The IMPORTED ENGLISH Orpington Thread

[homeschoolin momma]

@ColtHandorf has birds that do this occasionally. Hopefully he'll be on sometime and can give you more reason why.

 

[Faraday40]

I'm leaning towards the trough idea at the moment, but I don't have any way of covering it. Do you think a broody would hop the side and go for a walk very often? What would you all do?

All the babies are growing like weeds. I candled the Turkey eggs and they all appear to be in some stage of development, which is quite surprising, considering how bad the tom is at actually mating. I think I may let a friend of mine take all the other eggs I've saved up and hatch them in her large cabinet incubator. I told her she could keep some of the chicks as payment.

If you want hens to share chicks, you can let the hens be co-broody = share the nest & eggs. This only works if the hens don't mind sharing. I've had a few pairs of hens ("sisters" or mother & daughter teams) work together to hatch & raise chicks.

I never had a broody hen leave her nest of eggs to chase after another hen's chicks. Putting them in separate areas (like the trough idea) makes it easy for them to avoid sparring and keeps them safer from predators. Once bonded to her eggs, a hen will not jump out. Many people use dog crates as broody apartments. A nest in back & food/water/potty area in front. The only issue you may encounter is moving the hen to her new broody apartment. (You don't want to accidentally break her broodiness.) I find moving the hen at night works best. Cover her enclosure with a towel or blanket to keep it dark for the entire next day. Take the covering off the next night. By the time the sun rises on the 2nd morning, she will be adjusted to her new space and think she's been there all along. My hens also tend to like darker areas for incubation, so a garage or basement would be better than a living room.





And speaking of broody hens..... My sweet Darling is full broody! She's been in the nest for 4-5 days and not moving. I really want one of her babies but so far very few of her eggs have been fertile. Now she's not even laying! I wish I had stopped her sooner, but there were some family issues this week. I'm debating giving her some eggs.

Isn't darling beautiful!?

 

[Faraday40]

I have a question for you folks. I got my stock last year and a few weeks ago, I hatched out my first clutch. The birds are in a pen by themselves and have been since last fall with absolutely no possible way for the girls to have been fertilized by any other rooster except for the Silver Laced. All the chicks hatched out the proper color except for 2 that hatched out brown. I assumed that my rooster must be split to gold and the brown ones were pullets. The brown ones have begun to feather out now, though, and they are silver laced. Does anyone have any idea what could be going on with my birds genetically? I am completely lost.

x2 @ColtHandorf had this happen.

I had one chick from my laced orps hatch out gold. I was very surprised because I only have SLO and some project blue SLOs.

In my case the chick turned out to be a partially laced GLO. "Surprise" on me! I can only guess that my blue project birds had some gold laced at some point.

She was an ugly, awkward chick, but turned out very pretty. Since I wasn't going to breed her, I sold her as a pet.

 

[homeschoolin momma]

My sweet Darling is full broody! She's been in the nest for 4-5 days and not moving

How strange is that? One of mine is broody too. About the same time. Only she hasn't got a clue what she's doing. Her nest spot is right smack in front of the nest boxes. And tonight I found 4 eggs around her and not under and one was crushed. She wont even entertain the idea of using a nest box! Needless to say, i put a few in the incubator for her.

 

[Wolfefarmyard]

I’m rather excited as I’ve just added on some English Orpington chicks. I have a few that are a blue laced project, and the rest are chocolate!

Anyone else have these varieties? I’d love to see pictures!

 

[ColtHandorf]

I have a question for you folks. I got my stock last year and a few weeks ago, I hatched out my first clutch. The birds are in a pen by themselves and have been since last fall with absolutely no possible way for the girls to have been fertilized by any other rooster except for the Silver Laced. All the chicks hatched out the proper color except for 2 that hatched out brown. I assumed that my rooster must be split to gold and the brown ones were pullets. The brown ones have begun to feather out now, though, and they are silver laced. Does anyone have any idea what could be going on with my birds genetically? I am completely lost.

@ColtHandorf has birds that do this occasionally. Hopefully he'll be on sometime and can give you more reason why.

x2 @ColtHandorf had this happen.

Yep, I hatch little brown ones out all the time. I have asked a dozen breeders and none of them can tell me why. I too assumes split to Gold-laced, but the chicks feather in Silver-laced. Mine also carry recessive white, which makes everything fun when eggs start hatching. There are a couple of mixes (black and blue chicks) but all the others are White or Silver-laced.

Prudence is still setting. And I got some pine bedding finally to try and set Duchess up. She’s such a colossal grump. Lol MovingPrudence was a breeze. I just put a blanket over her box and carried the whole thing to the broody coop. I scooped her out, put her on the eggs, closed the nest box, and that was that. Duchess will be in a more open concept, so I’m going to hope she just sits tight and doesn’t pop off the nest. She’ll be in a quiet space. But not necessarily dark.

 

[ColtHandorf]

I’m rather excited as I’ve just added on some English Orpington chicks. I have a few that are a blue laced project, and the rest are chocolate!

Anyone else have these varieties? I’d love to see pictures!

I have one Chocolate hen, Prudence, who is currently broody. Here’s some pictures of her as a pullet and from a couple of weeks ago.



I have one little pullet of my own breeding, Caspian, one of my Silver-laced cockerels over Agatha, a Blue Orpington produced this little lady...



I plan on breeding her back to another unrelated Silver-laced Rooster to work on Blue Silver-laced birds.

I never intended on having so many colors, but currently I’m breeding Recessive White and Silver-laced. I’m growing out Blue, Black, Splash, and Mauve birds in addition to the adult Blue and Black hen I currently have. I also have Chocolate and Lavender. And I’ll be getting my Lavender Silver-laced as soon as I can arrange the trip to get them.

 

[Wolfefarmyard]

I have one Chocolate hen, Prudence, who is currently broody. Here’s some pictures of her as a pullet and from a couple of weeks ago.

View attachment 2153281View attachment 2153282View attachment 2153283View attachment 2153284

I have one little pullet of my own breeding, Caspian, one of my Silver-laced cockerels over Agatha, a Blue Orpington produced this little lady...

View attachment 2153287View attachment 2153288View attachment 2153289

I plan on breeding her back to another unrelated Silver-laced Rooster to work on Blue Silver-laced birds.

I never intended on having so many colors, but currently I’m breeding Recessive White and Silver-laced. I’m growing out Blue, Black, Splash, and Mauve birds in addition to the adult Blue and Black hen I currently have. I also have Chocolate and Lavender. And I’ll be getting my Lavender Silver-laced as soon as I can arrange the trip to get them.

Very pretty!
I know what you mean, I started off only breeding black silkies now I have every color under the sky!

 

[ColtHandorf]

Very pretty!

Thank you.

 

[ColtHandorf]

So it looks like I'll be ordering Lavender Silver-laced chicks from the breeder directly. Three large dogs tore through all of my friend's coops and outdoor breeding pens. They killed all of his exhibition large fowl Brahmas, Swedish Flower Hens, and all the English Orpingtons. That happened Sunday night and he was bringing them on Monday.

Other than that everything is going well here. I'll have more chicks hatching out this week and next week. I'm so glad I didn't move the last set outside this weekend. It's been positively pouring, on and off here for days and it's gotten quite a bit cooler.