Chicken Breed Focus - Russian Orloff

[pasdechat73]

My god your cochin sounds like she could compete with a Silkie for brooding skills! xD This is the first time I hear of a Cochin brooding once every three months, that must have made alot of hatched chicks for you each year!

Yes. She is broody nutcase! We adopted her from https://www.mcmurrayhatchery.com/index.html in case you are interested. She is slowing down though. She is 5 and has been a god send to our little flock. I thank the elements for her each day!!

My first time ever having Russian Orloffs, I am counting the days on the calendar and super excited too! My peeps are due to hatch on April 4-5-6, so there is yet another week to go before they start hatching... feels like my birthday come early. Gaah I can't wait! xD

I can't wait to see your pics! I was trying to find some of Buttercup, Gracie and Latte (my Russians) when they were young but couldn't locate any. I also can't find any up for adoption albeit a few breeders in the Society who occasionally sell (not from US or Canada though) http://russianorloffsociety.weebly.com/for-sale.html. As a last resort, I might need to connect with someone one day...I can't imagine not having Orloffs in our family

 

[Eelantha]

Yes. She is broody nutcase! We adopted her from https://www.mcmurrayhatchery.com/index.html in case you are interested. She is slowing down though. She is 5 and has been a god send to our little flock. I thank the elements for her each day!!

My wallet is way too small to order from a hatchery... but thank you for the nice offer
And I agree with you that broodies are godsends. They're so much more reliable than incubators, now I don't have to worry about the incubation going wrong because of my inexperience or a power outage, and can sleep easy knowing my peeps won't be threatened by the fire hazards that are heat lamps, because mama hen is going to provide warmth and shelter for them. Plus she's going to teach them how to be proper chickens, so hopefully my new peeps will not be scared of earthworms as are my current layers

I can't wait to see your pics! I was trying to find some of Buttercup, Gracie and Latte (my Russians) when they were young but couldn't locate any. I also can't find any up for adoption albeit a few breeders in the Society who occasionally sell (not from US or Canada though) http://russianorloffsociety.weebly.com/for-sale.html. As a last resort, I might need to connect with someone one day...I can't imagine not having Orloffs in our family

You can get pics of orloff chicks on feathersite, usually that site has chick pics of every chicken breed they talk about. Scroll down to the end of the page in the link and you'll see what Russian Orloff chicks look like

Kijiji is a good place to look for chicken breeds if you can't find anything from registered breeders. That's how I found my chicks actually - last year I was tracking down all the people who sold Crested Cream Legbars on Kijiji in my country. While narrowing down my choices I visited the facebook page of a Kijiji seller to see what other breeds they had and I found that person had just gotten a hold of an Orloff cock. They didn't have hens yet last year... so I kept a very close eye on their activity, and sure enough by this spring the person had not only managed to get hens for the rooster, but also to start breeding them. Needless to say, I jumped on the offer of fertilized eggs, and now there I am, with Orloff chicks being incubated by my broodie.

Usually I would not be so quick as to buy a chicken breed, but Russian Orloffs are so rare in my area that I didn't want to miss the chance to finally have one. Next on the list of try-outs are the Chanteclers and Buckeyes; my broodie settled during the time where it seems most Quebecan Chanteclers are taking their laying break so I'll have to wait until next spring to get that breed, and Buckeyes have yet to find a home in a breeder near my location, so I'll see if I can find anyone on Kijiji who begs to differ on the matter. Now that I have an idea of when my broodie is most likely to sit, I'll be able to look up hatching eggs for both breeds in advance next year

The speckled plumage of the Orloff is absolutely gorgeous. I hope my peeps will be colorful

 

[pasdechat73]

And I agree with you that broodies are godsends. They're so much more reliable than incubators, now I don't have to worry about the incubation going wrong because of my inexperience or a power outage, and can sleep easy knowing my peeps won't be threatened by the fire hazards that are heat lamps, because mama hen is going to provide warmth and shelter for them. Plus she's going to teach them how to be proper chickens, so hopefully my new peeps will not be scared of earthworms as are my current layers

I agree on all counts! Our power gets shut-off often during 'fire season' so we have a generator but I prefer my broody fanny!!

Kijiji is a good place to look for chicken breeds if you can't find anything from registered breeders. That's how I found my chicks actually - last year I was tracking down all the people who sold Crested Cream Legbars on Kijiji in my country. While narrowing down my choices I visited the facebook page of a Kijiji seller to see what other breeds they had and I found that person had just gotten a hold of an Orloff cock. Needless to say, I jumped on the offer of fertilized eggs, and now there I am, with Orloff chicks being incubated by my broodie.

Usually I would not be so quick as to buy a chicken breed, but Russian Orloffs are so rare in my area that I didn't want to miss the chance to finally have one.

The speckled plumage of the Orloff is absolutely gorgeous. I hope my peeps will be colorful

I will need to check that out! We got our Orloff's on the fly at a feed store one day. I can't imagine being without them so I was very sad when we lost our roo. I'm always searching so thank you so much for the heads-up! Like you, I don't have all the pennies in the world to spend my money in the hatcheries or up-scale breeders. If we can do it at home...all the better!!!

 

[Eelantha]

I will need to check that out! We got our Orloff's on the fly at a feed store one day. I can't imagine being without them so I was very sad when we lost our roo. I'm always searching so thank you so much for the heads-up! Like you, I don't have all the pennies in the world to spend my money in the hatcheries or up-scale breeders. If we can do it at home...all the better!!!

I wish you good luck on finding an Orloff roster for your hens! ^^ please post a picture of him here when you find him? It's be nice to see the face of the future papa of your Orloff chicks!

 

[Eelantha]

@pasdechat73 - It is with sadness that I must say not a single Orloff chick made it to hatch day.

Of the 10 eggs I gave to my broody for incubation, I had:

1 White Chantecler egg (utterly gone missing, no hints at egg eaters)
4 BBS Ameraucana eggs (2 hatched, 2 dead embryos)
5 Spangled Orloff eggs (3 dead embryos, 1 dud, 1 whose content looks like water inside its shell)

Only 2 Ameraucana chicks (1 black and 1 splash) made it to hatch day, and out of them, one is vigorous while the other is not. I'm not sure what happened, but I'm getting fed up with the sheer bad luck I have with eggs fetched at someone else's place for incubation. I should have gotten seven chicks out of this hatch, and now I've only got two. I'm praying the gods above they survive their first week of life.

 

[pasdechat73]

@pasdechat73 - It is with sadness that I must say not a single Orloff chick made it to hatch day.

Of the 10 eggs I gave to my broody for incubation, I had:

1 White Chantecler egg (utterly gone missing, no hints at egg eaters)
4 BBS Ameraucana eggs (2 hatched, 2 dead embryos)
5 Spangled Orloff eggs (3 dead embryos, 1 dud, 1 whose content looks like water inside its shell)

Only 2 Ameraucana chicks (1 black and 1 splash) made it to hatch day, and out of them, one is vigorous while the other is not. I'm not sure what happened, but I'm getting fed up with the sheer bad luck I have with eggs fetched at someone else's place for incubation. I should have gotten seven chicks out of this hatch, and now I've only got two. I'm praying the gods above they survive their first week of life.

@Eelantha -- I am so sorry to hear this!! It is so hit or miss with the incubation process but I can understand your frustration. I know that its expensive, but I did find females for sale via the states from May to December. You can elect to get them vaccinated too. PM me if you want the information? I'm going to keep it handy for myself as well. I love my Orloffs and couldn't imagine a day without them!

How are the Ameraucanas faring? I pray all is well with them!!!

 

[SJ]

Love the looks of Jet. Got any of his chicks for sale? Im starting a flock in Penasco.

 

[Eelantha]

@pasdechat73 - That is so true. This is my second year of bad luck with incubation, last year I had 25 eggs in the incubator and only 7 hatched, three of them with splayed legs and one with malformed lungs. I managed to save them all, but now I have a rooster with almost closed pelvic bones who I can't use to sire me fresh pullets, two aggressive hens who need to be rehomed, and two thirds of my flock has loose poop. I can't treat my hens for parasites because I need their eggs to eat through the Covid-19 crisis. I was counting on the broody's hatch to select and replace my old hens, but even that was a disaster, and I can't get out to buy chicks to give my broody to adopt because the police force is sure to send me back home. This year is so not going as planned for me...

Ordering Orloff pullets from the states is tempting, but way out of my wallet's reach. I am far from rich, and every penny is counted. I can only drive a distance of 2 hrs from home and back to fetch hatching eggs, pullets or chickens. The breeder I got my eggs from was within such a distance. As for vaccination, I prefer to avoid them as I am wary of the vaccine slowly leaking onto my hen's eggs over time. But yes, I would like to have the PM information as to where to get Orloffs, as I can try my hand at them in future years when I have more money and experience in artificial incubation

My vigorous Ameraucana chick is faring as well as he can for now. I suspect he is starting to get hungry though, because his mother doesn't seem to understand that dismissing the chick feeder bowl for pine shavings is a bad idea. I am looking for ways to make her get the clue that she's better off feeding her chick from the bowl, but that ain't started well, either.

My weak chick, on the other hand, is ready to die. He doesn't stand, barely moves, doesn't eat, breathes like a fish and has only drank 2-4 drops of water since Monday. My handfeeding attempts aren't helping him get better. The only thing he wants to do is sleep under the mama heating pad I've improvised for him, so I've decided to let him be. I don't have the heart to kill him, and while one of my co-locators could do it, his proposal to crush the chick under a hammer sickens me. Between a violent death and one in as much comfort as I can give him, I've opted for the gentler option. I can only wait, now, and pray for him to pass quickly so he doesn't suffer much longer u_u

 

[pasdechat73]

The only thing he wants to do is sleep under the mama heating pad I've improvised for him, so I've decided to let him be. I don't have the heart to kill him, and while one of my co-locators could do it, his proposal to crush the chick under a hammer sickens me. Between a violent death and one in as much comfort as I can give him, I've opted for the gentler option. I can only wait, now, and pray for him to pass quickly so he doesn't suffer much longer u_u

The first and only time my husband killed one of ours (a barred - Emma Lou) is when she was attacked by a pitbull. He cried afterward. I had never seen him cry like that since we lost our first dog. Only twice now. Your compassion and prayers for the chick to pass quickly is honorable.

Let me see if I can PM that link to you.

Beyond it all...have hope. There are breeds like silkies and EE's that I can't seem to protect, as hard as I try. They either get sick or attacked by predators. But I'm not going to let the elements or forces at be stop me from trying. Especially this damn monster of a virus!

Hugs to you and yours...tell that little chick who is full of piss and vinegar to keep trucking!!!

 

[Eelantha]

The first and only time my husband killed one of ours (a barred - Emma Lou) is when she was attacked by a pitbull. He cried afterward. I had never seen him cry like that since we lost our first dog. Only twice now. Your compassion and prayers for the chick to pass quickly is honorable.

Let me see if I can PM that link to you.

Beyond it all...have hope. There are breeds like silkies and EE's that I can't seem to protect, as hard as I try. They either get sick or attacked by predators. But I'm not going to let the elements or forces at be stop me from trying. Especially this damn monster of a virus!

Hugs to you and yours...tell that little chick who is full of piss and vinegar to keep trucking!!!

Here we never had to kill any of our chickens. They either died of ailment or a predator attack. Back with my first flock, I lost a commercial Leghorn to what I can only think was a heart attack, because she was fine the previous evening and was found inexplicably dead on the floor the next morning, looking to have seized and fallen off her perch. In my second flock a buzzard first went and snatched at my rooster, and when that failed, came back to down one of my commercial brown hens the next month. The run was a mess of scattered feathers and guts, and the rest of my traumatized flock didn't dare get out of the coop for a solid week after that incident. That attack spurred me to do some massive coop updates, and I restarted with a new flock two years later. Now I'm here, trying to amass winter-hardy rainbow layers, but they just keep eluding me spring after spring TTxTT

I too have hope. If I'm unable to get any chicks this year because of the virus, at least I still have hens to give me eggs. The last purchase I did right before we got asked to stay at home was to buy a 50lbs bag of powdery white hydrated lime, and I'm trying out the age-old water-glassing method that is rumored to preserve eggs for up to 2 years. If this method works I won't need to change hens every year, as I will be able to store eggs during spring, summer and fall to last me and the rest of the house through the winter season. I have high hopes this method works, but I won't truly know until this early winter.

Hugs to you and your Orloff sweethearts, thank you so much for the moral support ^^