Black Star Egg Production: How Many Eggs Per Year?

Use the egg production calculator to model your specific flock.

Production ranges

The Normal row is the most realistic starting point for planning. It assumes a healthy first or second year hen from a production black sex-link, on layer feed with natural daylight. About five to six large eggs a week at peak — closer to five and a half across the year — is the honest planning figure. This is the same class as a Golden Comet or ISA Brown, not a heritage dual-purpose hen.

No institution publishes an annual egg figure for Black Star. It is a trade name for a sex-link hybrid, not a breed. We checked and found no Livestock Conservancy breed page, no row in the Conservancy’s Heritage Chicken Breed Comparison Chart (2026) (full-text extract), no Conservation Priority List entry, no APA recognition (Cackle prints “APA: No”; Meyer prints “Not Recognized”), no Rare Breeds Survival Trust page, no Poultry Club of Great Britain page, no Oklahoma State breed page, and no Black Star entry in Skinner’s Chicken Breeds and Varieties (A2880). The contrast that makes this guide unusual: the parents are fully documented — Rhode Island Red and Plymouth Rock both have Conservancy pages, chart rows, and CPL history — while the cross itself has nothing. The Low / Normal / High band on this page is ours plus hatchery guidance. Authority here comes from documented sex-link genetics and from disclosed hatchery products, not from a breed standard.

What arrives in the box — names, SKUs, and aliases

Black Star identity is decided before the formula. Like Olive Egger, this section decides what the box actually contains — and that decides whether 280 is even the right planning number.

“Black Star” is a shared trade name, not a breed, and not a trademarked line like Hoover’s Sapphire. Hatcheries sell the same class under different labels. Two of them will not tell you the parents. Poultry Extension’s alias for the class is Rock Red.

So the class is black sex-link; the label varies; McMurray and Meyer will not name the parents. Red sex-links — Golden Comet, Cinnamon Queen, Red Star — are a sister class, not this cross. They use silver/gold colour sexing, not barring.

Unlike Olive Egger, these SKUs are the same class with different labels and different optimism, not separate colour projects. Hoover’s 250 sits inside our band. It is not a second population.

How the sex-link works

Unlike the trade name, this mechanism is documented. From Poultry Extension — Sex-Linked Traits in Poultry (Jacquie Jacob, University of Kentucky) and the companion Sexing Day-Old Chicks article:

The barring gene B sits on the Z chromosome. Hens are ZW and cocks are ZZ, so the hen determines the sex of the chick. The cross must run non-barred male × barred female. Reverse it — barred male × non-barred female — and you do not get a sex-link. Common sires are Rhode Island Red or New Hampshire; the dam is a Barred Plymouth Rock.

Males inherit the mother’s barring allele and hatch with a white head spot. Females do not, and stay solid black (adult hens typically black with red in the neck hackles). That is why a hatchery can colour-sex the chicks on day one. Cackle prints 95–100% gender accuracy for this hybrid.

Two practical consequences follow, and extension states the first directly:

1. The offspring of a sex-link cannot be used to make another sex-link. Jacob: “the offspring of a sex-linked cross cannot themselves be used in a second sex-linked cross.” Breeding two Black Stars together loses both the colour sexing and the uniform production. Order first-generation chicks from the planned parent cross, or you do not have the product this page is about.
2. Pure Barred Rock chicks can be spot-sexed at roughly 80% accuracy using the same barring gene — a large white head spot on males, a smaller narrower one on females. That is a weaker, different thing: one pure breed, not a hybrid cross. Do not conflate an 80% Barred Rock guess with a black sex-link’s day-old colour sort.

Why 280 sits above the parents

A reader who has read the Olive Egger guide will ask this, so here it is in the open.

Mid-parent from our breed data is 240: Rhode Island Red 260, Barred Plymouth Rock 220. Those are the breed-page figures — not the parent guides’ Normal rows, which currently disagree with their own breed pages (a separate pre-audit pass). 280 sits 40 above that mid-parent. On Olive Egger we refused hatchery figures that exceeded the parents. The difference is what kind of bird each cross is.

• An Olive Egger F1 is a colour project. Out-laying both parents there had no source behind it.
• A black sex-link is a production hybrid, and Poultry Extension says so. Selecting a Chicken Breed: commercial brown-egg layers are derived from Rhode Island Red, Plymouth Rock, and New Hampshire stock, selected for eggs and lighter than other American-class birds; commercial layers are too flighty for most backyards; sex-link crosses are “bred for egg production” and sold at most US hatcheries as the backyard-friendly alternative. Hens from breeds developed specifically for egg production can produce more than 300 eggs a year. Raising Chickens for Egg Production covers sex-link crosses as a hatchery colour-sexing tool (fewer surprise roosters) and notes that commercial-type hens may give higher initial production, while other breeds tend to lay for more years.

Also: our own Rhode Island Red figure of 260 already describes a production-leaning bird rather than the Conservancy’s old-type conservation stock (the Conservancy page gives 200–300 qualitatively, and notes production selection since the 1940s). Heritage mid-parent arithmetic is the wrong comparator here. No hatchery we opened discloses which Rhode Island Red strain it uses as the sire — Cackle says production-type Black Sex Link since 1992 using Rhode Island Red and Barred Rock parent stock; Meyer will not name parents at all.

Heterosis (hybrid vigour) may be part of the 40-egg gap. State it as possible, not load-bearing. The extension framing alone justifies 280 without it. Do not use heterosis to push past the hatchery cluster into Mile Four’s 320.

By year, month, week, and day

A hen lays one egg every 24 to 26 hours at full production and skips days, so the daily average never reaches 1.0. For a backyard Black Star, plan on five to six large eggs a week at peak — a little more in spring and summer, a little less through the shortest days of winter.

The formula

Scale to any flock size:

Weekly eggs = Number of hens × 6.0 × Age Factor × Season Factor

The baseline of 6.0 is a Black Star hen’s weekly output at peak, chosen so the season-weighted year matches Normal rather than overshooting it. Adjust it down with the factors below as the flock ages and the seasons change.

Example: 6 hens × 6.0 × 0.84 (Year 2) × 0.75 (winter, no light) = ~23 eggs per week.

Why 6.0 reconciles with Normal. Run a constant peak baseline through a Year-1 season mix — about six months at ×1.00, two fall months at ×0.90, and four winter months at ×0.75 with no supplemental light — and you get roughly 46.8 peak-equivalent weeks. 6.0 × 46.8 = 280.8, which rounds to the Normal figure of ~280. A baseline of 6.5 would imply about 304 for the year, above Normal and into Townline/ISA Brown territory with no institutional profile to justify the overshoot. The age and season multipliers above are our standard curve, applied across the site rather than measured on Black Stars specifically. Treat the Year 3 to 5 multipliers as optimistic for this class — production hybrids wear out faster than the standard curve, which is the same caution the Golden Comet and ISA Brown guides already print. Use the egg production calculator to model your flock by age and season. That calculator’s high-production tier names Black Star alongside Leghorn, ISA Brown, and Golden Comet at about 280–300 eggs a year; 280 is the floor of that tier, not a stretch.

How production drops year over year

Production slides down gradually rather than stopping at a set age. The table applies the age factors to the Normal annual figure of ~280 eggs.

Peak productive life on this page is two to three years — that is the window the stats block means, not lifespan, and it matches Golden Comet and ISA Brown. Poultry Extension: commercial-type hens may give higher production initially, but other breeds tend to lay for more years. McMurray’s own Q&A says Black Star hens are most productive their first two years before slowing down. Meyer’s lifespan blog puts production layers such as Black Sex Link and Golden Buff at about 2–3 years in a commercial setting, with backyard flocks sometimes running longer when they get winter rest. The Year 3–5 rows above are the standard site curve, not measured on this hybrid, and are likely optimistic once reproductive wear sets in after year two. A common approach is adding young pullets every other year, so peak layers are always carrying the flock.

Month by month (first-year hen)

No institutional climate profile exists for this cross. Our breed data marks climate tolerance as all. The curve below is therefore ours: a modest winter daylight dip for a hardy production hybrid, without inventing a breed-page cold failure or a summer trough no source states. December and January are the floor. Broodiness is rare on our breed data (Cackle prints Non Setter), so spring is not carved by sitting spells.

The natural-light column sums to the Normal figure of 280; adding a 16-hour schedule takes it to roughly 300. If you do add light, start in early September before the days shorten, and aim for 14 to 16 total hours rather than leaving a bulb on overnight. A natural winter rest can be good for a hard-working hybrid’s long-term health.

What changes the number

The single biggest lever on a Black Star’s annual total is which product you bought, then age, daylight, and feed. Strain language borrowed from purebred guides is less useful here than reading the hatchery SKU.

The hatchery cluster — one class, different optimism

280 is middle-high of the disclosing cluster, not a ceiling.

• Cackle 200–280 — our Normal is their top. Our Low of 200 is their floor, defined as lower hatchery prints and heavier dual-purpose black sex-link stock (Cackle’s own hens run 6–7 lb). Never age: the year-over-year table already models that.
• Hoover’s 250 — thirty below Normal, inside the band. Same class, different optimism. Not a second population.
• Mile Four 280–320 — our Normal is their floor. Their 320 is a blog range, not a hatchery SKU, and it sits in ISA Brown and Golden Comet territory. Named here; not taken as High.
• Townline 300 — our High, and the top of this site’s egg-production calculator hybrid tier.
• Meyer 5–6 eggs/week — no annual. Peak 6 × 46.8 ≈ 281, which is why Meyer’s weekly field supports Normal 280 rather than moving it.
• McMurray — no integer; “best” and 4+ a week. The 4+ is a weekly claim, not a year total, and is not used as Low.

Body weight — cite the hatcheries, not our field

Hatcheries cluster around about 6 lb hen / 8 lb rooster: McMurray 6/8, Cackle 6–7/8–9, Meyer 6.5/8, Townline 6/8, Hoover’s 5–6. Plan housing and feed on that cluster. (Our breed-page weight field is a separate, lighter figure and is not the number this guide uses.)

Age at first lay — maturity rating, not a first-egg window

No institutional source publishes an age at first egg for Black Star. McMurray’s Black Star page prints both figures on one page: the tile says 18 weeks to maturity; the Q&A says first lay at 22–24 weeks. That is the maturity-versus-first-egg distinction, from one hatchery, on one URL. Meyer prints Laying Maturity 20–24 weeks. Our planning figure of about 20 to 24 weeks is labelled ours; it follows McMurray’s Q&A and Meyer’s field. McMurray’s 18 is a maturity tile, not a measured first-egg window.

Daylight and winter laying

Hens need about 14 to 16 hours of light to lay at full rate. Expect a real winter dip on natural light. This class holds better than a heritage dual-purpose hen, which is why the month curve’s winter floor is modest rather than a collapse. If output drops sharply with no winter, molt, age, or SKU explanation, consult a licensed poultry veterinarian or your local extension service.

Feed protein

Keep layer feed at 16 to 18% protein with free-choice oyster shell for calcium. A hen near 280 eggs a year draws heavily on calcium; thin shells are an early sign to check the supply rather than the bird. Use the feed cost calculator to estimate what the flock will eat across the year.

Reproductive wear

The same high output that makes a black sex-link useful also puts more strain on the body after year two — egg binding, prolapse, and internal laying are the trade-off named on the Golden Comet and ISA Brown guides, and they apply to this class for the same reason. Steady layer feed, constant clean water, and not pushing extra light year-round all help. For an unexplained sharp drop, a hen straining to pass an egg, or any sign of illness or injury, consult a licensed poultry veterinarian or your local extension service.

How Black Stars compare

First-year production under normal backyard conditions. Every annual figure below is from our breed data (breeds.json), including the two parents — the comparison table does real explanatory work on this guide. Sapphire Gem is the other production hybrid with a dedicated guide on this site; she has no breed-page row, so she is not in the table.

Every mismatch originally flagged among breeds linked from this guide — including Golden Comet and Barred Rock — has since been re-sourced; all now match their breed pages and none remain open.

The honest verdict: a Black Star is the pick when you want near-hybrid brown-egg numbers from a hardy, beginner-friendly bird and you are willing to read the SKU. At 280 she out-lays both documented parents on our breed data, which is expected for a production sex-link and is not the Olive Egger problem. She is not a conservation breed, does not breed true, and is not scored by the breed selector quiz — neither are Golden Comet or ISA Brown. Use the breed profile and this guide directly when a black sex-link is the goal.

Frequently asked questions

How many eggs does a Black Star lay per year?

About 280 large brown eggs for a production black sex-link — our Normal and our breed-page figure. No institution publishes an annual count. Cackle prints 200–280; Hoover’s prints 250; Townline prints 300. Those are the same class with different optimism, not different birds.

How many eggs does a Black Star lay per week?

Five to six large eggs a week at peak on the stats card. Formula peak is 6.0; averaged across a full year, plan on about 5.4.

When do Black Stars start laying eggs?

No institutional first-egg age exists. McMurray’s own page splits the question: 18 weeks to maturity on the tile, first lay at 22–24 weeks in the Q&A. Meyer prints Laying Maturity 20–24 weeks. Our planning figure of about 20 to 24 weeks is ours.

Is a Black Star a real breed?

No. It is a shared trade name for a black sex-link hybrid, usually a Rhode Island Red-type rooster over a Barred Plymouth Rock hen. It is not APA-recognized, not on the Conservancy CPL, and does not appear in Skinner A2880 as a breed. Townline says the same bird is also known as a Rock Red.

Are Black Star, Black Sex Link, and Rock Red the same bird?

They are the same class. The label depends on the seller. McMurray uses Black Star and does not name parents; Cackle and Hoover’s disclose the RIR × Barred Rock cross under Black Sex Link; Meyer uses Black Sex Link and will not name parents; Poultry Extension’s alias is Rock Red.

Will breeding two Black Stars give Black Star chicks?

No. Extension says the offspring of a sex-linked cross cannot themselves be used in a second sex-linked cross. You lose both the day-old colour sexing and the uniform production. Keep ordering first-generation chicks from the planned parent cross.

How many eggs will 6 Black Star hens lay per year?

Roughly 1,680 in a typical first year at Normal, with a realistic spread of about 1,200 to 1,800 depending on SKU, winter light, and age. Run your own numbers with the egg production calculator.

Do Black Stars lay eggs in winter?

Yes, with a modest short-day dip. Our climate mark is all-tolerance; the month curve is ours, not an institutional winter-layer claim.

What color and size are Black Star eggs?

Large brown. Cackle prints light brown. Shade can lighten across a season and with age, as it does for other brown-egg hens.

Why did my Black Star stop laying?

The most common reasons are short winter days, the annual molt from year two, age — this class wears after year two — or heat stress. If laying stops suddenly outside those patterns, or you see signs of illness or injury, consult a licensed poultry veterinarian or your local extension service.

Sources

No institution publishes an annual egg figure for Black Star. We checked and found none of: a Livestock Conservancy breed page; a row in the 2026 Heritage Chicken Breed Comparison Chart (full-text extract); a Conservation Priority List entry; APA recognition (Cackle “APA: No”; Meyer “Not Recognized”); Rare Breeds Survival Trust; Poultry Club of Great Britain; an Oklahoma State breed page; or a Black Star entry in Skinner’s A2880. The parents are documented; the cross is not. The guide’s authority is sex-link genetics plus disclosed hatchery products. Each source below is named for the specific claim it supports.

• Extension — sex-link genetics, breed selection, and egg production (this guide’s institutional backbone): Poultry Extension — Sex-Linked Traits in Poultry (Jacquie Jacob, University of Kentucky): barring gene B on the Z chromosome; hens ZW, cocks ZZ; the cross must be non-barred male × barred female; reversing it does not produce a sex-link; males inherit the mother’s barring and hatch with a white head spot; females stay solid black; common sires Rhode Island Red or New Hampshire, dam a Barred Plymouth Rock; black sex-links also known as Rock Reds; offspring of a sex-linked cross cannot themselves be used in a second sex-linked cross; female offspring lay brown-shelled eggs. Poultry Extension — Sexing Day-Old Chicks (Jacob): the same required-direction cross; at hatch both sexes have dark down but males have a white head spot; pure Barred Plymouth Rock chicks can be spot-sexed at about 80% accuracy from the size of the head spot — a weaker, different thing from the hybrid colour-sort. Poultry Extension — Selecting a Chicken Breed for Small or Backyard Poultry Flocks (Jacob): dual-purpose American breeds (Rock, RIR, NH, Wyandotte) “lay reasonably well”; commercial brown-egg layers derived from those breeds, selected for eggs, lighter than other American-class birds, too flighty for most backyards; sex-linked crosses “bred for egg production” and available at most US hatcheries; black sex-link / Rock Red named, produced by barred hen × non-barred rooster (Barred Plymouth Rock hen × RIR or NH); red sex-links (Golden Comet, Gold Star, Cinnamon Queen) named as a sister class; hens from breeds developed specifically for egg production can produce more than 300 eggs a year. Poultry Extension — Raising Chickens for Egg Production (Jacob): hatcheries sell sex-link crosses so chicks can be colour-sexed (fewer unwanted roosters); commercial-type hens may give a higher level of production initially, but other breeds tend to lay for more years. No cooperative-extension page we opened publishes an annual egg count for Black Star, or a measured heterosis figure for this cross.
• Parent context — Conservancy, not a count for the hybrid: The Livestock Conservancy — Rhode Island Red Chicken: 200–300 eggs qualitatively; production selection since the 1940s (smaller, lighter, less broody); old-type is the conservation bird; graduated 2023. The Livestock Conservancy — Plymouth Rock Chicken: around 200 large brown eggs; Barred is the original variety; graduated 2023. Both parents have Conservancy pages, rows in the 2026 comparison chart, and CPL history. The cross has none of those.
• Hatchery and commercial guidance — parent crosses named where disclosed; not research: Cackle Hatchery — Black Sex Link: RIR rooster × Barred Rock hen; production bloodline since 1992; 200–280 eggs/year (estimates only); large light brown; Gender Accuracy 95–100%; Broody Non Setter; APA: No; TLC: Not Listed; hens 6–7 lb / roosters 8–9 lb; does not breed true. Hoover’s Hatchery — Black Sex-Link: Barred Rock hen × RIR cockerel; 250 eggs/year; hens 5–6 lb. Townline Hatchery — Black Sex Link: Barred Rock and RIR; also known as Rock Reds and Black Stars; 300 eggs/year; 6/8 lb. Murray McMurray Hatchery — Black Star: two proprietary lines, cannot choose which; parents not named; no annual integer; tile 18 weeks to maturity; Q&A first lay 22–24 weeks; Q&A most productive the first two years; 6/8 lb. Meyer Hatchery — Black Sex Link: parents proprietary, undisclosed; 5–6 eggs/week; Laying Maturity 20–24 weeks; Not Recognized; 6.5/8 lb. Meyer Hatchery Blog — How Long Do Chickens Live?: production layers such as Black Sex Link ~2–3 years in a commercial setting; backyard may live and lay longer. Mile Four — Black Sex Link: guide only, no chick SKU; often Australorp or Barred Rock × RIR-type; ~280–320.
• Institutional absences (named so they are not silently omitted): Livestock Conservancy breed page — none; 2026 comparison chart PDF — no Black Star / Black Sex Link / Rock Red row (full-text extract); 2026 Conservation Priority List — not listed; APA — not recognized; RBST — no page; PCGB — no page; Oklahoma State — no breed page; UW–Madison Extension — Skinner A2880 — no Black Star breed entry.
• Not available under this name (named so they are not silently omitted): Lafeber has no Black Star breed page. Mile Four has a guide but no chick SKU.
• Ours, not published: the Low / Normal / High anchoring, the month-by-month split, the age and season multipliers, and the ~20–24 week first-lay planning window. The Low of 200 is Cackle’s floor, defined as lower hatchery prints and heavier dual-purpose black sex-link stock — not age decline, which the year-over-year table already models. The Normal of 280 matches our breed data, Cackle’s ceiling, and Mile Four’s floor. The High of 300 is Townline and the top of our egg-production calculator’s 280–300 hybrid tier; Mile Four’s 320 is named and not taken. The multipliers are our standard site-wide curve; Years 3–5 are flagged as optimistic for this class. First lay is labelled ours because McMurray’s 18 is a maturity tile and Meyer’s field is Laying Maturity, not a measured first-egg window.

Two classes of source were checked and deliberately not used: aggregator and content-farm pages that restate hatchery ranges without primary data, and guide Normal rows that disagreed with their own breed pages among breeds linked from this guide. Every mismatch originally flagged here — including Golden Comet and Barred Rock — has since been re-sourced; all now match their breed pages and none remain open. For health concerns about your flock, consult a licensed poultry veterinarian.

Last reviewed August 2026.