Try using some Denaguard. Ours was unfortunately forced into a hard molt a month after they started laying from their fall molt. We treated everything with Denaguard and they are now in full production. Learn more about Denaguard at...
Ours has always been docile and fairly quiet.
However, our flocks are now on a different location. The distance only allows us to feed and water every other day. So when I pull in EVERYTHING starts yelling at me. Its a nice sound. When we start walking past the coops, they all quiet down and...
Thedragonlady has hers in South Carolina and has no issues. Have heard of some in Georgia with success. We are in hot/humid southeast Arkansas and ours does great!
Randall Burkey drop ships from Ideal Poultry Farm. They will be very lovey birds and great producers/ however, they will not get as large as the ones you see some of us post photos of. You wills till enjoy them in the backyard!
True, you have Buff Orpingtons, but hatchery quality. As for the egg size. Pullets lay a smaller egg than the hens. They should increase size in a few weeks, though they will never compare to a Pekin duck egg in size.
Here is a wonderful comparison of a hatchery and a Standard bred Buff...
It is doubtful you can tell the difference. Both aly the same type/size egg and shade varies by hen not breed. Here is one of ours we sued as acompariosn with a Blue egg and a commercial store egg.
The Blue egg is from our Arkansas Blues...
Where are you located?
Are you a member of 4H? http://www.4-h.org/
We may be able to work something out. Would need your zip code to estimate the shipping cost. Send me a PM with your zip code. Then I can give you an estimate on the shipping cost.
It is difficult comparing hatchery and Heritage Buff Orpingtons. A hatchery Orpington may resemble the true heritage Orpington, but it will be about half its size. An Orpington bred to the Standard of Perfection will look like these. The Standard calls for weights of Male 10#, Hen 8#, Cockerel...
Here are some of our offspring. We sent the eggs to TheDragonLady this spring. She hatched 5 chicks from 6 eggs. Here is what she posted on another thread today:
Quote:
Please post a photo.
It is possible what you are calling brown specks is known as "smutt". This may disqualify a hen, but is valuable in hens producing show bird males. It creates a better quality Buff in its offspring. Did you get your hen from a hatchery or a breeder? Did the breeder breed...
Since we have lots of watermelon rinds during the local growing season, we feed lots of watermelon rinds and damaged watermelons to ours. In the fall I gather pumpkins from local businesses and feed the pumpkins to the chickens. They love it all. Have not found anything vegetable they will not...
A few days ago Danyelle (12), Nicole (7) and I drove out to local tomato grower to get some yellow squash and some tomatoes. We bought two 5 gallon buckets of oversize cull squash. I asked if he had any #2 tomatoes. Instead he sent us home with 9 buckets of cull tomatoes so he would not have to...