Russian Orloffs

[gander007]

Wishing you luck for many chicks desertmarcy! Candled the second set in the incubator today (day 8 for them). I was hoping for better development than the first set and it seems to be on target-only 2 clears out of a dozen! All the rest have wonderful veining and blastoderms. They will be quickly candled again before lockdown to check for deathrings. Six chicks hatched of 8 that went into lockdown from 14 originally set in the first round.

Good looking chicks you have

 

[Cknldy]

thank you. Nice weather coming this week...I foresee complete coop cleanouts in the near future!

 

[gander007]

thank you. Nice weather coming this week...I foresee complete coop cleanouts in the near future!

Oh yes I just spent several hours on that this morning not including the front porch where some of them yard birds like to hang out when I am not out side to chase them off .........

 

[Cknldy]

Three coops and the outdoor brooder that was inhabited by an injured silkie were cleanex out yesterday with help from "the troopers" Noticed excessive feed waste in the silver sebright run so that'll have to be remedied soon. Russians are ready for the cockerels to take a break already so dh will be happy to have more than a few eggs in the fridge instead of the bator! 3rd set of eggs will go in on Thursday then we'll see how the laying girls get along with their 4 month old counterparts so the cockerels can go in the separation side that was built for that reason.

 

[ashandvine]

I broke down and ordered eggs. I fired up the incubator and have it 'settling' now. Eggs should be here Monday. There's talk on the FB thread about imports and how to do it. I am crossing my fingers there. I see so much darn duck foot in the ones that are here.
I have this one cockerel right now who is just so ugly.

I laugh like this whenever I see his gawky self come around and he is forever following me like a dog. I told him today, "I hope you grow into a swan because you are so ugly right now. If you don't you have to go!"
The females are lovely so far, though the tails are slightly pinched. I am eager for our May Spring show. I want to take them up to the show. Neither cockerel looks old enough to bother showing at this point. Teenage messes, they are!

What's going on with other folks/hatching?

Cknldy, did you buy from Lubec?

 

[Cknldy]

No, the older ones are from a local young girl and the younger ones are from Welp hatchery. I think the older ones were crossed somewhere in their lineage because one chick I believe to be male has 2 tiny shank feathers (hairs at this point) on each leg and one I also believe to be male has full lines of them down the outside of both legs. The girl did have cochins in a different pen. Remember when I asked about registering chickens? I had another customer tell me about their trip to the same person- the guy tried to make them believe his RO's came straight from Russia! "Well," I replied,"At some point maybe since the breed originated from Russia!" Not to mention he only paid $5 each for them cuz she wanted to get rid of them before winter!!

 

[Cknldy]

I meant to say the chicks that hatched from the older stock that started to lay in January may have crossed lineage somewhere.....

 

[vtguania]

Cknldy congrats on your hatch so far. Desertmarcy & everyone else hatching good luck and hope there's a bunch of fluffys running around soon. Cknldy Russian stock Orloff are way different than what we, UK, & German stack have. One way to tell is they like a cleft between upper & lower beak. Kind of like a gap in between as in this cock (Russian Stock) who scored 96 points (Photo from www.fermer.ru)

As Ash mentioned, we have been talking about importing eggs. We are talking of getting necessary documents in place to try to get eggs this year. This of course is dependent on finding a breeder in Europe who is DEFRA registered and willing to have their flock tested. The latter being a bit more challenging. As more information becomes available, we will post it on our group sites
https://www.facebook.com/groups/uscaorloffs/
http://usorloffs.freeforums.net/

We will also make it available to those on this thread as not all have become members on the previous sites. If you are interested in being a part of this let me know so we can figure out how to include those interested. Importing is costly, but with enough people going in on it, the cost will be less per person. As for adopting an SOP, it is still in the works. If your interested in giving your opinion, you can do so on either of the previous links provided. Keep in mind that the facebook group is a closed group & joining is required, the freeforums is an open forum.

 

[RiddleMe]

We have been part of the crazy winter club this year, two weeks ago we had 3' of snow on the ground. So I just got around to separating my breeders last week. It will be a couple weeks before I set anything, since the hens were in with my layer cock. But I have four hens and two cocks to work with (out of an original 26 birds). I'm going to do single matings; ultimately this year I'm planning to hatch 8 genetic sets, to see what each combination produces, then move forward from there. One thing I will be ruthless about is duck foot, none of the birds I kept have it, but a number of the culls did, so any sign will get that bird (and probably all it's full siblings) culled. And if I note a propensity in the offspring of a particular bird to show it, that parent bird will also be culled. So we will see what I am left with come mid-summer. But I do have one orloff cockerel that was part of a random late hatch last fall and I really like how he is growing out, so I know there is hope. Just don't have any idea who his parents are; one of my crazy broodies decided to go for a fourth hatch so I just gave her a few random eggs from that days collection...

 

[Cknldy]

Just set the third clutch of RO eggs then separated the cockerels from the ladies. They must know the best one to hatch their young because one of the girls was overmated while the other barely had feathers missing from her head. When I saw the tell-tale crescent on the top pullet's back I decided three sets are good for an early season start and let the ladies recoup. Took the opportunity to put the younger ones in with the laying girls since they are almost the same size. Not too bad so far- with 4 youngsters and only two layers with plenty of room to get away there has been no bloodshed. (Fingers crossed as I haven't been to the coop this morning, it isn't daylight yet.) Youngsters have been on the separation side of the coop so everyone knows each other already.