Leghorn is the Italian city & port of Livorno.   Country fowl from that area arrived in New York in 1828 and quickly gained a reputation as excellent layers.   The Americans bred them with the Minorcans to increase the body size and the first birds arrived in the England in 1870.   The original colour was white, followed in 1872 by the brown.   Other colours followed, some being imported from Holland, Belgium & Denmark.   Pyle and Duckwing types were developed in England.   The white version quickly established a reputation as a prolific layer, capable of adapting to different conditions and maintaining vigour, so much so that it is used in the production of commercial hybrids.

They are a light breed and inclined to be flighty, but quite easily tamed.   The body is wide at the shoulders, tapering towards the tail with a flat back sloping towards the tail which is held at 45o.   The hen's comb is single but flopped over to one side; the cock's comb is very large and upright.   Earlobes are white and legs yellow.   A bird may lay up to 240 white eggs a year, but rarely goes broody.

There are perhaps a dozen varieties; we have two - the brown and exchequer.

Brown:   The cockerel is magnifcent with the classic colours of orange-red hackles with black stripes, steely blue wing covers with a green sheen, gloosy black underneath and on the breast and a sweeping black tail showing that green sheen.   The female has a golden yellow hackle with broad black stripes, a salmon red breast going to grey at the thighs.   The back is a rich brown, pencilled in black.   The tail is similar to the back but with brown pencilling.

Exchequer:   The cock & hen are very similar in colouring, being an even mottling of black & white with white being the under colour.   The white ear lobes are not so obvious, but the legs are still yellow.

Bantam forms do exist, though we do not have any.