Lavender Orpington project ....

[Tuffoldhen]

Quote:
Depending on generation I would choose the black orpington to keep over the lavender hens but remember you will also be getting plain black birds, split black that carry the lavender gene and pure lavender colors in some of the chicks. Myself I have only kept the lavender color and sold the blacks and splits as layer pullets. I would never try to pick a cockerel as a keeper at 13 weeks, cockerels go through so many changes as they grow out they will not be mature til atleast 6 months to 18 months of age. That's when most pick good breeder birds.


So can I use the dark roo with the light hens (since he is much larger?) and still have good color or should I use the lighter smaller rooster???

I would pick the larger dark over a light colored smaller rooster depending on the rest of his characteristics.

My two cents.......

 

[cukooformarans]

Thanks, Tuffoldhen! I have one other question. I had just about settled on keeping the larger roo. He is broader, bigger, grew and feathered out faster. (He is the rooster that I mentioned with the darker plumage.) I noticed the other day that his legs are more splotchy than the others-they have the slate color, but have light patches (maybe not the best descriptive word) on them. One chick of seven turned out mottled and it was a hen. This rooster appeared lavender at birth and I haven't noticed white in his feathers. (Since he is so much darker, it seems like it would be obvious.) The one hen has been obvious since hatching. The rooster in question has a dark beak as well. Could the light patches on the legs indicate that he carries a copy of the mottled gene? Does this change your opinion? I have already begun to look into ordering black orp eggs to improve type/size but it looks like it will be next spring by the time I have a black orp that is old enough to put over them, so will be using one of the lavs until then.

Anybody have any suggestions? Thanks so much for any input-I am a newbie who is VERY interested in lav orps and trying to breed them to the high standards being set by people who are much more knowledgeable than me even though we keep ours primarily as a beautiful backyard pet!

 

[HallFamilyFarm]

We recently showed all of our Orpingtons at a 200+ bird show. The judge picked one of our Buff hens as Champion Large fowl. He picked a Black as Reserve Large Fowl. It was a pullet. A cockerel was picked as Reserve Variety in Black. This young pair is not laying/crowing yet. After judging I asked why he picked the young pair. He said they have good Orpington type like the buff hen. I then explained that the old Black cock was the grandfather and was a Cecil Moore hatched bird. That the Black hens were the mothers. I then pointed at our lone Self Blue (Lav) Orp Cock and said he was the sire. Reserve Breed and Best and reserve variety Black orpington were Splits! He did not know he was picking Splits. So hoping for some quality lavender colored offspring this year.

We will not be brining any large fowl Orps to Crossroads. We are setting up our breeding pens. Not enough birds to breed and show. Terry Britt suggested we hatch in December to February. earlier better. So we will start lights soon and get ours ready to produce the next generation of quality Orpingtons. We will be at Crossroads. Mostly at the Exhibition Turkey Fanciers/American Orpington Poultry Fanciers booth. Look us up.

 

[little blue]

Quote:
Depending on generation I would choose the black orpington to keep over the lavender hens but remember you will also be getting plain black birds, split black that carry the lavender gene and pure lavender colors in some of the chicks. Myself I have only kept the lavender color and sold the blacks and splits as layer pullets. I would never try to pick a cockerel as a keeper at 13 weeks, cockerels go through so many changes as they grow out they will not be mature til atleast 6 months to 18 months of age. That's when most pick good breeder birds.


So can I use the dark roo with the light hens (since he is much larger?) and still have good color or should I use the lighter smaller rooster???

I would pick the larger dark over a light colored smaller rooster depending on the rest of his characteristics.

My two cents.......

if you keep the black roo an breed to lav hens all chicks will be black split to lavender.then the next year you can breed the splits back to lavs an you will get black,black split to lav an lavender.i would keep the biggest black roo you have we bought an english black roo to breed to our lavs next spring.

 

[cukooformarans]

Does anybody know about the leg color-would the splotchy legs on a bird that is not otherwise mottled indicate that he carries one copy of the mottling gene or would one copy not show up at all?
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[akpeeps]

My newest momma, Vivian, just hatched 10 eggs about 3-4 days ago. Poppa is my black split roo, Bert the Conquerer.
She disappeared on me for almost 2 weeks before I found her...thought she was the latest fox victim. Brought her and the eggs in when I finally found her hide out and about a week later...

6 black split and 4 lavender

Proud poppa, Bert!

 

[kathyinmo]

I had only a pair of 5th generation (hinkjc stock) Lavender projects; Lavender male and split female. Sooooo, I hatched several of their eggs (I kept 6 females and 1 male) and plan to continue on with them, mating them to black Imported English Orps.

 

[Tuffoldhen]

Quote:
I'm not sure so I think that is a question for Jody or Charlie (hinkjc) I've never worked with the mottle.

Kathy those are nice, nice. I have 6th generation from Jody and they are on the black english rooster and a lav roo on the english black girls. Not hatching til next Spring!!!!

 

[kathyinmo]

Quote:
I'm not sure so I think that is a question for Jody or Charlie (hinkjc) I've never worked with the mottle.

Kathy those are nice, nice. I have 6th generation from Jody and they are on the black english rooster and a lav roo on the english black girls. Not hatching til next Spring!!!!

I can definitely see the improvements over the generations! I am waiting to hatch til next spring, too.

 

[cukooformarans]

I asked Jody this question and she said it didn't sound like the mottling gene to her. She said she would still use the bigger rooster since mottling isn't too hard to weed out. However, there is now a little bit of rusty colored edging coming in on some of his feathers. All of these things are adding up to me thinking something is just not right with this boy.

Anybody else seen this before? Anybody have some late generation eggs to sale? I tried to buy some on e-bay and spent the last 30 minutes of the auction glued to the computer. I won them and paid immediately. Then this morning I woke up to an e-mail saying the hens weren't laying as expected and my money was refunded (something that was obviously outside of the sellers control, I know) .

Beginning to think I picked the wrong time of year to look for good quality hatching eggs.

Quote:
I'm not sure so I think that is a question for Jody or Charlie (hinkjc) I've never worked with the mottle.

Kathy those are nice, nice. I have 6th generation from Jody and they are on the black english rooster and a lav roo on the english black girls. Not hatching til next Spring!!!!