The IMPORTED ENGLISH Orpington Thread

[Faraday40]

I posted these pics on another thread, but thought I'd ask some of my orp friends for their opinions.


I have some lav males & am trying to decide who stays & who goes. It's hard when they follow me around, don't harass the hens, and rarely crow.

"Mr Nice Guy" stuck around because I simply thought he was "nice". He's not wonderful, or super, or gorgeous - just nice. So far no problems. Once he was BIG enough to offer some flock protection, I got rid of my former lav rooster. (The former guy was extra tall ... up to my hip when standing tall ... but looked too thin. I like the round look.) My lavs started out with a 50/50 mix of American & English Orpington bloodlines. i've been adding more 100% black orps to them over the years.

@homeschoolin momma gave me one of her 100% English lav orp cockerels to add some genetic diversity to my flock. That boy has a good-looking, rounded shape, but sadly a "wonky" comb. He's here for now as a back up - just in case Wonky's comb improves a little.

Lastly, a few hens went broody, so there's a lav cockerel from my Aug 10th hatch and another ? gender lav from my Sept 10th hatch. Both are still with their mommy's, so I can't tell much about their personalities yet.

Mr Nice Guy - so far my #1

Wonky (his good side)

And these pics show why he's named "Wonky"..... but don't you just love how he follows me around. I adore it when he cocks his head to the side like he's trying to understand my words.



Here's Mr August (Still just a baby really) He'll be 10 wks on Sat. The chicks are way bigger than their bantam orp mama (aka "Cookie"), but she still mothers them. Perhaps these chicks will stay with her and help her incubate her next hatch. LOL

September Hatch: Two black and one lav are an obvious females. The other ? lav might be a slow-maturing male.

So now it's my turn to ask for gender predictions:
5 weeks + 2 days old now

The ? lav has small colorless comb/wattles. I would normally think female, but there's also slower feather growth and a round muscular body. 3 siblings all look female, so this is the only one that has a chance of being male. If it's a big female, then all 4 chicks are female.

lav in back is ?

? lav is in back on right

Again ? lav is on right. Notice how the other 3 also have more tail. There's a definite difference on how their developing which is really my only reason for thinking it may be male.

 

[ColtHandorf]

I think your slow-feathering Lavender may be a little cockerel. Mr. Nice and Mr. August both have good looking heads. I like Wonky's body shape but that comb is something...lol I'd be tempted to let him grow up some and see what it looks like when he's mature. But I'd also hang onto August to see what he looks like all grown. I'm predicting he will have a nicer head and comb than Mr. Nice when he's grown.

Brrr, it's finally gotten cool down here. I haven't gotten any eggs from anyone in several weeks now. I imagine with molting and the cold weather they are done for a bit. That should let Victoria and Dahlia finish maturing. Suede should be ready for breeding by Spring. Additionally all the young pullets should have time to mature. The two youngest are looking really nice. I want to get them down on the ground but I've got sniffles again with the main flock. I've ordered antibiotics for them and am going to treat everyone all at once to see if I can't knock it out once and for all.

I'm getting a load (or more) of mulch delivered today for the chicken pen. I'm hoping there will be enough for the barn too. I've made some progress there and got the front off last weekend and the tin off the 2x4's this weekend. I started to frame out one of the pens and got frustrated and quit. lol It was pretty warm and doing it by myself sucked. I need to get some new nails and some more lumber. And a saw now that I think on it. Once I've framed each pen out with the lumber and tin on the concrete pad side I can drive some t-posts and put up the wire. And then attach the netting on the inside. All the big work should be done on the inside until I add roosts and dropping boards. After that it shouldn't take more than a few hours to get the fences up. I'm hoping I can have them moved over before it gets really cold and wet. Then the geese can have the pen off the yard with the yard to graze. With the chickens further out, hopefully Anna will stop pestering them and I won't have any issues from predators. I may end up covering their pens as they won't have a tree to protect them like in the old run.

 

[ColtHandorf]

Cool weather has everyone feeling frisky. The Chocolate, Blue and Lavender pullet get the zoomies in the morning and ran around flapping and "flying" which the older Silver-laced girls tolerate with bemused expressions. The little Blue Slate jake (male turkey) has discovered he can fly. Not well, but in fits of excitement he can clear the five foot fence. He's only done that in the morning when the gate is open to the yard, but if he keeps it up, I'll have to clip him. I can't have him roosting up in the tree or flying over when the dogs are out. Same for the older pullets. They've taken to sitting up on top of the tractor where they were raised and strutting about while entertaining the notion of flying out. Dahlia and Suede are looking more handsome every day. I may shoot their breeder a text to see if she has anything left towards the end of the month to pick up a few more.

I got a huge load of mulch/wood chips delivered Tuesday. Unfortunately it had just rained Sunday when we had all the tornadoes and they didn't want to drive on the wet ground so they dumped them off to the side of the driveway. So the wheelbarrow and I made about twenty trips or so and have a 1-2" layer of wood chips down across almost all of the pen. I moved the pre-fab coop with tractor as well as the elevated cage for younger birds. Everything is along the back of the pen now with their house centered. The cage with younger birds is on the left so the house takes the bulk of the north wind, and the coop and tractor are on the right. I would have finished the wood chips last night, but the geese kept wandering out the side gate into the field behind the house and that made me incredibly antsy so I herded them back into the pen and quit for the night. I've probably got another 6'x 10 or 12' left to do. But what I got down should help with all the rain we are supposed to be getting for the rest of the week. Of course that means my wood chips will be wet when I go to move them again.

I'm 100% sure the two youngest chicks (2.5 months or so) are both pullets which is wonderful. I think one of the older ones is, plus little Sterling. So that'll be six females with Hollywood and a back-up cockerel. I'm planning on leaving the Lavender pullet with the Silver-laced Orpingtons until Suede and Dahlia (along with the unnamed Blue pullets) produce a Black cockerel. Then I'll breed her and the Chocolate Orpington to the best looking Black cockerel to get some Black-splits. I hope to have found some other bloodlines by then, but I should be able to manage producing a few nice Chocolate and Lavender pullets from the splits.

I did notice Suede has one brassy feather in his hackles yesterday which I can only assume is red leakage. I'm quite disappointed. But I'll just have to see what he throws with Dahlia. I know some of the males present when I bought him had it, but I was very careful to select the oldest cockerel that didn't have any. It's only one feather now, but I suspect he'll molt in more. :/

I bit the bullet and set the last two eggs I've gotten from the girls from when Sterling was still alive. It's no guarantee he fathered the chicks but I figured I'd better not waste them. I started to add some of the refrigerated eggs, but I thought better of it. As it is I may have waited too long to set this last two. I'll know in a week or so if they are developing or not. I really didn't want little ones this late in the year, but of well.

Obviously I still need to get some more wood chips down and I want to cover the north vents/windows on the house as the prevailing wind is blowing rain into the coop and getting the feeder wet. But that may have to wait until next week. The forecast shows cold and rain through the weekend.

How's everyone else's birds doing?

 

[PlainOrpingtons2018]

@ColtHandorf I recommend not breeding a black from bbs breeding to lavender. Sometimes the “blacks” can actually just be VERY dark blues, and you definitely never want to mix blues with lavenders.

I know a few great breeders who have got lavenders, pure blacks and black split to lavender that I can send you to

Also you definitely don’t want to breed birds with leakage, it’s VERY difficult to get rid of, lots of time and careful breeding is required to do so.

My birds are loving this weather they HATE the heat lol and so do I! I’m glad that the temps are no longer triple digits

 

[ColtHandorf]

@PlainOrpingtons2018 - I would love to get some quality English birds. I'm saving up for a better incubator before shipping in any eggs. I'd like one of the Rcom series incubators. I adored the smaller unit I borrowed from a friend. Shipping started birds can get pretty expensive too, though. lol

That explains the whole "pure" black thing for crossing to Lavenders. For the life of me I couldn't understand because genetically a Black Orpington from a BBS breeding is just as Black as one from a Black x Black pairing. I have no intention of crossing any colors to make Mauve or any of the other colors that just look messy to me. Having bred BBS in several breeds I'm pretty confident I can select a Black cockerel to put over the Lavender and Chocolate hens. If I was really un-confident I suppose I could cross him back to his Black mother to see what they threw.

I know leakage is awful. I'm actually quite sad about him showing that one feather. I'll probably breed one or two times just to see what I get. I've found a friend who will wake all unwanted birds to freezer camp or use them for layers so at least I don't have to worry too much about culling them.

 

[CCUK]

I just got two chocolate Orpingtons last week. I thought they were quite young as they are quite small. When I got them home one layed an egg! So I'm now thinking they see older than I thought and I think they may be bantam Orpingtons. They are very sweet but not too good at being handled. They're getting better though. Both are currently in quarantine. Meet roo and fudge!

 

[ColtHandorf]

Those are definitely Bantam Orpingtons and they are super cute! Congratulations!

 

[PlainOrpingtons2018]

@CCUK those are bantam they’re beautiful!!

@ColtHandorf Is the black pullet you have from the same breeder? Hens hide leakage, so even if you try to breed it out by crossing back to the mom it can actually make the next generation have heavier leakage.
Definitely if you successfully hatch blacks make sure you test breed. Lavenders can have lots of leakage as well so it’s not the best idea to breed birds you know have leakage in them. But if they’re all you’ve got then go ahead to use them, just make sure you test breed the offspring of the blacks before breeding to lavs

I had hens from a “breeder” who I though was a friend, his hens gave me a bunch of culls. I was very upset, I got so many chicks with leakage, feather legged babies and even babies that were split to mottled! The hens looked nothing like he had promised me, but I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt. I hatched only culls. So I got rid of the hens as mixed breeds, because they definitely weren’t breeding material. It wasn’t my black split to lavender cockerel because I had test bred him to black hens and never had any surprises.

Sucks that hens sometimes hide the worst genes lol! Glad I don’t have them anymore though I added my new babies from a good friend of mine and I’m very happy with them! Now just need to wait until their old enough to hatch and raise a few babies to see if they’re worth keeping around

 

[ColtHandorf]

Is the black pullet you have from the same breeder? Hens hide leakage, so even if you try to breed it out by crossing back to the mom it can actually make the next generation have heavier leakage.

Dahlia and Suede did come from the same breeder but are from different pairings. I'm hoping she doesn't have any "leaky" genes. She's just way too pretty to have hidden faults. lol

 

[PlainOrpingtons2018]

Dahlia and Suede did come from the same breeder but are from different pairings. I'm hoping she doesn't have any "leaky" genes. She's just way too pretty to have hidden faults. lol

yes she’s a pretty girl! Let’s hope she’s not hiding anything