Gender/Color question on Orpingtons

FarmerJayne

Chirping
Joined
Apr 24, 2013
Messages
63
Reaction score
1
Points
84
Location
Acampo, CA
These Orpingtons are 15-16 weeks old now. I got them from a local backyard chicken breeder. They said they run all their different colors of Opringtons together. Being new to chickens, I'm not sure what to call the coloring of these ones. Also, on 2 of them I am not entirely sure if they are pullets or cockerels.
First is the one I know is a pullet but not sure of the color. She does have some bands of color. She was all grey when I got her but now has some orangish coloring too. What color would you call this?
Full-body shot:



Head-shot:


Back of her neck (her neck is where she has the most orange color):


Looking from her tail-end up toward her body, you can see that her tail feathers do not have the orange coloring. Also notice that she has three distinct colors further up, the orange, light grey, and darker grey.


I'll add pictures of the other 2 later. My internet connection is slow.
 
That is a really pretty really weird color pattern, almost like blue cuckoo x jubilee but the order of the color bands aren't right and they don't stay consistent either. So what color has blue/black, white, red color bands? Wonder if the rest of her feathers will get more color if she started as gray?
 
Thank you both. I know I have not found a picture of another chicken colored like she is.
Alright, the next two are pretty much the same color although one has more grey than the other does. I don't know what this color combo is called either. Now, their combs and wattles make me think more that they are roos but then I'm not sure their feathering says that. I know the girl who was helping us when we picked them up said they do have a hen with a large comb, so maybe they're just pullets with big combs? I don't know.

This is Marigold (at least for now LOL):







 
OK, you win for weirdest color patterns, that looks like it wanted to be a blue laced red, which I don't think they have in orps, but I swear in the pictures the back looks like red laced blue, does anybody have that?. I guess you could get BLR if you crossed a gold laced with a blue? At 15-16 weeks I would go probably a fast maturing (for an orp) pullet on that one, but would not be terribly surprised if it was a slow maturing roo, with the color though, I would expect more red on the shoulders on a boy. Are you sure all this breeder had was orps?
 
Finally, we have Plucky/Petunia. This is the one that I do see some difference in the saddle feathers and maybe has a bit bigger/redder comb and waddles than Marigold.



I really like the way these feathers by Plucky's tail show sort of a laced effect with the red and blue:




 
No, the breeder had more than Oprs but I am sort of assumed they had them separated for breeding. I know they had Marans and then some sort of red chickens to I think (not sure what they were). I did see a huge Orp rooster that I believe would be called blue. Their ad I think listed lemon cuckoo and lavender as some of their Orp colors.
 
I have a pullet who is very similar in color to your first bird, she's just from my mixed breeding with a partially barred rooster over various hens, not sure who her momma is. I call her my calico chicken lol.
There's no name for the colors you have, since they're mixed feel free to call them whatever you want.
 
Alright, I shall have to come up with some good names for their colors. :) Any other opinions on gender on the second and third?
 
#3 is looking roo to me, I am pretty sure those are saddle feathers coming in, and the whole posture looks roo. And that looks like red laced blue, I want to know how you make that color. The lemon cuckoo would explain the barring and dilute color in the first girl, still don't understand the barring in multiple colors.
 

New posts New threads Active threads

Back
Top Bottom