Braggs Mountain Buffs

[qball53]

Yea, 4 eggs tonight ... one medium, one large, two x-large one of which pegged the egg scale!

 

[Rock Home Isle]

Sounds like they recovering nicely.

 

[qball53]

A couple more x-large eggs tonight. Decided to weigh the rooster we put with the hens.
He weighed 8 lbs 12 oz and really quite boney still at this time.

 

[Rock Home Isle]

How are the birds looking these days? Are they coming back into condition?

 

[qball53]

Yes they are recovering but I am thinking it will be spring before we really know what we have. We are getting about 6 eggs a day now and the eggs are hughe! The eggs are almost the size of a peacock egg. We have nest boxes about 3 feet off the ground but only one hen is laying in there. The others all lay on the ground. I don't think these hens spent much time roosting at their last home. Going to move the next boxes and roost lower to see if we can get them to use them. We took the lightest hen out, as we like the darker colors, she is now running with the yard laying flock. She has learned to roost high with the other birds. We placed a bunch of their eggs in the incubator last night.

We will have to figure out which hens are laying, we may have some at the end of their laying life, don't know. We love the size of these eggs!!! We just have to figure out how often they lay and how many years they lay. We don't feel we can trust information given by the gentleman we purchased from.

We are going to put one of the extra roosters with our EE and see if we can't increase the size of the eggs there.

 

[3riverschick]

These are big layers. Move your nest boxes to about 18 inches off the ground. With birds this big, getting up and down to the boxes can sprain a leg or eventually cause arthritis in the feet. The birds are telling you something is off by not using the boxes. I once had Speckled Susssex hens I got as adults. The lady I got them from had her nest boxes 5 feet off the ground. The hens were all crippled painfully with knobby arthritic feet. Very sad,
Karen in western PA, USA

 

[gattboy]

Hi folks, just joined up because I saw this was a recent thread and I have some background with these birds (and a couple questions)

My neighbor has had a flock of six Braggs for about two years now, I help out and put them to bed at night. They are very good with the family and the dogs cats etc, and a few will even let you pick them up (if you give them rewards like a pet)

They are the only chickens I have known (except for some old rhode islands and leghorns I bought later and added to the flock) so I apologize in advance if my comments don't make sense or aren't helpful comparisons...

My neighbor bought them young from a friend of hers or some church connection, she could never remember what they were called. I used wikipedia etc to narrow down what I thought they were based on the pictures and that she said they were a mixed meat and egg producer variety. So, of course I thought they were Buff orpingtons for a long time... My neighbor kept swearing that it wasn't the right name and they were "something else." Eventually she talked to the person she bought them from, and told me they were "bragg mtn buffs," the name sounded a little silly to me, so I didn't really believe her and just assumed they were orpingtons that some breeder was trying to make sound fancier (sometimes I still think that)

But today I was googling them and saw these threads and the website etc... So I guess they do exist and according to the sales pitch they aren't even very closely related to the Buff Orpington (can that POSSIBLY be true??)

I think they are great birds, I am a little surprised to see all the wariness on these threads, we have had ZERO serious health issues or egg production issues. They live in the high altitude, dry and cold conditions of eastern OR and do fine even in the winter snows (with a heat lamp in the coop). They are big and tough and very sociable. I doubt we got them from these distributors with the sketchy stories, we are thousands of miles away, but it's too bad to give them a bad name...

The production was higher when they were younger but is still pretty good, there is generally enough to feed a family of five plus me. Five or six on a good day and maybe three on a bad day back then, now it's more like 4 on a good day and one on a bad day. Less in winter of course. They are getting on towards three yrs old now... And yes the eggs are big, people always comment on that. I didn't realize until reading the website that this is one of their main selling points to me- but yes it's true, people I give them to always call them goose eggs jokingly

This spring I started adding a micro nutrient supplement (also higher protein feed) right when the days got warmer again, and egg production went CRAZY for a few weeks, we were getting seven or eight eggs a day most of the time, from six braggs, 2 rhode islands, and three leghorns (but there were no white eggs so I don't think the leghorns were laying, they still aren't)

The issue with coloration is also true, about half the braggs we have are best described as having golden heads with much lighter yellow bodies, almost white in a couple cases

So I am curious what the claims people see in these ads are? I don't follow the poultry press very closely so I don't know what the issue is... I can answer the claims more directly when I know what they are

Also, do leghorns or related ever lay brown eggs, if they are normal white hens?

And my other question is still about Buff Orpingtons... Does it really make sense that a breed would look just like an orpington and have the same purpose and body type, but be only 10% related, as the Bragg mountain website claims? What are the chances we "really" have bragg mountain buffs and not just relabelled Orpingtons?

 

[qball53]

Our Buff Mountain Braggs do not have an Orpington tail. That is the most obvious difference, haven't really looked for others. I have learned that there are really just a few chicken colors and patterns and you can get nearly any breed in any of the colors. And if it doesn't exist yet soomeone will make it soon. I don't know how big an egg the Orpington lays? I would assume it is smaller than the Braggs. The guy we bought these from did complain that they seemed to not be productive long enough. We are holding judgment on that until we hatch some and get a good understanding of their life cycle. He lived in a desert type climate with no grass to be seen and only threw out feed once a day. So we will see how they do being free fed. He and my wife both talked of bringing in an Orpington roo to bolster the longevity of the Braggs. I have convinced her to wait until we have a better understanding. If nothing else we really like these BIG eggs.

Hi folks, just joined up because I saw this was a recent thread and I have some background with these birds (and a couple questions)
My neighbor has had a flock of six Braggs for about two years now, I help out and put them to bed at night. They are very good with the family and the dogs cats etc, and a few will even let you pick them up (if you give them rewards like a pet)
They are the only chickens I have known (except for some old rhode islands and leghorns I bought later and added to the flock) so I apologize in advance if my comments don't make sense or aren't helpful comparisons...
My neighbor bought them young from a friend of hers or some church connection, she could never remember what they were called. I used wikipedia etc to narrow down what I thought they were based on the pictures and that she said they were a mixed meat and egg producer variety. So, of course I thought they were Buff orpingtons for a long time... My neighbor kept swearing that it wasn't the right name and they were "something else." Eventually she talked to the person she bought them from, and told me they were "bragg mtn buffs," the name sounded a little silly to me, so I didn't really believe her and just assumed they were orpingtons that some breeder was trying to make sound fancier (sometimes I still think that)
But today I was googling them and saw these threads and the website etc... So I guess they do exist and according to the sales pitch they aren't even very closely related to the Buff Orpington (can that POSSIBLY be true??)
I think they are great birds, I am a little surprised to see all the wariness on these threads, we have had ZERO serious health issues or egg production issues. They live in the high altitude, dry and cold conditions of eastern OR and do fine even in the winter snows (with a heat lamp in the coop). They are big and tough and very sociable. I doubt we got them from these distributors with the sketchy stories, we are thousands of miles away, but it's too bad to give them a bad name...
The production was higher when they were younger but is still pretty good, there is generally enough to feed a family of five plus me. Five or six on a good day and maybe three on a bad day back then, now it's more like 4 on a good day and one on a bad day. Less in winter of course. They are getting on towards three yrs old now... And yes the eggs are big, people always comment on that. I didn't realize until reading the website that this is one of their main selling points to me- but yes it's true, people I give them to always call them goose eggs jokingly
This spring I started adding a micro nutrient supplement (also higher protein feed) right when the days got warmer again, and egg production went CRAZY for a few weeks, we were getting seven or eight eggs a day most of the time, from six braggs, 2 rhode islands, and three leghorns (but there were no white eggs so I don't think the leghorns were laying, they still aren't)
The issue with coloration is also true, about half the braggs we have are best described as having golden heads with much lighter yellow bodies, almost white in a couple cases
So I am curious what the claims people see in these ads are? I don't follow the poultry press very closely so I don't know what the issue is... I can answer the claims more directly when I know what they are
Also, do leghorns or related ever lay brown eggs, if they are normal white hens?
And my other question is still about Buff Orpingtons... Does it really make sense that a breed would look just like an orpington and have the same purpose and body type, but be only 10% related, as the Bragg mountain website claims? What are the chances we "really" have bragg mountain buffs and not just relabelled Orpingtons?

 

[Rock Home Isle]

Photos of the flock?

 

[qball53]

None at this time, was waiting until they get the majority of their feathers back. Been raining now for going on two weeks. When the mud is gone I'll see what I can get.