Best layers

My neighbors dogs got out of their yard,broke into one of my coops and killed all 11 of my best layers and hub's favorite silver-laced wynadotte rooster(hated this darn rooster but he was sooooo pretty). They also killed 4 of my 7 free-range pet rooster and tried unsuccessfully to get into second coop.Neighbor has paid for my loses but I can't find any mature laying hens locally so I'll be mailordering from my favorite hatchery for spring delivery. Problem is,I'm not sure what type of hens these were. Nothing in my catalog looks like them. Closest is buff orpingtons. Hub's and I always had a running debate on if the "girls" were blondes(him) or redheads(me). Seems there's a debate in the fowl world too as what the color of the orpingtons are.Color of a gold watch,it was described as,in my catalog for orpingtons. So now I don't know what the heck to order. My"redheads/blondes" were great layers of large brown eggs. Pretty regular too except in the hottest part of summer and coldest part of the winter.

What kind of layer have you had experience with for laying young and good production?

Bad enough,eggs sales fell off with the news of the bird flu but now I've had to tell my customers I have left,eggs will be slower to come by until I can get chicks in and raised to laying size.

PP