Buff Orpington boy or girl? -- and a Black ??? *2nd UPDATE!*

[Robin'sBrood]

Quote:
Thanks for the ID on our black girl. Her name is Black Betty (Bam a Lam)

 

[dangerouschicken]

Mine has a floor of 2" x 4" welded wire, but as the grass began to look like the surface of the moon, I put some straw down in there. Because we used 1/4" welded wire on the rest of the run, it is somewhat heavy, so we don't use it as a "tractor" and it just stays in one place. The doghouse I got for $5 off the local Craig's List-type site. It cost me about $50 to make.

Some tips: I used rebar woven into the wire to strengthen the sides (we have high winds in the Columbia Gorge). This helped keep any predators from tipping it, as well.

Also, when we built the duck pen, we did something similar, but we use plastic zip ties instead of the hogrings. MUCH FASTER AND EASIER! We used the left over 2" x4" wire and wrapped it around metal fence posts we found around the farm. the zip ties were really excellent and I can't recommend them enough. Sure beats using wood as this only took 2 hours to assemble! Here is a pic of the duck pen

 

[Robin'sBrood]

Quote:
Aww, ducks! I'll have to keep the zip ties in mind when we build our Millie run. Do you think they would hold up with it being moved, because we do move ours around the yard. -- ?

 

[Gindee77]

I'm pretty sure

my 7 week old Buff Orp is a pullet. Here are a couple pix of her so you can compare her to the comb on yours.

I hope you can see these okay...I took them today while they were in the tractor.

Amelia ...she was begging for grass in this first pic!

 

[Robin'sBrood]

Okay, so if my BO and SLW are both roos, will I need to separate them soon? I've noticed that the little SLW has been acting strange the past couple of days but I don't see anything that looks physically wrong. The BO is definitely the dominate one in the group, and has been since day one. Sweet, but leader of the pack!

 

[dangerouschicken]

They will pick at each other, but it will be okay for a while. You probably won't have to separate them until they are around 14 weeks old.

 

[HR Patterson]

Our roo was hatched on Valentine's day so around 3 months. How many do you have total? 1 roo for 8 chickens if they free range.

 

[Robin'sBrood]

Quote:
I only have 5 total, 3 standard and 2 bantams. And now it looks like 2 of my standards may be roos. I have nothing against roosters, but there is no way I can have any in a subdivision. Our yards are only an acre so my neighbors are too close by to have roosters, especially two of them!

What breed is the black one in the pic you posted? Looks almost identical to our Betty (that has now been identified as a FEMALE... thank God... Australorp.)

 

[Robin'sBrood]

I emailed (with pics) the poultry farm where I bought my chicks and the very nice man I bought from said he still thinks they're all female, but if there turn out to be any males, I can trade them out for females. I love our green-eyed BO and sweet little SLW...

that they're FEMALE!

Oh, he also said he thinks Betty is an Australorp too, so that is what I'm going to officially say she is now.

Thanks for your help y'all, I'll let you know if I ever hear any crowing. BTW, I love this website... if I'm not careful, I'll be addicted to it before long.

 

[Robin'sBrood]

Well, my BO (now almost 13 weeks old) finally crowed 3 times for me this morning! And it was hilarious!!

I was outside and one of my dogs was showing a lot of interest in the chickens. Next thing I know, Buffy crowed. Time to return him.