The IMPORTED ENGLISH Orpington Thread

[Dharmachick]

This is not related to Orpingtons in any way, but I thought I'd share what our son did for a science project this year. I know he'd love to get some views and likes.

He initially trained a couple different chickens but Styx was the best candidate. The 2 orps were slow to pick up on new things (and kept trying to just eat the food or peck at the clicker). The Leghorn was ok but would freeze up or get distracted easily. Our serama Popcorn was by far the smartest..... but she couldn't peck hard enough to work the keyboard.

So here's the Amazing Styx

This must go viral!! I shared it on Facebook. Your son is a genius!

 

[ColtHandorf]

We finally got our first rain in three months. And now we are in for it all week. Guess I'll see if the birds remember what to do when it's wet and icky. lol

 

[Auntiejessi3]

We got an inch and a half Sunday and 2 inches last night. I'm digging it because we needed it, but it came at a very inconvenient time as we're moving to the new property and now it is to wet to move the coop. Hopefully it dries out a bit in the next couple of days

 

[ColtHandorf]

That's the problem here. It's either the Sahara desert or the Okavango delta. Never a nice in-between. I'm just glad I got the yard all mowed and it's cool enough and the daylight hours are shortening so the grass hasn't grown a ton.

 

[Auntiejessi3]

That's the problem here. It's either the Sahara desert or the Okavango delta. Never a nice in-between. I'm just glad I got the yard all mowed and it's cool enough and the daylight hours are shortening so the grass hasn't grown a ton.

That's what we did Sunday, yard work so it wouldn't be out of control after the rain, lol. I'm looking forward to the cooler temps, and I know my ladies are. Can't wait to get them moved! Only thing that concerns me is the neighbor back behind us has a boat load of roos from her spring hatch and doesn't keep them confined at all. Hope non of those young men think of "flying the coop" and joining my harem of ladies

 

[ColtHandorf]

Guess I'll be doing Red and Buff English too now. One of my first customers saw my pleas on Facebook for any form of White Orpington and insisted I come out and pick out a White cockerel at no cost. So I did. And then they talked me into a Buff and a Red. lol And then sent me home with last week's eggs...Silver-laced, Gold-laced, Red, White, Black, and Buff. lol Guess I'm firing up the incubator tonight. I have a couple of bad pics of them roosting last night, but I'll get some better ones today. The White and Red still need to fill out, but the Buff is looking pretty good. Their Whites are the largest I've ever seen.

 

[Faraday40]

I'd love opinions about my laced orps.

By process of currently being my only male, this is next year's male. He's handsome and easy-going. He's still hen-pecked and hasn't tried to crow or mate yet. (Absolutely no other rooster competition. He's just afraid of his hens. LOL) I doubt I'll see any fertile eggs until June or July 2022. For some reason, my laced boys are very, very slow to maturity.

I'm trying to decide which blue SLO to keep: Stormy or her daughter
Stormy (blue SLO hen) on left. She's the biggest SLO

Stormy's daughter (blue SLO pullet) below

For a pullet, I think the daughter looks pretty good. I like that her blue is lighter than Stormy. Yet it's hard to know how her adult plumage will look.

Her lacing is pretty crisp for a pullet. They usually get better with age. I remember my 1st blue SLO (Blizzard) barely looked laced for her first several months. By one year old, she looked much better.

I do have a little concern about the area on her back. There's an area with only partial lacing.

Here was Stormy at about the same age.

Stormy about 10 months ago. She still had some very uneven color.

I have 4 SLO hens right now. I'm hoping to go down to 2-3. The other 2 SLO are Crystal & Treasure. Both of those are molting.

 

[ColtHandorf]

By process of currently being my only male, this is next year's male. He's handsome and easy-going. He's still hen-pecked and hasn't tried to crow or mate yet. (Absolutely no other rooster competition. He's just afraid of his hens. LOL) I doubt I'll see any fertile eggs until June or July 2022. For some reason, my laced boys are very, very slow to maturity.

He's a handsome little man. Mine seem pretty slow too. None of mine that I set a couple of weeks ago were fertile at all. The BBS pen of course had all the fertile eggs. lol

I'm trying to decide which blue SLO to keep: Stormy or her daughter

Ummmm, both. lol

I do have a little concern about the area on her back. There's an area with only partial lacing.

Up on her shoulders between the wings? I kind of assumed it was a flash/over-exposure. A well-laced male should correct that, but you never know.

Here was Stormy at about the same age.

That's what a lot of my pullets look like. Barely laced and then they molt in and look great.

 

[Faraday40]

I really should only have about 3-4 chickens in the laced tractor. The cockerel and pullet were added as chicks so didn’t take up much space. It allowed me time to put off the decision. I usually keep 2 laced females and then an extra gal for my blue laced project..... plus the best male. (Right now there are 5 - 1 male, 2 black laced, 2 blue laced)

I'm done hatching, so I moved the SLOs back into the main flock. Poor birds were being chased around by the dumb turkeys. I kept going outside to block the turkeys and pointing my finger saying “No No” and “Bad turkeys!” They would walk away but resumed the chase as soon as I was out of sight. I have no idea why they were suddenly calling alarms, gobbling, and grabbing the SLOs. The turkeys have been hanging out next to the laced tractor all summer. I guess they just didn’t like the sight of the laced orps free ranging.

The second day wasn’t as terrifying and the SLOs even put themselves to bed in the big coop instead of the tractor. Yesterday was the 3rd day and they seem to be sharing the yard ok. I saw a bit of chasing this morning, but the SLOs are learning how to avoid the big scary turkeys. They have already re-established pecking order within the chickens but have no idea why the turkeys are being jerks. The good news is that the turkeys are only staying a couple more weeks.

 

[ColtHandorf]

Turkeys are b-holes. lol What always got me was the geese with the SLO. I could have six breeders in the pen and if I added eight new 6+ month-old birds they would only go after the eight new ones. I could never determine how they could tell them apart. Even I have to look closely at them to try and figure out who is who.

If it were me, I'd be super tempted to keep the four females and the young cockerel with the laced birds. Even in my small groups, I think I'm planning on that number. With the bigger pens, I can do 12-15 birds.