I recently acquired a trio bred to the American Standard that I'm planning to breed next month. This is my first year breeding birds and I didn't originally set out to breed Orpingtons but my wife and I came across them at a show a little while ago and fell in love with them. The ones we have are extremely friendly and I think a great breed. Ours are the buff variety but I also really like the original color (black) and may see about breeding those later too. I don't know if you know it or not but there's an English (International) standard and an American standard. When they came to North America a way long time ago, I think around the late 1800's-early 1900's, they became popular but Americans desired a dual purpose bird that laid more eggs than the original version, so the American variety took on a slightly different shape that's more conducive to egg production. I don't know if you're interested in all the history, etc. but I find it interesting. There's couple of groups on Facebook if you're interested in to learn more, and there's also the United Orpington Club (http://www.unitedorpingtonclub.com/) that has a lot of information about them.
