Reginald Appleyard started the development of the breed in the village of Ixworth in Suffolk which was finally completed in 1939.  The idea in mind was to produce a true utility bird, a breed of chicken that could produce a good number of eggs whilst at the same time offering a quick maturing table bird (of course not on the scale of time now known to commercial broiler units!).  Utilising the chicken strains of White Sussex, Orpington, and Minorca and mixing it with Old English and Jubilee Game, he was able to produce the bird which was always reckoned would be the main stay of our broiler industry.  Alas, new crossings became more popular, and the Ixworth chicken became virtually extinct until only recently.
 
The Ixworth chicken is a white skinned (very important for presentation), broad breasted bird that has a pea comb with a pinky white beak and pink laced eggs.  Ixworth cocks can weigh as much as 10lb, whilst an Ixworth hen in her second year will be a good 7lb, Ixworth cockerels and hens will be about 8lb and 6lb respectively.  Great debate is whether or not to let the cock line carry the weight and risk a reduction in the ability to mount and the reduction in fertility or whether you carry the weight in the hen line and use a slightly more active, but lighter Ixworth cockerel.
 
Egg trials, which used to be the big thing in the formation of utility strains of poultry, involved trap nesting the chickens to see how many eggs were laid by each bird.  Recent trap nesting by The Rare Breeds Survival Trust showed that Ixworth chickens could lay up to 0.74 eggs per day (270 eggs per year).  My strain of Ixworths have proven to be very good and reliable layers, I bring them inside over winter and they continue to lay well.  Egg weights average about 60 gm and I only choose the larger eggs for incubation in order to maintain and improve this. Coming into the first year of production, Ixworths are very good layers, although for breeding purposes I prefer to use older hens.  These older Ixworth hens generally produce a larger egg and one has time to see how they have turned out, and I believe they produce a better bird.  When Ixworths were expensive and difficult to get hold of, new breeders wanting their money back quickly were over eager to breed from unproven birds and birds that had only just come into lay.  I believe this put the quality of Ixworths back, reducing the size of the egg and also producing much smaller Ixworths.
 
Fertility can sometimes be an issue, it surely must be one reason why they joined the list as an endangered species of poultry on The Rare Breeds Survival Trust watchlist? As a general rule, I only hatch eggs from January to June, I would love to say fertility is 100% everytime, its not, I am over the moon at 85%, and very happy to get 75%.  After the 1st of June I don't sell eggs, fertility tends to be on the wane not surprising when the breeding pens have been together for 5 months! Vigour can be improved by putting a younger Ixworth cock onto older hens, or alternatively running 2 cockerels of the same age who have been brought up together with the group of hens.