Calling All Orpington Gurus!!

[CrazyClucks]

Thank you! I've actually only had them for about two years, so I'm still learning too. There's a lot of good information in the Imported Orps thread. Facebook groups I'm a member of include Working Orpington Breeders: Breeding for Quality not Quantity as well as a few others.



Here is a pretty cool thread on BYC. I had to do some digging to find the Orpingtons. I literally just searched that thread for Orpington and linked the first notable mention...

https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/csu-chicken-state-university-large-fowl-sop.732985/page-90

And a page I often reference online...

http://www.theorpingtonclub.org.uk/pages/breed-standards.php



Leakage is not good. Generally speaking a bird doesn't have enough melanizers to cover all the color. Pretend you're painting a dark colored wall white. It's going to take several coats of paint for the white to not show any other color (leakage) bleeding through. In chickens dark birds (blue, black, splash, chocolate, etc.) often have red leakage. White birds may have black, or red leakage. It's usually expressed in males in their sex-specific feathering (hackles and sometimes saddles).



See the links above. There can be some confusion about what is ideal and what is not. Dahlia my Black hen almost has too much cushion which can lead to terms like roachback being used.

AHHH thank you so much!! This will be very helpful!! Good to know that there is a “term” for the curly butts And I’d like for y’all to be TOTALLY honest with me about this roo that I reaaaally love but I’m worried he has too much yellowing he’s about 6 months old and I love his structure and hopes that carries but will breeding him to a black hen cancel out the yellowing a bit in the offspring?

 

[Faraday40]

Im thinking of selling them both and hopefully sweet talking Faraday out of her puppy. Hes the sweetest thing ever. I held him for a spell a couple weeks ago and he just melded into my arms.❤

My extra cockerel is sweet ..... but I already have my amazing "Mr. Awesome" I can keep my back-up SLO - in your coop - if you like. He has yet to crow, but I'm sure your Spitzhaubens will teach him how to crow round the clock. LOL

This is the little puppy-like/cockerel

I'd ship you some of my eggs, but that would be ages before they get old enough. Really the three of us should do a swap to get some new blood in. Perhaps you can borrow the puppy/cockerel. Anything to get me some unrelated Blue Silver-laced.

Yes, the SLOs take forever to mature. They may start mating at 8-9months, but no fertility until the male is about 12 months.

Still working on the blue SLOs. Although I've had some very pretty ones, they still need a lot of work. I'll be up for an egg swap when I know the fertility is good. I had a lot of set backs this year.

her chocolates having “leakage” and I didn’t know if that is a good characteristic or bad ohhh also PLEASE explain or tell me what to look for or at in tail feathers!!!

Leakage is a bad thing. Basically it's an undesirable color popping up.

And I’d like for y’all to be TOTALLY honest with me about this roo that I reaaaally love but I’m worried he has too much yellowing he’s about 6 months old and I love his structure and hopes that carries but will breeding him to a black hen cancel out the yellowing a bit in the offspring?

I like your lav roo. Is he out in the sunshine a lot? The yellowing you mention could be sun bleaching. After a fresh molt, he'll look better.

I would definitely breed some nice blacks into your lavs.... then the black/lav splits back to lavs. If you only breed lav to lav, the feather quality will suffer.

 

[ColtHandorf]

And I’d like for y’all to be TOTALLY honest with me about this roo that I reaaaally love but I’m worried he has too much yellowing he’s about 6 months old and I love his structure and hopes that carries but will breeding him to a black hen cancel out the yellowing a bit in the offspring?

I like his posture. I think it is imperative to breed Lavender back to Black. A lot of people don't do it because Lavender is a newer hype color. Just look at eBay or any of the other places where you can sell birds. All the ads are for **Ultra Rare Lavender Orphingtons** or some other terrible misspelling. The birds pictured are usually American-type, hatchery quality at best and usually have poor builds and feathers. Breeders don't see the worth in crossing back to Black to create splits as those birds don't sell as well as a visually Lavender bird would. Crossing back to Black improves the quality of the feathers and so long as the Black birds don't exhibit any leakage the Lavenders will usually look better. Lavenders are, in my opinion, a bit like White birds and are more likely to bleach or show sun damage. After a good molt see what he looks like then. If you're breeding him to Black hens, make sure their brothers/fathers didn't have leakage. I forget the term for the barring that sometimes occurs in Lavender birds' hackles. It's especially prevalent in males. There isn't really a standard for Lavender Orpingtons, but if you look at Self Blue OEGB for instance use the description of the color and apply that to the Orpingtons.

 

[CrazyClucks]

If you're breeding him to Black hens, make sure their brothers/fathers didn't have leakage. I forget the term for the barring that sometimes occurs in Lavender birds' hackles. It's especially prevalent in males.

Thank you for clarifying that for me! But humor me in a hypothetical scenario for a bit what IF I have a blue hen that has some definite black leakage due to her mom being darker blue and the father being a black roo. Could there be a possibility that the Lav and blue with black leakage have a lav chick or am I getting my genetic thinking all wrong I liked how Moonshiner used that page to figure it all out! I need to find that website

 

[ColtHandorf]

what IF I have a blue hen that has some definite black leakage due to her mom being darker blue and the father being a black roo.

Okay, so that's technically/genetically impossible. The Blue gene (sometimes called Andalusian Blue) dilutes Black. A Black bird only has two copies of the Black gene. A visually Blue bird would have one Blue gene and one Black gene. However that means that all black feathers are blue, regardless of what shade that blue is. You can have dark, medium, and light Blues.

**Side Note: A friend of mine has a Blue Orpington rooster that she thought was Black for six months. I looked at him in a picture when she was asking me something and told her he was Blue. We went back and forth and I agreed it was possible that the photo could be altering the color but I'd see what he produced with all his Blue hens. Needless to say he produced Blue, Black, and Splash chicks which meant he was a blue.

**Return to Scheduled Programming: A Splash bird has two copies of the Blue gene.

Could there be a possibility that the Lav and blue with black leakage have a lav chick or am I getting my genetic thinking all wrong

Now, it is generally frowned upon to cross Lavender birds into Blue/Black/Splash flocks. The reason behind this goes back to the discussion about visually Black birds that are split to Lavender. Now logically if you cross you Lavender male over Black hens that are not split all your offspring are visually Black and carry a Lavender gene. Now if you bred him back to his split daughters you will only get Lavender birds and Black split to Lavender offspring. Let's complicate things and say you forgot to band the splits to visually identify them from their mothers. You put the Lavender male over the original Black hens and their daughters who carry a Lavender gene. What do you get? Lavenders and Black/Lavenders. Let's say tragedy strikes and you lose the original Lavender rooster and have been selling your visual Lavender babies to pay for chicken feed. All you have left is a Black/Lavender male. You still don't know the original Black hens from the daughters who carry the Lavender gene so you have to put him over all the hens. Now what do you get? Lavenders, Blacks split to Lavender, and Black. How can you tell the Blacks and the Black that carry Lavender apart? Visually, you can't. The only thing you can do is test breed them to discover which females carry the Lavender gene.

Let's muddy the water some more. You have some Blue hens that you let the Lavender male breed. You'll get Black birds and Black split to Lavender birds. Pretty straightforward, because a bird with a Blue gene will be Blue. Now let's say you want to produce some Blues. You take a Black male (who might be split Lavender) and cross him to the original Blue hens. You'll get Blue and Blacks. Some of those Blacks can carry the recessive Lavender gene so are split to Lavender if their father had it. You cross those daughters back to their father. They can produce Blue, Black, Splash, and Lavender birds. Because you don't know who is split without test breeding, it can get very complicated. Other breeders don't like surprises. For example, there was a chance that some new BBS that I added were split to Mottled. Hatched a second batch of chicks last week and SURPRISE!!! I have a baby that has to be Mottled. Now I have to disclose that my birds do indeed carry the Mottled gene which is a turn off to some buyers. Another example, my Silver-laced birds carry Recessive White. Some breeders won't purchase from me because of that. I would be very careful when you cross colors and patterns and try to sell them later. If you're just going for "non-standard" English Orpingtons that will be pretty, go for it. I myself prefer to know exactly what I'm going to get when I breed birds together.

 

[MysteryChicken]

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I've been summoned? lol



I do have a pair of Lavender-laced Orpingtons. I'm very fond of the pullet. I'm hoping the cockerel looks as handsome as his dad when he grows up some more and molts into his big boy plumage.

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The UK Standard for English Orpingtons says black or very dark brown eyes are preferred.

For the record, I have Bantam Lemon Blue Cochins and Large Fowl, English Orpingtons in Blue, Black, Splash, Mauve, Silver-laced, Recessive White, Chocolate, and Lavender Silver-laced. I am working on some project Blue Silver-laced birds and my first F1 pullet is laying eggs. I also have a couple of American-type Lavender Orpingtons. I'd love to get some Lavender English-type though. And of course I'm still sweet talking @Faraday40 and @homeschoolin momma into letting me hatch some of their Blue Silver-laced eggs next spring... The bantam Cochins are adorable, but the English Orpingtons have my heart. Here are a few pictures of mine.

Recessive White Orpingtons; Derek, Anne, Odette, Elizabeth, Diana, and Eleanor

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Blue, Black, Splash, and Mauve Orpingtons; Suede II, Agatha, Agnes, Maud

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Black Orpington; Dahlia with a few Silver-laced girls and her brother Suede I.

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Silver-laced Orpingtons; Hollywood, Mel, and Sue; not pictured are Duchess, Victoria, Charlotte, Mary, Martha, and Matilda

It always seems like they are in a terrible molt anytime I want to get pictures of them for anything.

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If you follow the website linked to this profile, I'm fairly certain it will take you to my Facebook business page where I have many more pictures of them. The Imported English Orpington thread on here is full of our trials and tribulations and some nice photos as well.

To the original question of pretty colors:

I have to be careful or I'll have every color and nowhere to put them. lol I already need to build several more breeding pens but my eventual goal is to have two pens of Silver-laced, one Blue Silver-laced, one Lavender Silver-laced, a Blue/Black/Splash pen, the Recessive White pen, and the Chocolate pen. If I can ever find some quality English Lavender birds I might be convinced to build another pen. Of course I love Partridge and the Red Orpingtons. There are several gorgeous variations of them out there. There are a couple of really good Orpington groups on Facebook with some knowledgeable people on there as well. If you have a pretty base understanding of genetics then you know how BBS and Lavender work. The same principle applies to me with the Blue and Lavender Silver-laced as the original SL are based on black. Mine do carry recessive White which is where that flock came from. The mottled gene that you have can be put over nearly any solid color with minimal effort. Mixing it with other patterns can get cool or messy and @The Moonshiner or @nicalandia are some of the best poultry genetics folks that come to mind nd can help you with that venture.

Nice Orps.

 

[Faraday40]

I'm a visual person, so this is an easy way to see it.
(BTW: split = looks black but carries the lav gene)

For the blues.

 

[MysteryChicken]

I'm a visual person, so this is an easy way to see it.
(BTW: split = looks black but carries the lav gene)

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For the blues.

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I'm a visual person too.

 

[CrazyClucks]

Okay, so that's technically/genetically impossible. The Blue gene (sometimes called Andalusian Blue) dilutes Black. A Black bird only has two copies of the Black gene. A visually Blue bird would have one Blue gene and one Black gene. However that means that all black feathers are blue, regardless of what shade that blue is. You can have dark, medium, and light Blues.

Ok so THIS is my “hypothetical” blue hen we have discussing I asked the lady who gave her to me and I also included that in one of the pictures! Sooo could she be a possible lavender gene carrier??? but I swear she has a good bit of all black iridescent green feathers! And her skirt is pretty dark in comparison to the other blues that I have seen! She was given to me by my friend who’s getting out of blue breeding so I was happy to add her to my little flock

 

[ColtHandorf]

She's just a dark blue. If the breeder's flock was pure for BBS then there's no chance she could have Lavender.