The Bovans Brown is a highly versatile and robust laying hen. Combined traits for the Bovans Brown laying hens include high peak production, great laying persistency, and a flat egg weight curve, resulting in top quality dark brown eggs. The Bovans Brown laying hens have excellent feed intake capacity and robustness so that it fully expresses genetic potential in multi-age and free range environments. The Bovans Brown is an attractive looking bird that maintains great feather cover throughout the egg laying cycle. The Bovans Brown is an ideal chicken for the commercial egg producer looking for overall solid performance. Both in cage housing, as in alternative housing the Bovans Brown has proven herself to be a robust egg laying chicken.