Weirdo Orpington hen?

[Tooshay89]

Orps should be quite "round" and fluffy ... have white skin, and feet ... in the group picture, the lavender just ahead and to the left of the black one, has a fluffy low hanging orp butt/leg covering ...

Jersey Giants will have black feet, but yellow on the bottom (sole), and yellowish skin.

Looks more JG than Orp ...

Hmm... so there's a possible chick switch at the hatchery? Interesting!

I'll take some better pictures of them tomorrow. "Blue", my blue orpington, is the ONLY one who has that traditional fluffy orpington shape. The others are round-ish (with the exception of the Orp in question), but not to the same degree as blue. My buffs are also much smaller than the black orpington. Blue and Lavender are quite large, but less tall and lanky and more round and stout. I assumed with hatchery birds, there would be some differences between birds, but this gal has always seemed so different in comparison.

 

[Trux]

Where did you get her? Sounds like she might be a Jersey Giant instead of an Orpington.

This was my thought also

 

[Trux]

Looking at the picture, she looks like there is some blue mixed in that black. Also like a previous poster said she is not the low to the ground fluff butt. You might have a JG or a cross of some kind

 

[CannedMonster]

I ordered 3 Black Australorp sexed pullets from Meyer in July along with 10 other chicks.
One turned out to be a cockerel.
If the two females one is a Jersey Giant.
I realized it when I noticed her mustard yellow foot soles one day.
Oliver the cockerel and the other pullet, Sumi, have a pale pink sort of foot sole.
Charlotte the JG hasn’t laid yet at 7 months but neither have my Silver Penciled Rocks.
I like Charlotte’s personality but I didn’t order a JG...I ordered Australorps.
She hasn’t gotten much bigger than my other birds yet though.
I find it very interesting that you got a JG also when it was supposed to be a Black Orpington.
I wonder if Meyer realizes that somebody on their staff doesn’t seem to know the difference or maybe isn’t reading the labels on the chicks when packing orders?
People should get what they order.

 

[123RedBeard]

In previous post ... while tired and trying to find my pillow ... I was trying to say the lavender/blue chicken in the picture just ahead and to the left of the black one, with its head down ... I also should have written "white/pinkish" feet, not white ... tired.

Note these are gonna be mostly to the American Poultry Association - Standard Of Perfection (APA SOP) but ... look at how round, fluffy, and low slung they are ... and the white/pinkish feet ... https://www.feathersite.com/Poultry/CGK/Orps/BRKOrps.html - most hatcheries will have different quality than this ...

And here is the Jersey Giants ... I hesitate to mention it, but ... you may even have a late blooming cockrell ... JG's are known to be very slow growing/maturing chickens ... https://www.feathersite.com/Poultry/CGD/BJG/BRKBJGs.html

 

[Ridgerunner]

Orpington are supposed to have white legs but often with black birds the pigment can cause the legs to be black or at least dark. You can see that if you look through these Orpington photos on Feathersite. This can happen whether the legs are yellow or white. To me the black legs do not definitively tell me that it is not an Orpington.

http://www.feathersite.com/Poultry/CGK/Orps/BRKOrps.html

Also it is a hatchery chicken. You seldom get a chicken that meets the breed SOP from a hatchery. Part of that is that they are not in the business to produce show quality chickens. They are in the business to mass produce chickens that sort of follow the breed characteristics, close enough for backyard purposes and at an affordable price. Each hatchery has different people determining which chickens get to breed, some with doctorates in poultry science and real knowledge of the SOP. But each hatcheries' person will select for traits they think are important. That's why you can get differences by hatchery.

A big difference is the breeding method. A breeder usually selects one specific male and one or two specific hens to give them the best chance of producing a chicken that follows the SOP. Even then the majority of chicks don't measure up. Hatcheries tend to use the pen breeding method. They might have 20 roosters in a pen with 200 hens with random matings. Even if the person selecting the breeders follows the SOP really closely you are not going to get many chicks that meet the SOP with this random breeding. If you want chickens that closely follow the SOP get them from a breeder, not a hatchery, and pay the price the breeder demands.

With all that said, the black does not look that Orpington-ish to me, but best I can tell the buff and the male leave some to be desired too. I've gotten chicks from Meyer Hatchery, not Orpington but other breeds. Most of the individuals I got were closer to their breed SOP body type than that black is to Orpington, but I also got a lot of variation between individuals. That's been true from other hatcheries too, I see a lot of differences in individuals.

Is that black within the limits you might get from a hatchery Orpington? It's stretching it but maybe. It's possible it's a mix-up at the hatchery, the Black Orp sorting pen should be at a different location than the pen for Buff or Blue Orps. I'm sure things get really hectic on that sorting floor when they are trying to ship out tens of thousands of chicks that day. It's even possible a Black Jersey Giant rooster got loose and wound up in a Black Orpington pen instead of a Buff Orpington a Black Rock pen, but that is a real stretch, highly unlikely.

Looking at that photo, many things look female. But with that curving top tail feather especially it is also possible you have a late developing cockerel as someone else mentioned. That would go a long way toward explaining the size. To me this is the most logical explanation but it is only a guess. The Orp feathering could develop more as he matures.

 

[Tooshay89]

Her (his?) curved tail feather has always stumped me. She looks like a female in some ways, but in others, definitely more male. She has a bump on the back of one leg... it doesn't really look like a spur, though. And she's at the bottom of the pecking order, very skittish, unlike the rest of the flock. Our Ameraucana rooster DOES try to mount her, but when he does, she freaks out and moves away from him. I've only had hens up until this point, but do roosters typically know not to mount other males?

 

[aart]

Her (his?) curved tail feather has always stumped me. She looks like a female in some ways, but in others, definitely more male. She has a bump on the back of one leg... it doesn't really look like a spur, though. And she's at the bottom of the pecking order, very skittish, unlike the rest of the flock. Our Ameraucana rooster DOES try to mount her, but when he does, she freaks out and moves away from him. I've only had hens up until this point, but do roosters typically know not to mount other males?

I've had pullets with curved tail feathers.
All birds have spur bumps....some females' will even grow into spurs.
Mounting is not always about sex but also dominance..males will usually fight too tho and usually no 'cloacal kiss'.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I've had pullets with curved tail feathers.

Pictures @aart ? Not that I doubt you but it could be interesting. With some of my EE's a curved tail is sometimes my best clue to sex. Some can be challenging even when they are older.

All birds have spur bumps....some females' will even grow into spurs.

Agree. I'v butchered a lot of pullets and hens and use the legs in broth. All have spur bumps and some can develop respectable spurs. Some cockerels can be slow to develop spurs.

Mounting is not always about sex but also dominance..males will usually fight too tho and usually no 'cloacal kiss'

Again agree. Especially with younger birds the mating act is usually about dominance more than trying to fertilize eggs. I've seen hens mounting hens, well usually hens mounting pullets, to show dominance including cloacal kiss. I've never seen a rooster mount a rooster but on rare occasions a cockerel will mount a totally subdued cockerel.

 

[aart]

Pictures @aart ? Not that I doubt you but it could be interesting. With some of my EE's a curved tail is sometimes my best clue to sex. Some can be challenging even when they are older.

Have had more than a few curvy tailed pullets, always gave me a feeling of OhSh!t.
Here's a BCM x CCL cross at about 3-4 mo, I knew she was female due to the sexlinked cross, she hatched under a broody with her 3 brothers who were glaringly barred: