Vicki
I have never really liked the buff orpington, cant really explain it..for the first time i can say i am impressed ..i see them all of the time, an occasional nice one..these are really lovley birds..i cant wait to see in a few years how you are doing with them.are you planning to show any this year? ...what a treat to see those in person !!!!..thou they are something im never going to buy..i know you had a vision as to how you wanted them to look.i think to show , would the tail tenting need to be a bit more ironed? nice type..meaty bird as intended.
i thought you said you are waiting for main tail to come in..hope you post more pics for us because when i think buff orpington i think big - round. meaty bird.
very exciting..not sure why i had not seen marc's birds befor.
not really sure why i never really liked buffs befor..some of them too much emphasis on parts that you dont eat maybe..some are kind of scrawny , scraggly looking, thou big might feed a family of 1....not great coloring on some. toes bent all they way backward, wings like a seabright.. dont really know..they were meant to be great table fowl..nothing ever jumped out at me about them befor..couldnt find much to get excited about ..like meat..i would catch myself saying, yea that parts nice but wheres the beef?....i really like these..
i was reading one of those old shell to showroom books last night..i think people seemed to have a little better grasp on what they wanted, there were table fowl, eggs layers, combos, and ornamentals.they used to very heavily penalize a wyandotte featured head and plymoth rock brest on any orpington..
i wish there were more egg shows, or division 2 show egg samples with the hen.like around a lot of europe...rather than worrying about a toenail..what kind of meat quality do they have...does that perfect toenail color bird lay high quality egg? that part is a little lost on americai think..we tend to dwell on a part that would never even make it into a stew.I have an australorp hen, little miss BBB and BV , but she has spotty eggs..