Barred Orpington??

[HenThymes]

Went down to our neighbors this evening for dinner and after dinner headed to the barn to talk horses and chickens.

Well all of their chickens have come from us and are all orpingtons both LF and bantams. They have this one particular 4 month old cockerel, who is beautiful by the way, that is out of our white orp roo (who they now have) and a blue orp hen (who is now deceased). He is predominately white with a blue/gray color toward the back half of his body and just a hint coming on around his neck. Well upon further inspection this evening I discovered he has a barred pattern! It is even all thru his tail feathers and you can see what is coming in on his neck is also showing barring. Where did that come from, is it just a fluke?? He is from two solid parents. He is also massive being larger than his father already at just four months. I will have pictures of him but not till tomorrow, sorry, but in the meantime, any thoughts??

 

[joletabey]

We were discussing a chick of mine on another thread that is an Orpington/Delaware cross, who is showing barring as he feathers in. My roo is a Blue Orp and the owner of his father said that way back when some places used Blue Rocks to help in breeding- it could be a throw back?

 

[speckledhen]

Sandhill Preservation was using blue Rocks years ago to offset inbreeding in their BBS Orp lines. My own blue Orp rooster that Beth is referring to has barring in his sickle feathers and a few times, produced barred chicks. Do you know where they got their Orps from?

See Suede's tail feathers?

Here is the chick he produced with my RIR/Buff Orp cross hen.

 

[HenThymes]

The parent stock was purchased before I knew about the great people I have met thru BYC, the white orp rooster came from some breeder in FL, I hatched out eggs and ended up with one cockerel and one pullet. The blue hen came from eggs I purchased from bucabuc in VA.

Here is a picture of them, that is actually the hen behind him. He was not a year yet in this picture. Unfortunately we lost the hen early this spring (she was a sweet girl).

 

[RAREROO]

Any pics of the bird in question ?