hen size/egg size question

[hensonly]

HI,

I got four Orpingtons in with a batch of another breed (with my permission). They are now 5 months old, and one of the pullets is absolutely tiny. She is also not shaped like a chicken, never mind an Orp. She looks like a white dove that got in with the chickens by mistake. She's also a real sweetheart, she's the first chicken I've actually named. (Lilly, because she's both lilly-white and lilli-putian).

Anyway, I worry that her Orp. genetics will determine her egg size instead of her physical size determining it. IN other words, will she develop full-size Orp eggs? or ones more appropriate to her smallness? Not that there's anything I can do about it, but I'm curious.

Anyone?

 

[Happy Chooks]

Do you have a picture of her?

 

[hensonly]

Quote:
I can get one and post it today...if I can keep her from perching on my head! She likes to fly to my head as soon as I come into the chicken house...hard to get a photo from there! But I will take one and post it today.

 

[LC orps]

Quote:
I can get one and post it today...if I can keep her from perching on my head! She likes to fly to my head as soon as I come into the chicken house...hard to get a photo from there! But I will take one and post it today.

 

[hensonly]

Ok, here's some pics of my tiny little girl. Remember, she's supposed to be an Orpington! :

With a roo exactly the same age

Sitting on my hand, at arm's length:

Between a roo and another pullet:

I'm assuming she will lay eggs based on her actual size... do y'all think she has a higher than average risk of becoming egg bound?

 

[Laigaie]

Looking at her feet next to the others' I'd guess she's bantam, and will lay bantam-sized eggs. If she were genetically the same as the others, she'd have the same big feet that they do.

 

[Happy Chooks]

Well, she's not an Orp (or if she is, she's got the wrong color legs) but the good news is................she is a chicken.

It's hard to see her comb, but she looks to have a pea comb in the pics?

She looks like a sweet girl. I would guess you'll get eggs from her on the smaller side for Large fowl, but bigger than bantam eggs.

 

[gritsar]

I think she's a bantam and not a buff orp. at all. I have an accidental bantam in with my LF brahmas. She was s'posed to be a LF like the rest. She lays eggs appropriate for her size, smaller than the large fowl brahmas, but still of a good size.

 

[hensonly]

Quote:
Hmmm....wrong color legs, you say?? I got four white orps with this order, one I lost at 3 days, one is a roo with also bright yellow legs, and I have often wondered which bird is the other orp... Since the rest of the flock is Dorkings, with 5 toes, I'm assuming that one hen with four toes is the other Orp...but she has white legs like the dorkings, so Ive never been sure whether she was just a four-toed dorking or the other orp...

so what color legs are orps supposed to have???I thought yellow....guess not!

 

[hensonly]

Quote:
I thought bantams were supposed to fit the same breed standard as the standards, just smaller. This little girl is not, to my eyes, built like an orp at all. Not that it really matters, her eggs will taste just as good! But I like to be educated as much as I can...

btw, the place I got her from, I don't think raises bantams, so I guess she's just a naturally tiny specimen? It's funny, too, that she was the same size as the others as a tiny chick; at 6 weeks she was a little smaller than the rest, and after that she pretty much stopped growing, just changed into her adult feathers...I had a black chick who was very, very small as a day-old, that one caught up to the rest in less than a week. Now I cant' tell which one it was, and this little girl is the runt...they do keep us guessing, don't they!