Post Pics Of Orps/ Orpingtons HERE

If you have room in your cabinet hatching tray, CRYSTALCREEK came up with a great idea last year- put your lavender (ro BBS) eggs inside the jumbo suet cages when they go into lockdown. I tried it a couple times and it worked well. It was actually pretty cute because the chicks in the cages looked like they were in a tiny jail, and kept poking thier little heads out. Just don't put too many eggs in them so they can't roll around to zip if they need to.

Suet feeders, dishwasher baskets...all great ideas that I would have never thought of. Thanks everyone! I'll try that on the next batch next week.
 
That white hen may be hiding cuckoo, the plumage looks like it. There looks like a super light dusting on the outer edge of her feathers..unless she is molting..or its the lighting..

Nice...
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When you first made this comment, I wasn't sure where you were headed. After seeing your post for the free chicks (black cuckoo orpington project), I get it. I have no idea if my whites are hiding cuckoo as I've only bred them to my white roo, therefore only giving me white chicks. Also, since I'm on your waiting list for white orp eggs, seems I will eventually be getting white hiding cuckoo!! I have spent hours just looking at my birds and have never seen any barring, or light shadow of barring in the feathers. Come spring I will be giving my dominant roo a bath (he has taken a liking to the patch of soil that we used to cover a burnt out tree stump) so I will be really checking for cuckoo at that time. Who knew, White Cuckoo, whew! Just learned something new.
 
When you first made this comment, I wasn't sure where you were headed. After seeing your post for the free chicks (black cuckoo orpington project), I get it. I have no idea if my whites are hiding cuckoo as I've only bred them to my white roo, therefore only giving me white chicks. Also, since I'm on your waiting list for white orp eggs, seems I will eventually be getting white hiding cuckoo!! I have spent hours just looking at my birds and have never seen any barring, or light shadow of barring in the feathers. Come spring I will be giving my dominant roo a bath (he has taken a liking too the patch of soil that we used to cover a burnt out tree stump) so I will be really checking for cuckoo at that time. Who knew, White Cuckoo, whew! Just learned something new.


Breed him to a few Black and/or Blue hens, if he is carrying Cuckoo you should get some barred offspring. That would be the easiest way to figure out what he's carrying.
 
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Most of the people who have Orpingtons have told me that they're docile and really friendly and jump in your lap, but my Nugget may be the exception to this. I'm the only person she allows to come within 10 feet of her. She's super-shy and is bullied a lot by my Dominiques. Once I had to take her inside to get cleaned up because her comb was bleeding nonstop (not that much but it wasn't stopping) from pecking.

Here's some photos of her--she's easy to see because she's the only yellow one:


(One of my favorite parts about these two photos is that the hen in the background is looking into the water like "Ew, is that POOP in there?"
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(In case you're wondering, yes, it was the chickens who trashed the yard.)
 
Ruth, your birds are beautiful! And 16 wild horses??
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Now that sounds like a huge job! Do you have pictures of them anywhere?

Hi Everyone - I've been living under a rock for the past few months and haven't been on BYC. WOW - there have been some changes haven't there? Looks like there's a ton of new people and posts in these threads which is so good to see. Actually I haven't been living under a rock it's just that I did a really "stupid" thing in May. I bought 16 wild Appaloosa horses including a bunch of mares with newborn babies and which had bred again in the herd they lived in. So.....I've been super busy learning all about horses and training horses. So far I have one that I can ride and most that I can halter and lead. The 6 babies are already nearly as big as their mamas. Anyway, it's good to be back. I know my Orps aren't "imported" but I thought I'd share a few photos. My original hens came from Bama and then I added birds from three other breeders over the past year or so, including some from Alaska, and then I mixed them all together and bred my own. Sadly a stray dog got loose in the yard and killed most of my freeranging young pullets that were showing great promise. A few lucky ones managed to survive and are now in the breeder pen for safe keeping and have recently started laying eggs. Here's some of what's in the new breeder pen - which was so muddy from the monsoon's we are having now after an 8 month drought:




 
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Me again, I traded my pair of Whites for some chicks in the spring. I just had to many roos. Hopefully things will be better. Now I just have a Lav roo, 2 blks, and a buff plus a Lav Amer roo in the coop. I'll try to take a day and just snap pics off all the birds. I like the blacks the best.

I had posted the lav orp roo on CL but got no takers.

Such is life.

Rancher

I also posted to the NY thread about Weasels, as something I think is trying to get at my birds in the hoop coop. I haven't seen any tracks into it though really. I've seen tracks that I think are a cat. We're getting more snow so I will be watching.

My blacks look much like yours Ruth, very nice birds you've go there.
 
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i live in NY state/also...we have weasles but we keep 2 dogs that patrol the pen areas and that has been a real help for us..racoons have been the biggest problem..we have 1 outside dog who has a heatedhouse..he sends the alarm if anything is out there at night...we lock the chickens in their coop at night and all windows in summer have chicken wire..anything that isnt real secure' the racoons are pretty good at getting in..bob whitney who has some east coast champion birds lost several to racoons and he had special latches that are even hard for people to work..once in a great while we loose one to hawk.another biggest problem we have ever had were fox, they are completly focused and do not care about a barking dog..or yelling husbands or anything..they just grab and run..we have orchard fenced now.big big help.
 
My late brother used to drive to Waverly to let his homing pigeons out. He may have had friends there but I don't know.

I hven't seen any fox but just suspect something is afoot since the birds moved from the usual corner where they piled up at night. I noticed a hole in the felt on the front of the coop and the plastic is chewed near the bottom of the run. When they moved from the back corner to the front of the coop and now they've moved to another corner. I've been trying to get them ALL to use the roost. I will have to build a weasel box and try to catch whatever is about. I may make a few trips at night out to see what's going on.
 

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