So shortly after getting the Silver-laced Orpingtons I thought to myself, "Wouldn't these be pretty in Blue?" The longer I thought about it the more I decided I was going to do it. I remember Suede,
@speckledhen's beautiful Orpington rooster fifteen years ago, and all the other gorgeous BBS Orps that were on the forum. And then I saw
@Faraday40's gorgeous Blue Silver-laced project Orpingtons she's working on and decided I had to have some. I started scouring Facebook and Craigslist hoping I could find some quality birds without having to ship them in. As luck would have it I stumbled across someone that was selling out of all their birds and I picked up a six month old pair; a black pullet and a gorgeous blue cockerel. I also brought home a younger blue pullet and a chocolate pullet because "chicken math". Since then I have added some additional BBS bloodlines from some other breeders. The cockerel that replaced Suede after his unfortunate end by the American Buff gander, as well as the Blue and Mauve pullet carry Mottled which I didn't know until adding them into the breeding pen and hatching their first set of chicks, so I'll be working with mottled birds in the future.
These are the pictures from the sale ad where I found them.
View attachment 2460731View attachment 2460732View attachment 2460733
Here are Dahlia and Suede with some Silver-laced when they were all sharing a pen last winter.
View attachment 2460734
The parents of my original Chocolate pullet:
View attachment 2460730
Dahlia (Black), Agatha (Blue), Dorcas (US Lavender), and Prudence (Chocolate) enjoying the new barn when I moved them while waiting for Suede to return from his
convalescence:
View attachment 2460735
The replacement cockerel and some new girls from another local breeder:
View attachment 2460728View attachment 2460729View attachment 2460736View attachment 2460737
I am hoping that breeding the new male over Suede's to original hens that were from the first breeder will produce some darker, big blues like Suede and the younger birds you see in the sale ads. My current blues are much lighter. And of course I'll have to see how the mottling plays out. I've added some Black Mottled/Lavender Mottled chicks that should be ready to breed in the late spring. I'm undecided if I want to try to get the Mottled birds in their own pen and keep one line without it.
Agatha, the original Blue pullet produced the F1 Blue Silver-laced pullets that are finally reaching laying age. I realize I have no good pictures of them, so I'll see what I can do to remedy that, provided the weather stays decent.