I was SO excited to start breeding Deathlayer chickens as our first auto-sexing breed! But, unfortunately, We stopped breeding Deathlayer chickens due to problems with their legs caused by generations of systemic inbreeding in smaller, backyard flocks since their importation to the US. I would buy them directly from Greenfire Farm or from someone working from their lines.
With such a small gene pool to work with, this breed, in my personal opinion, is not healthy and should be crossed with a similar breed then bred back to SOP. If I were to choose a breed to cross with Deathlayers, I’d do one line with Hamburgs due to their similar habits, egg color, body size, plumage color and heritage.
Young, checkered Deathlayer cockerels grow into a regal roosters as their iridescent green-checked tail plumage comes in. Deathlayer chickens are easy to sex relatively young given the rooster’s brilliant red distinctive spiked rose type comb and the pullets’ complete lack of comb. Instead of a comb, the pullets have a teeny point coming off the top of their adorable heads which is a very pale peach.
As I have researched, Deathlayer chickens’ intriguing and mysterious name stems from the hen’s seemingly magical ability to consistently lay an incredible amount of medium-sized, pure white eggs. From everything I’ve read, a Deathlayer hen will lay an egg a day until they die and have better consistancy than other breeds through darker and cold periods. This is amazing, considering most chicken breeds will lay eggs consistently for three to four years then taper off with age.
But, I’d take this with a big fat grain of salt here—because hype is contagious. I’ve spoken to three small-time breeders who say they lay more consistently and later into life than their other breeds’ hens, but they didn’t lay daily. Their Deathlayer chickens laid 4-5 eggs a week year-round—which is less than what our Marans laid.
Either way, we were unable to prove their dependable egg production since this breed had so many health problems that we pulled the plug. This breed needs the attention from someone with more room and time to invest in properly breeding them from multiple lines and keeping good data on separate lines within their own flock.
Of course, there is a more boring originating breed name: Westfalische Totleger. WAY less fun to say than Deathlayer chickens though. If you can say it at all that is. I hope no one ever asks me to in person…
If you haven’t heard of them, it’s because Deathlayer chickens are extremely rare which can make finding them difficult. They have only recently landed in the US. In their native country of Germany, according to Greenfire Farms, the originating US importer of this breed, “[a] recent census in Germany put the total registered population at about 1,500 birds”. There are two colors of Deathlayer chickens, golden and silver. I like the looks of the silvers much better so decided to go with them. If I took another try at this breed, I’d buy both colors to increase my chances of healthy offspring.
Deathlayer chicks are the most lovely mix of rusty brown, tan, cream and black with chipmunk-like striped markings. This breed tends to be more wild than most which makes them easily startled and less friendly if not handled often when young. Treats, consistent handling and making slower movements around them is key while raising these beauties to adulthood.
Quoted directly from Greenfire farms: “The Deathlayer typically has outstanding viability and hatches extremely well. Most chicks hatch right at day 21 but we have seen a few chicks hatch a day or 2 late. So definitely plan to keep eggs in the hatcher an extra day or 2 just to make sure all of the chicks have time to hatch. We have noticed that our lines are producing chicks that grow into birds with light yellow coloring, this is pretty noticeable on hatch day. A typical silver chick has a lot of gray fluff and gold chicks have a lot of very dark red-brown fluff.”
Now up here in the Maine climate I’m putting the deathlayer chickens prolific egg-laying abilities to the ultimate test. Our other breeds, especially our polish, have stopped laying for weeks at a time around the coldest part of winter in Jan-Feb.
Deathlayer Chickens Have Special Diet Needs for High Egg Production Especially in Cold Climates:
Given the amount of protein that goes into making an egg everyday and the stress on their body to stay worm in cold conditions, a high protein diet with ample amount of fat should be considered specifically in cooler climates. Mealworms and black oil sunflower seeds are great supplements for daily treats or even mixed in with their feed. I have kept lard from processing pigs and mixed it with scratch grain for homemade suet in the past. It worked great, was easy to mix when the lard was melted down and stored in 5-gallon buckets over the winter. Most grocery stores and local butchers toss their scraps and could be easily acquired. Getting free food for your chickens? Um, yes please!
With the amount of calcium that goes into shell production, be sure to add oyster shell to their feed regularly. For the winter here, I plan to use game bird high protein grower crumble mixed with layer crumble half and half. I feed back their shells too. I keep an old soup can with holes punched in the sides for vents and drop our egg shells in there each morning. This keeps them from getting moldy in there and is a quick and easy place to drop them for my sleepy husband—I’m more of a coffee now, food later type. Whenever I use the oven in summer I set the whole can in there to dry them right out and kill off any bad bacteria, before crushing them up and setting them aside for winter.
I used to live by a lobsterman. He’d scoop up a big 5-gallon pail of crushed mussel shells from a Downeast property he owned that would last me half the year. Now that I think of it, I should have asked for some mussels too.
There are plenty of proven autosexing breeds out there beyond the Deathlayer chickens—including three we raised successfully with a wide variety of egg colors:
- 55 Flowery Hens (large white eggs)
- Bielefelder (large pinkish-tan speckled eggs)
- Legbar (large aqua-blue eggs)
- And our own autosexing Olive Egger cross! (large army-green eggs)
