Are all barnevelders poor egg layers

We love barnevelders and we love the look and feel of their eggs, but we get so few. I have four birds and I am lucky to get one egg every couple of days and often only a couple of eggs a week Are all barney's poor egg layers?. Am I missing something they need? Is it just this particular strain? These four are hatchery birds from texas. I have one pullet from performance that is about 24 weeks old not laying yet. It will be interesting to see what she is like.

I read that most are poor layers I think they were bred many years for their show qualities instead of laying traits. So sad.

Mine were from Performance and they laid well. Are your other birds older?

Hmm, mine also hid their eggs. Any chance this is happening?

My birds are only just over a year old. I have been wondering about the hiding. we have a lot of bush around us. I think I will keep them in the yard for most of the day for about a week and see what happens. Its good to know that someone had some that laid well. I have a rooster from performance so maybe I will have better luck with the offspring.

Hopefully Dan will chime in with his two cents. He is the Barnie king.

Perhaps he is too busy annihilating coyotes.

In the past I have found that mine are good layers but this past winter they stopped laying altogether and then this spring they started up again and were doing well but this past month they are laying very poorly. I don't know why. They are my only breed that completely stopped laying over the winter last winter. I think that they are affected by the weather and climate changes. I do love them and love the looks of them and especially their temperament. I am going to be selling some of my breeders to make room for my younger ones that I hatched this spring for myself.

I am happy to hear this news too! They are a very nice bird and I was interested in having a few until I read they were poor layers and decided to hold off.
Darn google

Not sure I can convince hubby we need more chickens but perhaps if I were to sneak them in at night he will not notice

My birds were a different line then Dan's and they were terrible layers. I had 5 hens and rarely got more then 2 egg/day regardless of sunlight hours or time of year. They have moved on, can't afford to feed poor layers! They are beautiful though! (And I did keep ONE girl in the laying flock, though I'm not sure I've ever seen an egg I could attribute to her).

They are a great dual purpose breed and were the # 1 layers in Holland just before the commercial hybrids took over. Hence, they SHOULD be good layers and if the ones you have a horrible layers, then they are simply just culls in my opinion.
Piet

The ones I had in Australia laid like troopers and were very good winter layers (down there it was not a REAL winter though).