The IMPORTED ENGLISH Orpington Thread

[ColtHandorf]

I thought I'd post some fluffy butts. I've been trying to track down some more breeders of Silver-laced Orpingtons without much luck. @Faraday40 where did you get Blue-laced Silver? I was thinking of crossing my male over some quality Blue and Splash hens as well as some Lavenders if I can track some down.

 

[Faraday40]

I thought I'd post some fluffy butts. I've been trying to track down some more breeders of Silver-laced Orpingtons without much luck. @Faraday40 where did you get Blue-laced Silver? I was thinking of crossing my male over some quality Blue and Splash hens as well as some Lavenders if I can track some down.

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I really like your male! BTW- How do they do in your hot climate? Mine hate it when the temps get up to 90'F. However, they were OK during our record-breaking Polar Vortex. (-28'F at night & a daytime high of -15'F..... Real feel was much lower!)

My blue silver laced is still a project color. (Her partial lacing isn't as nice as my silver laced orps.)


Cliff notes:
Breed your gorgeous male to a blue female and keep a blue female offspring to breed back to a silver laced male.

Here's what that female offspring will look like:
This pullet looks like a blue (like her mama) but notice the thicker edges around the feather.

The next gen will give some partial silver laced orps in blue - like my "Blizzard". It's a starting point. (You'll also get a lot of black, many similar blues, and some partial silver laced orps - in black.) It's more a game of picking the best & continuing to breed for improvement. Because orps take a lot of time to mature, it's a loooong process. I honestly don't know of anyone who sell them. I think mostly it's because they're a newer project color & not close to perfected.

 

[ColtHandorf]

Well it hasn't be hot yet since I acquired them. This week the lows have been in the low twenties with ice on the ground. They seem to be doing alright in the cold weather though. Their pen and house are located in the shade to help in summer temperatures. I'm fairly familiar with the blue gene and the lavender gene on top of it, it makes me worry I won't get the look I'm going for, or I'll do something wrong. It's good to know that it is a fairly straight-forward process.

Thank you for the compliment on the male. (I really do need to name him...lol) I see pictures with a lot of males that are mossy-backed. And he isn't which I like. He's certainly not perfect. His leg color leaves much to be desired. And don't get me started on hers. She has fantastic lacing but legs as yellow as a Wyandotte's.

 

[Faraday40]

We named our boy "Mr Wonderful"

I love his docile temperament. Even my youngest can just reach down & pick him up. He's not really a lap chicken & won't jump into our arms, but we have hens for that. It took him a LOOONG time to fertilize eggs. Even after some fluff trims & being locked up with his laced hens, the eggs were still clear. I saw him mating, but very low fertility until he was about 11 mo old. I think he finally got the hang of it.

The only thing which he's not so wonderful is his manners toward the hens. I see him eating treats as fast as possible. He'll occasionally signal the hens to come for the goodies while at the same time gobbling them all up.
He's almost 2 yrs, so he should be better than that by now.

 

[ColtHandorf]

He looks like quite the character. Funny you should mention his ungentlemanly behavior. Mine is the same way. My friend that is baby sitting them until I finish their coop up says he literally drags the feed bowl away from her and turns his back to her and eats, effectively blocking the bowl. He won't be able to do that with the big feeder thankfully when they get to come home.

She has set nearly every egg the hen has laid (except for the past two weeks where the eggs have frozen) with no evident fertility. I haven't seen any mating but it's been too wet and cold to stand out there and watch them...lol I want to get some good pictures of them before I trim some fluff. Do you have any pictures of your trimming process?

Your birds are absolutely gorgeous by the way.

 

[Faraday40]

Thank you.

I simply gave each chicken a bath to clean the backside & carefully trimmed around the vents with scissors. Here are some very "personal" pics of our sweet Blizzard. This was taken after the trim & blow dry.

I tried to trim as little as possible so it would not greatly affect her appearance. A little more can always be trimmed if needed.

 

[ColtHandorf]

Well tell Blizzard thank you from me for allowing you to post such revealing photos of herself on line. She certainly is giving you and me the look in that last picture like she's letting us know we owe or something.

Some of the English Orp breeders I've spoken to have said they have no fertility issues and don't trim. My pair is just over a year old when I got them back in January so he should be producing viable sperm. Another breeder I spoke with said she believes that her fertility rate dropped significantly when her birds were being fed a diet with corn in it. She has since begun feeding a corn, soy, and gmo free feed and noticed a marked improvement. I have Nutrena feeds and Texas Natural feeds available. The latter is nearly double the cost of Nutrena but if it is worth it to help with their fertility I'd be willing to try just about anything.

I have a 15 pound feeder in their house now and obviously that should be plenty big. My friend says they go through half of a sack of feed a week (which seems outrageous) but then she's dumping their feed on the ground because he won't share. It's also crumble and with the weather I don't think they are actually eating as much as she thinks, it's probably just being wasted. I'm planning on putting them on a pellet in hopes that it will fill them up a bit more than crumble. They are really large birds after all.

Weather permitting (as it is supposed to rain Saturday), I'm going to try to get the wire put up on their fence. I got the fence posts driven yesterday and the house moved out the day before. Speaking of houses, how do you have your's roosting? At my friend's they refuse to go up the ladder and roost. They just sleep on the ground and it drives me nuts. I have a 2x4 lying on the 4" side to provide a nice wide perch because they don't seem confident of their footing at all. I have two 2x4 oriented the same way and butted together for them to use as a ramp vs a ladder to see if that helps them get up on the perch. I don't mind going out and heaving them up there when it's clement outside but lately it's been miserable and wrenching my ankle in a hole in the dark, slogging back through mud, just doesn't sound super fun to me...lol

 

[ColtHandorf]

@Faraday40 anf anyone else keeping them...

How often do your hens go broody? It’s not something I normally encourage, but as I don’t have an incubator, I was curious if I allowed her to clutch would she be inclined to sit. I hate to waste the eggs though if she doesn’t.

 

[Faraday40]

@Faraday40 anf anyone else keeping them...

How often do your hens go broody? It’s not something I normally encourage, but as I don’t have an incubator, I was curious if I allowed her to clutch would she be inclined to sit. I hate to waste the eggs though if she doesn’t.

Orps CAN go broody. For me it all depends on the bird. My bantam orp goes broody all the time (4-5xs per year!). She's a great mama, so I let her hatch most of the time. My lav orps & black orps have never really gone broody or broken so easily that I don't even consider it a true attempt. My blue orp raised chicks 2xs. She wants to be a mama, but she's too big & accidentally squishes eggs &/or chicks. My silver laced are still new but none have gone broody yet. (About 2 yrs old) Another lady had some & her SLOs went broody a couple times a year.

I noticed that broodiness is contagious. All I need is one hen to hatch a couple chicks & all of a sudden any hen that is prone to go broody, will go broody. Perhaps they hear the peeping & think, "Hey I want some chicks too!"

My feisty little Sebright (named Trouble) is a great mom. I read that Sebrights do not go broody, but she can't read, and she's very persistent. I can reliably count on her to raise chicks and enjoy watching her try to cover 3 wk old chicks that are the same size.

 

[ColtHandorf]

Well I'll keep searching for in incubator. So far she hasn't laid an egg since moving her home. So I've probably got some time. I'm hoping to Amazon Prime one after payday this week.