Russian Orloffs

This past weekend we "depopulated" our flock. It was sickening and there were many tears shed. I did realize that it was the responsible (definitely not easy) thing to do to prevent the spread of the disease to other chicken owners in my area. I tried to be responsible and put them down my self, and I was successful with some of the younger ones. The hardest were my Orloffs. Luckily my brother in law was there to help because my husband couldn't do it either. I found a lady who fed a raw diet to her Greyhounds and she took the cleaned chickens to feed her dogs, so at least they didn't die in vain.

It's so lonely here now with no crowing boys to greet me in the morning and no ladies to check on in the evening. I have layers coming at the end of January. I would like to start over with my Orloffs and I was wondering if anyone would be willing to sell me some eggs? I would like to incubate toward the end of December so they're roughly the same age as the chicks. Thanks so much! I can't wait to have some feathered friends running around again!
 
Thanks all for listening and for your advice!
hugs.gif
Sometimes the right thing is the hardest thing...
 
I am hoping to breed next year, if my girls will ever start laying :) All of my girls are behind schedule, I just had 2 EE's start laying in the last week or so at about 8 months old. So I can't even hazard a guess about when the Orloffs will start since they're slow to mature anyway. They are about 7 months old now.

Happyhens - so sorry to hear about your chickens :( I wish my girls were laying so I could send you some eggs.
 
Who is planning on breeding this spring??
1- ME
2- ?
I will be, if not before. I finished going through all my pullets and chose 6 for the breeder pen and put my best and original male in with them. So that will essentially be father-daughter cross, although it the pullets may have been fathered by this guy's brothers---anyway, sorry to say, I have not seen any breeding interest yet from this male! What is up with that? He is almost 1-1/2 years old. Then I took my best two hens that hatched along with him, and put them in with the bigger son. That is my mother-son cross. I'm not getting a super number of eggs from any of them right now, so it will probably take a while.
 
I have some updated pics of my Orloffs, and would love some input on if I chose well for my keepers...LOL
They are all slowly developing more spangling. I can't wait to see how they look in a few months.

These guys are about 7 months old...

The cockerel...he is VERY tall but still scrawny. But hopefully promising??







Brown band pullet.








Pink band. I think she's going through a mini molt. I won't be breeding her, but she's very friendly, so she gets to stay.










Purple band. To me she's probably the prettiest...







This is one of the younger pullets. I like her a lot too. Her legs are very bright yellow.
I'd need to double check the age but I'd say she's around 5 months old.











The younger cockerel.






 

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