How old is a buff orpington hen at it's full size?

[WildBilly]

i have a question, i have a buf orpington who lays eggs and i was wondering how many months until it fills out and it's comb grows?

my BUFF ORPINGTON is the gold one in this picture. today she is 6 months and 12 days old. She is BIG but i wonder when she reaches FULL size and COMB.

 

[Keltara]

She's got another 1/2 year to grow. Here are mine all full grown. They are such a joy!! I love this breed! You can see some full grown portraits of them by clicking here.

Kelly

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Our Country Chronicles

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[JadeRahl]

My goodness! Those are some beautifully poofy ladies. Looks like you have quite a bit of fluff to look forward to Wildbilly

 

[WildBilly]

thankyou, im just bored

 

[missnu01]

There is no way that the chicken in your first pic is currently laying... Their combs start to come in and redden prior to their first egg.

 

[Foristers]

I get alot of strange looks when I tell people that I weigh my chickens every two weeks but I do it to answer for myself questions like this because there is so much misinformation on the internet. (remember the Allstate Commercial about the "French Model" ) I have all Buff Orpingtons. The "A" generation is now 11 months old, the "B" generation was hatched out in May - 6 on Mother's Day and 3 on the Friday before Memorial Day. I'll start weighing the "B" generation at 5 weeks.
I didn't start weighing the "A" generation until they were 23 weeks which was one week before the first hen (pullet then) laid her first egg. Some of the other ones didn't lay their first egg until they were 25 or even 26 weeks old and one slacker laid her first egg at 2 day shy of 28 weeks of age.
Anyway, what I have noticed about the Weight Gain of female Buff Orpingtons is that they stopped gaining considerable weight about 34 to 38 weeks of age, that is about 8 to 9 months old. They sometimes gain marginal weight and they sometimes lose marginal weight but they seem to bounce back to within about 10% of their 36 week weight. I had 2 runts that stopped gaining considerable weight at 28 - 30 weeks.
Now I know that some people will swear that their hens got bigger and bigger until they were 12 months and some people say 18 months and still others say 2 years. All I can say is that I am going to continue to weigh them, perhaps they will hit another growth spurt? Again my older hens are only 11 months.
But there are a few things that can affect weight that have nothing to do with a chicken reaching maturity.
For example a few of my hens got sick in early April and they lost weight while other birds were still gaining it. Another thing that can falsely mislead weight gain data as a marker of the end of adolescence stage is that, like humans, even a fully grown adult bird can continue to gain weight if she is just getting fat because she is just eating alot of junk food or table scraps.
I believe that this later weight gain is the main reason that many people think that a chicken is not "fully grown" until 18 months or 2 years. That would be like saying that a human is still maturing if they gain more weight after high school. How many people over 35 still fit into the same jeans they wore in high school?
I believe correct the data that shows that all of my chickens were still gaining weight rapidly between 23 weeks and about 34-38 weeks. This data was then plotted on a graph and the line continued to go up at a sharp angle until that time (34-38 weeks)when thereafter it basically went flat. That flattening off shows that the growth hormone was turned off because the birds had reached full maturity or adulthood. I have seen that their feathers continue to grow, which can make them look like they are still growing, but the key marker for the end of puberty is when that line stops going vertical and starts going horizontal. IMHO
Around that same time their comb and wattles were "ripening" - that is turning full red and having reached what appeared to be full size.
I will post future updates if I am reminded.
I purchased my original Buff Orpingtons at Murrey McMurrey hatchery - that was the "A" generation. The "B" generation were bred from the original set.
The males started their accelerated growth spurt before the females did, but tapered off at about the same time. Hope this helps.