The IMPORTED ENGLISH Orpington Thread - Page 846

Quote:

Originally Posted by deek 

I was worried about the size. He is total cuteness though.  Of the 12, five have tail feathers and body length wing feathers. The others are a bit larger in size and have no interest in feathering out. I was suspicious that I ended up with 5 hens and 7 roos!...oh my... No worries though. My goal/dream/hope was to have 4 hens and to have a rooster and a spare.

 

Thank you for helping.

 

If someone has time, one more question. Given the Orp size, how many could I comfortably house in a 4 x 8 coop?

With 7 cockerels that means you should have ample opportunity to choose 1-2, maybe even 3 really good breeders!

Quote:

Originally Posted by thedragonlady 

 What an attitude the blue boy has! Love that! I now see from an earlier post that he's the chick on your avatar. He just keeps getting better!

I'm excited to watch him grow, he's already a little chunker. It seems like these chicks get bigger and bigger everyday.

I haven't had any "regular" sized chicks in awhile, I visited a friend over the weekend who was hatching Easter Egger chicks... they were so tiny compared to my day old Orps! I asked him if they were bantams, he laughed and said, "No, they're just not the European turkey chickens you have at home. They're normal sized." 

Quote:

Originally Posted by jeremy 

 

With 7 cockerels that means you should have ample opportunity to choose 1-2, maybe even 3 really good breeders!

I hope so. That's the plan anyways. Not sure what to look for at this point, but I'd like to breed for health, vigor, and eye candy . Hopefully by the time I have to choose, I will have read enough threads to help me in the decision making. So far, all I've read are books that are focused on health.

Is it wise to go through one breeding season to verify fertility and broodiness before making the final decision? What do the experts do?

Quote:

Originally Posted by deek 

 

Is it wise to go through one breeding season to verify fertility and broodiness before making the final decision? What do the experts do?

Well, don't make any definite cuts until they're at least 8 months old. Then you want to look for negative traits that can be passed down to their offspring that will be very hard to breed out and cull from there, at least that's what I do. Type is important, first and foremost. Then I would look at things like color, etc.

The fact that your focusing on health though is also very important and a good thing to keep in mind especially since there is such a small gene pool of these birds here in the US.

Did you get your birds from Greenfire or Marc Sacre? You might want to consider trying to get some stock from whomever you didn't originally get your chicks from down the road just to keep some diversity in your line. You can also outcross to BBS and in a few generations be back to Gold Laced, you then would have introduced the Blue gene and you would have Blue Laced Golds!

Oh, keep ALL of your pullets, you never know what may happen and you wouldn't want to be left with only a few girls. The same can be said about cockerels but as long as you have 2 good boys to work with you are probably going to be okay. But keep 2, if you were to only keep 1 Murphy's Law would kick in and something would happen and then you'd end up roo-less. That's been my experience too... 

YES   Jubs and GL  :)  I think we have a suprise color coming later too. ")

Quote:

Originally Posted by jeremy 

 

Well, don't make any definite cuts until they're at least 8 months old. Then you want to look for negative traits that can be passed down to their offspring that will be very hard to breed out and cull from there, at least that's what I do. Type is important, first and foremost. Then I would look at things like color, etc.

 

The fact that your focusing on health though is also very important and a good thing to keep in mind especially since there is such a small gene pool of these birds here in the US.

 

Did you get your birds from Greenfire or Marc Sacre? You might want to consider trying to get some stock from whomever you didn't originally get your chicks from down the road just to keep some diversity in your line. You can also outcross to BBS and in a few generations be back to Gold Laced, you then would have introduced the Blue gene and you would have Blue Laced Golds!

 

Oh, keep ALL of your pullets, you never know what may happen and you wouldn't want to be left with only a few girls. The same can be said about cockerels but as long as you have 2 good boys to work with you are probably going to be okay. But keep 2, if you were to only keep 1 Murphy's Law would kick in and something would happen and then you'd end up roo-less. That's been my experience too... 

Oh boy... eight months. I like that. More time to spend with them!

The one thing I NEED is a rooster that doesn't challenge me or any neighborhood children. I am one of those children that was attacked by a rooster as a child. To this day have scars from where he dug in his spurs. Didn't stop the bloodshed for quite a while since this happened at a neighbor's house after I'd jumped over her fence. The only way to get him off of me was with a tree limb that my dad used as a club. For weeks I had bandaged legs oozing yucky stuff. Later as a teenager I was a bit embarrassed at the beach since the scars were still visible. My roosters will have to be gentle giants.

I need to study English type standards. Not sure where to read about those. I've searched online.

Color, well, that will be totally a whimsical choice for me. I'm breeding for backyard "models" that will be worthy of an oil painting.

My babies are from Greenfire. They used two separate lines. With 12, I'm hoping I have representation from both lines. I plan on initially inbreeding of course. Then, hopefully line breed one rooster line (father /daughter) and one hen line (mother/son). Maintaining two flocks. After f3 or f4, I plan on breeding the two lines together, and starting over. This is what I have done with dogs. Hopefully, I can verify that plan of action for chickens. Someone please correct me if I am wrong!! I hope to wait until there is a flaw in health or vigor before I introduce another separate line. This will give me time to establish the traits that I like in the line. Yes, I've already emailed Marc. Very nice person. He recommended the same plan of action that you've mentioned.

Oh my...Blue Laced Gold...my paintbrush is ready!!

I'm only two weeks into these babies and I already see an expansion Will have to sell more paintings to pay for it!!!

Well, for now, back to cleaning a poopy brooder and trying to figure out why they enjoy wasting the very expensive organic feed

Thanks for the advice Jeremy.

Oh what a tease! Do tell. I need to know how much $ to save.

Have to wait to see if we can get them first :)  Then we will tell :)

Quote:

Originally Posted by deek 

I was worried about the size. He is total cuteness though.  Of the 12, five have tail feathers and body length wing feathers. The others are a bit larger in size and have no interest in feathering out. I was suspicious that I ended up with 5 hens and 7 roos!...oh my... No worries though. My goal/dream/hope was to have 4 hens and to have a rooster and a spare.

 

Thank you for helping.

 

If someone has time, one more question. Given the Orp size, how many could I comfortably house in a 4 x 8 coop?

 Is this just a coop building to sleep in? A 4 x 8 will sleep 12 if you put perches on both sides with nest boxes below a shelf. I prefer roosts on 2 sides, just in case you add a few younger birds. The older ones won't let the youngsters sleep next to them until they are grown, and really integrated into the flock. Crowding makes stress, and stress in not a good thing.

I just added 2 more covered chain link runs that each measure 10 x 10'. I plan to house no more than 4 birds in each run. They will also have outside paddocks to forage in during the day. I am using 2 1/2 deep x 4'1/2 wide x 3'1/2 tall double walled equipment  storage boxes with roost poles. These boxes came from Lowes. They have 2 front doors and pop up roofs , so in summer I leave 1 door open, and pop the roof up when it's really hot. My clever Husband cut a scat hole door in one of the doors, and mounted the boxes 2' off the ground , with ramps .Under the boxes is surrounded by plywood on the back and sides , so I can put their dusting sand  and 2 nest boxes below. Bear in mind that I am using these in ROOFED runs, so the Orps' feed and water are outside their roosting boxes. These would work for you since you live in S. Ga., as they are very easy to ventilate as long as they are shaded. 2 runs would also keep your boys much happier too!