Chickens and Mixing Breeds (sort of )

[gardentlc]

I have 8 Buff Rock Hens, and 5 Buff Orpington Hens, and I have a neighbor a few miles down the road that has too many roosters. He offered to give me a White Orpington Roo, about the same age as my girls. What should I expect when they mate as far as the chicks go? With the Orps and the Rocks....

 

[Ridgerunner]

I assume you are talking color and pattern? That’s hard to say. You’ve got two colors that are a little hard to work with and get predictable results.

Buff is a little difficult because there are different ways genetically to make buff. What you get will depend on which way that buff was put together. There are also diluters in there that can have some strange effects on some colors. For example, if you cross a Buff rooster with certain black hens, in theory you get a solid black chick, but what you sometimes actually wind up with is a black chick with some pretty large orange splotches. Sometimes, not always.

White is even more uncertain. There are two different genes that could cause a solid white chicken, dominant white and recessive white. Dominant white sometimes needs the help of silver to get a solid white bird. There are many different genes that can be masked by that white. What you get will depend on which of these genes are turning the rooster white and what is hiding under that white. With those birds you might get black, white, buff, or patterned chicks with different colors. You may even get a mixture of colors and patterns from different chicks.

If you are talking about what the chicks egg-laying or size would be like, they will be very similar to your current hens.

 

[gardentlc]

Thank you so very much for your reply! I know the Orpingtons are of the same breed, hens are buff and roo is white, and then the buff rocks, I was just curious about this. Does not really matter to me, curiosity.....Thank you!