The IMPORTED ENGLISH Orpington Thread

[danceswithronin]

Grandma is stunning!!

 

[ColtHandorf]

I love me some Blizzard! And that baby certainly looks Golden-laced to me. I haven't looked for feathers on the little one I hatched out. They are under a red light and seeing anything requires me hauling them under another light. I'm still getting over this horrendous cough so I've just been feeding and watering them.

Duchess is back in the hospital cage. I swear I've never had so much trouble with chickens in my life. She is so submissive she just laid down instead of moving away from Golly who apparently decided that her head would be an excellent thing to chew on. Her entire face was bloodied and swollen when I found her. I'm completely disgusted with him so he's in the yard and has to fend for himself. I wired the frame of a large trampoline that came with the property for younger birds to be on the ground, but he's relegated to it for the time being. He seems to be missing his lady goose, Georgia, but it's quite obvious they need to be in their own pen. Which will be a project once the goslings have hatched. In the meantime, I've been applying Vetricyn to her head and face as well as colloidal silver. She is eating and drinking and laid an egg yesterday evening or this morning before work. I'm hoping nothing was permanently damaged and she'll make a full recovery. She periodically has her right eye opened, but I haven't seen her left eye open yet.

 

[danceswithronin]

Guin, week 5.

 

[Faraday40]

I love me some Blizzard! And that baby certainly looks Golden-laced to me. I haven't looked for feathers on the little one I hatched out. They are under a red light and seeing anything requires me hauling them under another light. I'm still getting over this horrendous cough so I've just been feeding and watering them.

Duchess is back in the hospital cage. I swear I've never had so much trouble with chickens in my life. She is so submissive she just laid down instead of moving away from Golly who apparently decided that her head would be an excellent thing to chew on. Her entire face was bloodied and swollen when I found her. I'm completely disgusted with him so he's in the yard and has to fend for himself. I wired the frame of a large trampoline that came with the property for younger birds to be on the ground, but he's relegated to it for the time being. He seems to be missing his lady goose, Georgia, but it's quite obvious they need to be in their own pen. Which will be a project once the goslings have hatched. In the meantime, I've been applying Vetricyn to her head and face as well as colloidal silver. She is eating and drinking and laid an egg yesterday evening or this morning before work. I'm hoping nothing was permanently damaged and she'll make a full recovery. She periodically has her right eye opened, but I haven't seen her left eye open yet.

Ouch! Poor Duchess! Is her eye any better now?

Blizzard is pretty but not at the moment. We had a turkey who was raised with chickens. I guess she got lonely & plucked all the head feathers off my most submissive hens to make them look like her. All 4 of my laced orps look vulture-like. I thought perhaps it was a young cockerel but he's been out of that coop for 2 months. (Back then I also only had 2 bald hens.)

Feathers will grow.... but it's going to be hard to tell people that these laced orps are stunning when you point over the fence & they see a couple bald chickens.

 

[Faraday40]

View attachment 1767405
Guin, week 5.

She's a cutie!

 

[ColtHandorf]

Right eye is completely open while he left eye hasn't opened yet... She hates to have me cleaning her face. She throws an absolute fit. And I think it stresses her out about as much as it does me. She is eating and drinking really well so I have hopes for her. I certainly don't thinks she's going to die from the incident, but I certainly hope she'll have two gorgeous eyes when she gets returned outside. She's so submissive now, I think if she doesn't have her full range of sight I'll keep her in the pen with the juvenile birds. I just wouldn't trust the rest of them not to pick on her.

 

[Faraday40]

Here's the little GLO chick. Just a bit shy of 4 weeks.

The good news is that it still looks & acts female. Not so good news is the lacing. I'm impatient and want to know what it's going to look like. I wish mine looked as nice as @danceswithronin 's chick, Gun.

 

[ColtHandorf]

My little one is not nearly so far along. But it's two weeks behind your's or so and I'd guess pullet as well. I think I have two little cockerels out of my first hatch. And possibly three pullets out of the last one.

Duchess still hasn't opened her left eye which is bothering me. But her right eye seems to be perfect. I'm hoping there's just some swelling/irritation still and that it closed means it's still healing. It's so hard to work with her because she doesn't want it touched and I need about eight hands to hold her, clean it, and see if I can make it open to be sure it isn't just crusted shut.

In the meantime Golly the serial goose is not enjoying life in prison. His wife is still faithfully incubating the eggs that she chooses to leave under her. She keeps rolling perfectly viable ones out of the nest. I'm planning on rescuing those when I get home from work as it's been about 50 degrees all day today. Silly Texas weather...

Sterling is also being a perfect gentleman with his younger lady friend. He shows her all the goodies and she sticks to him like glue. He mistakenly thought of breeding her a few days ago and realized she wasn't nearly old enough and went back to fathering over her...lol

 

[Faraday40]

Sterling sounds like a great boy. I had a roo like that. It was the "golden age" of my flock when "Mr Dummy" was leading the flock. He was tolerant of other roos & even let them mate - as long as a hen never squawked.

I hope Duchess has a full recovery. I had a hen with one bad eye. I think it was from shipped eggs or a peck injury at hatch. I just took pics from her good side. Otherwise, she was fine & had a good life.

 

[Faraday40]

My son is doing a fun project (comparing incubators) which greatly increased our current number of chicks. Each incubator got the same number & type of eggs. So we now have Orpingtons, Spitzhaubens, Leghorns, seramas, and turkeys. It's a crazy brooder! My most experienced broody hen, Cookie, is caring for the lot. Many chicks have already been sold. In fact, i'm still working my way through the waiting list before officially posting them for sale.

I have one teeny, tiny, silkied serama which I cannot sell b/c I didn't think it would survive. I also have only 2 orps left. One lav & one blue silver laced. I plan to grow them out & see how they turn out. I have a feeling they're both male, but I could be wrong.

Here's the blue laced orp next to the tiny serama. Seeing them together remind me of the movie, Twins.