Do you know, Mr. Cook, the creator of Orpingtons knew that. In his book "Fowl for the times" I think it was, he recommended crossing his Orpingtons with other breeds for superior egg laying. Maybe those Aussies read that book and started crossing? No idea. I always find history interesting though.
yes , walt is right, the australian utilty orpington,.i never could figure out how they knew that crossing such a poor egg layer with other breeds could creat a record egg layer, and it did..they used croad langshan and langshan clean legged that breeders were culling , leghorn , barred rock and cooks black orpington..one of our hens molted and her head came back with a little barring..its all interesting to me too....one problem they experience with australias version is too much of a v shape and too up on the legg, they cull those, also they see red webbing between the toes , they consider that a fault..but when they get it right , they are beautiful birds.... they did not have us version to work with , that is why they look a little different than ours, i think later on more rock and leghorn were added in us, australians then added more langshan..befor they were inducted into the australian standard, queensland held out their vote, they wanted it written that the birds must retain a tighter feather so that they would be different not a smaller orpington..
