Orpington colours?

[ColtHandorf]

Thanks! This all makes way more sense now. If you were to mix colour pens would you get mixed colours? I know with my Dutch Bantams I just put all the colours in together and I get a rainbow of colours.

You would get non-standardized colors, or what I refer to as eye or yard candy. They'll all be Orpingtons of course, but you'll get lots of dark colors with either gold or silver leakage depending on what was crossed. I try to keep all the varieties I work with separate when I'm breeding unless I'm working on something that requires me to mix varieties like Blue or Lavender Silver-laced for example.

 

[Earthdale]

Just to clear things up (This cross is pure speculation and has no basis in fact) if you bred say colour 1 to a colour 2 hen and you got buff could you sell the chick as buff even though neither or only one of the parents was buff?

 

[pekin queen]

Just to clear things up (This cross is pure speculation and has no basis in fact) if you bred say colour 1 to a colour 2 hen and you got buff could you sell the chick as buff even though neither or only one of the parents was buff?

if its phenotype was buff then yes

 

[ColtHandorf]

Just to clear things up (This cross is pure speculation and has no basis in fact) if you bred say colour 1 to a colour 2 hen and you got buff could you sell the chick as buff even though neither or only one of the parents was buff?

Nope. The bird may appear buff but you have no idea what genes it is actually carrying. It would be misleading to sell a bird that is buff-coloured to a breeder as a Buff Orpington. They could take that bird and add it to their flock and the lord only knows what will come out.

Here's an actual example.

I crossed a Silver-laced cock over Blue hens to get an F1 generation of project Blue Silver-laced. The blue female offspring were all I cared about. The blue males and black offspring (poorly marked as they were only partially laced) were sold as "non-standard" Orpingtons to backyard flocks that just wanted fat sweet babies.

if its phenotype was buff then yes

 

[Earthdale]

Okay? This is getting confusing.

 

[JacinLarkwell]

Okay? This is getting confusing.

Just keep it simple and don't mix colors

 

[Painted Calls]

Okay? This is getting confusing.

What Colt is saying is that if you produced a bird that appears buff, from a mixed color breeding, then that bird would carry unseen genetics. Say you sold that buff to someone wanting to breed. They could breed it and it could produce a bunch of mixed color babies.

It is always best to keep most birds separated by color.

 

[ColtHandorf]

Okay? This is getting confusing.

What is confusing?

 

[Earthdale]

People saying different things

 

[Fallenone05]

People saying different things

I'd trust Colt and his genetic lessons the most, along with Overos words.

Yes, it will be an Orpington through and through, but a buff colored bird mixed with a bird that hatched buff but has buff/blue or buff/black or even buff/blue as its heritage could throw unwanted colors instead of breeding true and getting a buff bird every time.