The Leghorn chicken called after a hat

Victoria Roberts BVSc MRCVS has surprising facts about this excellent layer which had the first specialist breed club in Britain

- VICTORIA ROBERTS

There are not many breeds named after a hat, but a certain fruit merchant of New York in the 1840s was in the habit of sending poultry he liked back to his wife in the country, the birds usually being bought off merchant ships. She was reminded of the floppy brim of the fashionable Leghorn straw hat by the drooping combs of these particular hens. The Livorno (Leghorn) region of Italy had had its own native common poultry for hundreds of years which were very good layers and were black (the favourite), white, brown or grey with white earlobes (thus white eggs) and yellow legs. Some of these were taken from the port of Leghorn to America as early as 1828 and bred with Minorcas to increase the body size.