but from the discription rogo gave me, it sounds pretty much like what my little chicks mums looked like when i went and picked 'em up. I just hope they dont lay cardboard boxes instead of eggs...lol cheers joseph :)

-- joseph mccallum (joeral@cybanet.net.au), April 12, 2001.

Joseph: Hy=Line simply refers to the strain of chicken.

-- Dr. James M. Lampley (jlample@bellsouth.net), June 02, 2001.

hyline, like dekalb, are leghorn-type strains that were early birds developed for egg production...murray mcmurray hatchery, the giant iowa hatchery, used to sell them along with their other leghorns.

-- richard pearson (pearsonr@washpost.com), November 05, 2001.

Yep, I've heard of them. They are a commercially developed egg-laying strain; and since that's the case I'd assume they're white-leghorn based, and won't provide ideal carcases for meat.

One point - it's often a good idea to identify explicitly where you're from. People often don't notice or understand that little ".au" at the end of the email address. Also, the same breed name can mean subtly or even radically different things when we're talking separation across an ocean, and maybe decades of quarantine restrictions and breeding divergence. That can be a "gotcha" if you don't take it into account - as can subtle language discontinuities. For instance, if you write that a sportsman is going to gaol, most USAmericans will read 'goal' rather than "jail" (Canadians are better - those that aren't Francophiles speak and spell English).

Another point - look at the recent thread on "I posted on this site using my real name..." - better if you get a throw-away email address for public posting, and also better if you get a portable one (not tied to your ISP) for general use - they don't have to be the same one.

-- Don Armstrong (from Australia) (darmst@yahoo.com.au), November 05, 2001.