As far as early food goes, I bring 4 horned turtles (3 female, 1 male) with 3 nest boxes. Slaughter the first two animals I come with, and slaughter any male horned turtles. That gives me plenty of food, more than enough to survive until the first caravan, at which point I can buy all their food and cook it, which sets up a nice cycle of not only food but trading (can use the cooked food to buy out the next caravan's food and cook that, etc). Once trading becomes less reliable, due to sieges or ambushes, you should have more than enough dwarves and the mandatory defensive set up (because you wouldn't survive otherwise) that you should be self sustaining.
Maybe what you're looking for in high production egg layers is just a hands-off method of food production that requires minimal dwarf power, but food is still not any bigger of a deal than it is in vanilla.
