Telling difference between similar breeds

[cbascom]

How can you tell if you have a white rock or a white wyandotte? Also between a buff rock or a buff orpington?

 

[donrae]

Sometimes it's pretty hard, especially as chicks or young birds. It's where you have to get more familiar with body types and shapes, not just colors. Leg color, comb type and body type are all taken into consideration. Plus, how common is a breed? Where did they come from? Most hatcheries offer only certain breeds, so you can sometimes rule them out simply by availability.

White rock has a straight comb. Wyandotte has a rose comb. Both have yellow legs. Wyandottes I believe should be more rounded on the lower part of the body, I've always heard "shaped like a gravy bowl".

Buff rocks aren't too common, so it can be an easier one to remove from consideration based on availability alone. Rocks have straight combs and yellow legs, Orpingtons have straight combs and white/pink legs. Orpingtons are also larger, very rounded and fluffy while Rocks have normal feathering, not the fluffballs.

 

[Lady of McCamley]

x2
My Wyandottes look like they ate the gravy bowl!
Rocks are more svelte. And of course it's easy to see the rose comb vs. the single.

My Orpingtons were really a mass of fluff and lots of cushion by the tail (uhm, sort of broad across the beam). They also laid a tan tint egg where my rocks lay more of a true brown egg.

Rocks tend to look like your typical chicken...medium size, medium build, nicely feathered but not over feathered.

But of course breeding and lines changes all of that, so depends on where they came from.

Lady of McCamley

 

[donrae]

"ate the gravy bowl"