Post Pics Of Orps/ Orpingtons HERE

[fowlman01]

I just looked at the [FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Coloured Orpington Prints[/FONT][FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] again and can someone explain to me how #1 and #3 can both be a good representation of a British Orp?[/FONT] #3 looks like my kind of Orp....... not a lot of fluff and you can see it's legs. Those are two really different looking birds!

Walt

 

[aveca]

i really need to do some ding pulling..thank for the suggestion, i do listen and will do that...i see every little thing..probably a bad breed for me to choose..probably should have gotten a bantam cornish or something.. horse people can be the nicest people and they can be the craziest....i taught a little girl years go that was usdf champion...would you beleive at one show a trainer needed to show how great she was to her people...so she put itching powder on the bridle around the ears and wither area of this kids horse..well that well trained horse went a little crazy..could have killed that kid..one of her students turned her in so to speak , they felt inside like it was wrong and felt it wasnt a fair show.

I worked with a dressage lady for several years and she drove me crazy in some ways. I am pretty loose about a lot of things and it would drive her crazy.....If I weren't her boss, she would have fired me.....ahahaha

IMO: in poultry you need depth of quality and birds hatched at various times, so that they don't molt at the same time. There is a lot more strategy in showing poultry than most people realize. Because of how you process things you should be able to figure it out. There is nothing you can do when a bird goes into full molt, but you have some control over molts. Because of how you do things I would suggest "pruning" your birds every week or so. Look them over and pull any feather with a ding etc. If you have a broken wing feather a month before a show, you are out of luck and that's why you need a bunch of quality birds.....that and you want to be in a position where it is almost impossible for a person to buy a bird that can beat you. Some think I am competitive......lol

Walt

 

[fowlman01]

When people are competing many negative things can happen, but with poultry there is not very much money at stake and I think that helps. Pretty bad to do something like that to a child. About the worse thing we have in poultry is parents buying expensive birds for their kid and then doing all the work including the show prep.
A Cornish is the last bird you want. They are extremely hard feathered and break feathers all the time...especially wing and tail feathers If they don't break them at home they are going to break them at the show. It would drive you nuts. In addition if there was only one mite on your property it would find your Cornish.

I hate to tell you thins, but Orps are one of the easiest breeds to keep in condition or at least that is my opinion. I think you are more critical than most.....which is a good thing if you are into showing. Two weeks ago I showed a lg Shamo male and it had all kinds of broken feathers that I was worried about, but it ended up being Res- Champion Large fowl. If I was obsessed over it, I can only guess what a dressage lady would be. Shamo's are really hard feathered birds too and are big enough to walk away with a double coop, so I have to put 2x4's under the cages so that it can stand up. Then you worry about it getting excited because they can easily lift up the whole cage when startled. I have had them do that so I anchor the cages with zip ties.

Orps are easy to show compared to a lot of other breeds. We show anywhere from 30 to 50 birds at the CA shows.

Walt

 

[mama24]

We have one black Orp cockerel, and I just picked up 8 chicks that we thought looked like girls at the Chickstock from a bycer with nice birds. I agree that they are easy to show. My son wanted to enter a bunch of chickens at the local show we had a few weeks ago. I helped him bathe the Orp and cut his toenails, and the Orp took first place for junior large fowl! He looked gorgeous! My son had bitten off more than he could chew and only bathed the other 4 birds he had entered, by himself, and did no other grooming. The Penedesencas looked terrible, the pair were both all beat up, and they just seem to always look that way! The cockerel is always fighting my bantam rooster, and the pullet tries to run away from the rooster, so she's always missing head feathers. Oh well, I told my son, next show he needs to listen to me and cage them at least 2 weeks ahead of time, if not a month, instead of 3 days before! It was our first show, and the Orp and our Pyncheon roo were the only 2 out of 6 that looked halfway decent! The Ameraucanas looked pretty good, too, but they had a lot of messed up feathers on their tails. The Orps are my sons now. I bought them for him, and I did pay a lot of money for them, but they are his now, and I am not helping out anymore when he wants to show them. He's almost 13, and is pretty good for a kid his age.

 

[aveca]

Thank you..i am still very new to chickens, i like the orps a lot, the roostrs are big bonevolent nice looking birds..im in here to learn..like to better myself..see where i need improvement, after hearing that..glad i didnt get the cornish..i tend to gravitate to the english birds..maybe its the big warmbloods we have had around for years but i like those big chickens..everyone that comes here says where did you get that monster chicken..but to me all chickens are small. my horse is 17 - 3 hands, his feet are big around as a dinner plate..my freinds thought i got heritage black turkeys...
thanks walt..i learn lots everytime your in here..it really helps a lot of us..and thanks to vicki too interesting about the dropped wing..ive never seen that here, maybe because the babies ae out all day..they can go in if they want..if you ever have anything to do with the standard, please have them elaborate on some things..the descriptions are breif and not even a picture of an ideal black orpington, at least not in my issue..i cant understand exactly what im striving for without a visual..there are some really great old books free'out there for ereaders..that explain a lot of what you are saying about the fluff and why s

When people are competing many negative things can happen, but with poultry there is not very much money at stake and I think that helps. Pretty bad to do something like that to a child. About the worse thing we have in poultry is parents buying expensive birds for their kid and then doing all the work including the show prep.
A Cornish is the last bird you want. They are extremely hard feathered and break feathers all the time...especially wing and tail feathers If they don't break them at home they are going to break them at the show. It would drive you nuts. In addition if there was only one mite on your property it would find your Cornish.

I hate to tell you thins, but Orps are one of the easiest breeds to keep in condition or at least that is my opinion. I think you are more critical than most.....which is a good thing if you are into showing. Two weeks ago I showed a lg Shamo male and it had all kinds of broken feathers that I was worried about, but it ended up being Res- Champion Large fowl. If I was obsessed over it, I can only guess what a dressage lady would be. Shamo's are really hard feathered birds too and are big enough to walk away with a double coop, so I have to put 2x4's under the cages so that it can stand up. Then you worry about it getting excited because they can easily lift up the whole cage when startled. I have had them do that so I anchor the cages with zip ties.

Orps are easy to show compared to a lot of other breeds. We show anywhere from 30 to 50 birds at the CA shows.

Walt

 

[aveca]

congrats momma24..thats how they learn..

 

[fowlman01]

Aveca.....I do have something to do with the APA Standard. I am the chairman of the APA Standard Committee. I have been on that committee for many years. The Walt on page 2 is me. It is very difficult to get too detailed with the SOP. It already has over 400 pages. My recommendation to folks is to read very carefully pages 3-34. This will help with the breed descriptions. You may also PM or ask Orp questions on this thread and I will try to help you.

I try to spend some time on most of the breed threads to help when I can. Sometimes people don't like what I say, but I tell it as I see it without being inhumane.

Walt

 

[thedragonlady]

Yup!

 

[thedragonlady]

Deliver me from horse show mothers who just want their kid to win, no matter what. No matter that the horse has been nerved, buted, and tranqued. Now when you see "mistakes" they are not that. They are WRECKS. The horses can't feel their feet, and are too spaced out to even try to recover. My ideal student is an orphan with an unlimited bank account.

 

[thedragonlady]

I agree that high perches and [FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]exercise[/FONT] is a help for wing carriage, but I also know from experience that most of the time it is more than lack of [FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]exercise[/FONT]. It is generally in the breeding, especially when you see several exhibitors with the same problem and you know that they all have the same strain of birds, but different housing/managment.
After almost 50 years of raising show birds my experience is that a lot of genetic faults are explained away in various ways.....most of it coming from breeders with that specific problem. Then it is posted online and becomes fact.

The construction of the bird is what determines the wing setting. It is not like chickens are considered flying birds. Usually weak wings are not a problem in female large fowl and that's where I see it most in Orps...the females...you just don't see female large fowl with droopy wings, it's usually the males. I have been a general lic.judge in the ABA/APA for many, many years, so I see a lot of chickens.

Snapper Comet huh? Don't get me started on cars. I have two hobbies, poultry and motorsports. One uses judges and one uses a non biased GPS computer controlled timing light. Next thing ya know I will be posting pics of me doing crazy things with cars........movies too

Walt

Oh,Goody!