How “climby” are Orpingtons?

Hi! I think that any breed of chicken will climb around, My buff orp always sleeps on the highest roost every night.

 

If they have a way to get up aside from flying, they will enjoy it for sure. And they have to have enough room to get down, or as you suggest, a ramp. Mine can’t fly and sometimes they jump from as high as four feet. It’s important that they don’t land on anything sharp or too rough - foot problems.

 

I have two buff orphington and they don't often fly unless they see me with treats. Then they have a race to get me haha.

Mine seem not to like climb up things. But they got used to my off the ground coop and use the ramp reguarly now. They don't mind hopping up on logs and stuff to get around either.

I would agree with keeping things low in general. One of the girls hurt her leg and I think it was from landing funny once.

 

Are your Orps show-quality or hatchery quality? Have you raised them (or will you raise them) on a high protein diet or stick with the regular Grower type food and let them forage for a lot of their food? What I'm getting at is that any breed that is large for its breed is in more risk of damaging legs and such jumping around as opposed to one that is not as heavy. My hatchery Orps forage a lot and are not fed a high protein diet. They have no problems flying up to and down from a 5' high roost. For some people that could be an issue.

There is an advantage to adding clutter to your run, especially it space is kind of tight. Giving them places to hide under, behind, and over improves the quality of what space you have. You still need to be able to walk around in the run.

They do like to perch. It doesn't have to be very complicated or all that high. They often like to perch together which kind of defeats the purpose of giving them several. If you're integrating it might be beneficial to have two or three different places well spread out. You can do whatever you wish, but if you put a branch or two a foot or two off the ground they will probably be happy. Anything beyond that is probably more for your benefit than theirs. Some people like to build and do things. Nothing wrong with that. Just post photos of what you do.

I have a plum tree in my run. They like to fly up to those branches to perch.

 

I'd also ask if they are English or American-type Orpingtons. My Silver-laced English are not very adventurous in the height department. My Black pullet however will fly up onto things I'd think were much too tall for her to get up on. She's by far the largest of all of them bar the Blue rooster who can barely get up 30-36" to roost at night. I had to make a ladder that's nearly 10" wide just so they could ascend to an extremely low perch. lol

 

I have two lavender Orpingtons, both about 9 months old. One is a huge, beach ball of a chicken, and the other is svelte and not nearly so wide. The svelte one can fly across our city yard, and the big one can't get lift at all. The big girl is a bit clumsy and not the best jumper, but even she jumps up as high as she can on the ramp between the pop door and the run. The svelte one jumps straight up ~2 feet onto their food tower a few times a day and isn't put out by the effort at all.

Based on my dumplings, I'd say a ramp or multi-step setup would be best for any chubsters you have. Any that are good at flying/jumping could go up as high as they want to from the ground, but the big ones can also participate that way.