*Buff Orpington Thread!*

[ladyjey]

You probably ordered pullets and if so most of the hatcheries that I have dealt with in the past are really good at sexing them. I bought 25 Buff Orpington, 25 Black Sex Links and 25 Barred Rock 4 years ago and the only one that had roosters were the Barred Rocks, 2 of them were cockerels. Another year I bought 20 RIR, 15 Silver Laced Wyandottes and 10 White Rocks. I told them to send me 1 each cockerel of the SLW and RIR and that is all the cockerels I ended up with. If you would have told them that you wanted a roo, they would have made sure that there was one in there. lol

I would have ordered straight run had I gotten my coop (I remodeled my kid's old play fort) finished in time and put in a hatchery order. I wound up buying them last minute at a grain store, the very last 15 they had! But the store had ordered straight run (I'm pretty sure) just my "luck" I got all pullets. Betting there are other people who got theirs from the same batch who wanted pullets only and have 5 roosters! I actually placed an ad on craigslist hoping someone who doesn't want the roo they have will give/sell him to me... Otherwise I guess some of my skinny girls that would have been culled get to stay around and give me eggs a bit longer while I order a bunch of cockerels to grow out to select from for breeding next year.

 

[speckledhen]

Thought I'd update my pictures since last time I posted pics of Hope and Grace, they were just 10 weeks old. They are almost a year old now and living with my blue Orp rooster, Suede. Nugget, on far left in the first pic, is almost 4 yrs old so she is bossing them around pretty well these days.







Here is Nugget with the last chick she raised at the end of 2011.




Below is my Sunny, the last remaining hen from my original flock, a Buff Orp from Ideal. She is 6 years old now and lives in the bantam coop.

 

[ladyjey]

Healthy and good lookin' girls! Interesting; they seem to have much smaller combs than mine...

 

[Kelly G]

I have a trio of Buff Orpingtons that I purchased last year from Hink JC....hoping to compete next year at the state fair with the chicks I'm breeding this spring. I can't WAIT!!!

I don't have any really good photos - I have my Buff roo over 10 hens (only two are BO hens)....but he's still wearing out the girls feathers!

I LOVE this breed!!!

 

[speckledhen]

Healthy and good lookin' girls! Interesting; they seem to have much smaller combs than mine...

Thank you. I find that the breeder type Buff Orpingtons do have more compact combs than the hatchery hens. Nugget, Hope and Grace all came from Jody Hinkle, a breeder of great quality Buffs here on BYC (hinkjc). In fact, Jody told me she was paying special attention to breeding for that. Sunny and her late sister, Ginger, were from Ideal Poultry and part of my original flock of ten hens; both had larger combs than the breeder girls.

 

[ladyjey]

I am not entirely sure but I think the grain store got them from Murray McMurray... I know I am kind of starting at bottom level with them but maybe in the future I can introduce some better genes for meat production, and to be closer to the standard. They sure do lay like crazy!! I gave away one very undersized hen early on so now have 14 and some days I get 14 eggs, never less than 10 even on the coldest, darkest days. My coop is unheated and unlit... One girl (when they were just getting rolling) was in such a hurry to get her egg to me she gave me this:





While it was fun I actually hope not to see this happen too often, no good for raising chicks!

 

[immyjay54]

I am not entirely sure but I think the grain store got them from Murray McMurray... I know I am kind of starting at bottom level with them but maybe in the future I can introduce some better genes for meat production, and to be closer to the standard. They sure do lay like crazy!! I gave away one very undersized hen early on so now have 14 and some days I get 14 eggs, never less than 10 even on the coldest, darkest days. My coop is unheated and unlit... One girl (when they were just getting rolling) was in such a hurry to get her egg to me she gave me this:





While it was fun I actually hope not to see this happen too often, no good for raising chicks!

Sure does make for a good breakfast though. All you need is a couple of slices of my home baked bread. ha,ha,ha.

 

[lildinkem]

5 month ole


His parents

 

[immyjay54]

I received 18 hatching eggs from Linda Hamid (these are Clevenger/Coulter line.) On day 18 I had 12 eggs that looked pretty good and 6 that were clear. I put them all in lock down anyway. Today is their hatch day and as of now I have 7 of the 12 eggs hatched out. I am very pleased with this hatch and can only feel better if more hatch. lol These eggs traveled from Calif to Pa. The girl at my PO said that when they brought the box to my PO that they had them down in a bag with the rest of the parcels so I really didn't expect any to hatch after being treated the way they were. I feel pretty good about having this line of birds to start some really nice Buff Orpingtons with. This is a very old line.

This first little one is having a bad hair day. ha,ha,ha.

 

[ButchGood]

Im glad I found this thread. I was getting a little bummed out after reading the OT thread. Im trying to get through the 280 some posts. Lots of good info. I raised chickens for about 11 years many years ago and Im kind of taking the Old Timers refresher course. Around page 60 something I ran into a few pages that they were bashing the Buff Orp Breed. They said they ate too much, didn't lay eggs well, and were terrible mothers. They also said they were at the bottom of the pecking order and at the top of their cull list. four and a half weeks ago I recieved 8 buff orps and 8 australorps looking for great dual purpose birds. I researched the breeds and came to the conclusion that these birds would exceed my needs. Australorps are a prooven egg layer with the world record for most eggs in a year with 364 eggs. BO'S are supposed to give me 3 to 4 a week in thier prime. If this is true I made the right decision. Who can make me feel better about my decision?

And who cant?.