Who should we breed our Buff Orpington roo to?

[Kimi BK]

We have a mixed flock of 36, all purchased as day-olds at various times. We had our first successful adoption of 15 chicks by a broody Australorp. We have eaten 12 roosters.

Next spring we'd like to try breeding. We have a lovely Buff Orpington roo who will be the lucky dad. Here are his potential mates... (In order from the ones we are most strongly considering to the ones we'd least likely use, if left to our own devices.)

Buff Orpington
Australorp
Silver Laced Wyandotte
Rhode Island Red
Speckled Sussex
Barred Rock
Welsummer
Easter Egger

(We also have 10 Speckled Sussex chicks and several look like they might turn out to be roos , so if you have any insight to how their genetics carry over in mixed breeds, we'd be interested in hearing that too!)

 

[TundraFang]

I'm not good with genetics but I'm curious about what others have to say.

 

[cherrynberry]

We have a mixed flock of 36, all purchased as day-olds at various times. We had our first successful adoption of 15 chicks by a broody Australorp. We have eaten 12 roosters.

Next spring we'd like to try breeding. We have a lovely Buff Orpington roo who will be the lucky dad. Here are his potential mates... (In order from the ones we are most strongly considering to the ones we'd least likely use, if left to our own devices.)

Buff Orpington
Australorp
Silver Laced Wyandotte
Rhode Island Red
Speckled Sussex
Barred Rock
Welsummer
Easter Egger

(We also have 10 Speckled Sussex chicks and several look like they might turn out to be roos , so if you have any insight to how their genetics carry over in mixed breeds, we'd be interested in hearing that too!)

Depends on what you are looking for....

Egg color?
Unique?
Sexlinkage?

For egg color, I would cross him with the EE or Welsummer.
For purebreds breed to the BO, obviously.
For sexlinked offspring breed to the barred rock. Males will be barred, females will not be barred.
For a unique bird, I would love to see a SS x BO!

 

[RoostersAreAwesome]

We have a mixed flock of 36, all purchased as day-olds at various times. We had our first successful adoption of 15 chicks by a broody Australorp. We have eaten 12 roosters.

Next spring we'd like to try breeding. We have a lovely Buff Orpington roo who will be the lucky dad. Here are his potential mates... (In order from the ones we are most strongly considering to the ones we'd least likely use, if left to our own devices.)

Buff Orpington
Australorp
Silver Laced Wyandotte
Rhode Island Red
Speckled Sussex
Barred Rock
Welsummer
Easter Egger

(We also have 10 Speckled Sussex chicks and several look like they might turn out to be roos , so if you have any insight to how their genetics carry over in mixed breeds, we'd be interested in hearing that too!)

Buff Orpington x barred rock (hens won’t be barred in your cross):
https://www.backyardchickens.com/th...s-in-first-post-before-adding-content.629715/.
Buff Orpington x black australorp: http://forum.backyardpoultry.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=8039007
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/black-australorp-buff-orpington-cross.612679/post-11311828
https://www.backyardchickens.com/reviews/buff-orpington-x-black-australorp.11918/.

The mottling (white spots) of a speckled sussex is recessive, so you won’t see it in the first generation. However, breeding the SS mixes together or breeding them back to an SS will produce mottled offspring.

 

[Kimi BK]

Depends on what you are looking for....

Haha, good point!
I mainly wanted to see if there were any interesting things that would happen re: genetics which I don't know much about with chickens. So it was a pretty open-ended question.

But my ideal would be productive egg-laying dual-purpose birds with an interesting array of egg colors and hen colors. (Not asking for much, huh? )

I don't care about sex-linking, because we'll grow cocks past ID stage anyway for meat (or breeding).

We've had 4 easter eggers and all of them were hands-down the most productive layers. Actually we might have some other super productive layers that fly under the radar since we have a range of brown egg layers and can't always ID who laid what... but if they are super productive, there must be other brown layers who are much less productive. We have 12 laying at the moment (the rest are younger), and generally get 8-10 eggs per day, but almost every day all of the easter eggers lay.

We aren't crazy about our Welsummers. Their eggs are OK but can be messy looking, not great. They are less productive, and they are low on the pecking order to the point of being a little skittish around the other girls. So I don't think we will be breeding them.

I hadn't thought much about breeding the EEs because they are hybrid already so it seemed like a crap shoot, but it does make sense, since they are such great layers and so spunky and fun. Plus a crap shoot might be fun with a wider variety of egg colors, so I will move them up on our list!

 

[cherrynberry]

Haha, good point!
I mainly wanted to see if there were any interesting things that would happen re: genetics which I don't know much about with chickens. So it was a pretty open-ended question.

But my ideal would be productive egg-laying dual-purpose birds with an interesting array of egg colors and hen colors. (Not asking for much, huh? )

I don't care about sex-linking, because we'll grow cocks past ID stage anyway for meat (or breeding).

We've had 4 easter eggers and all of them were hands-down the most productive layers. Actually we might have some other super productive layers that fly under the radar since we have a range of brown egg layers and can't always ID who laid what... but if they are super productive, there must be other brown layers who are much less productive. We have 12 laying at the moment (the rest are younger), and generally get 8-10 eggs per day, but almost every day all of the easter eggers lay.

We aren't crazy about our Welsummers. Their eggs are OK but can be messy looking, not great. They are less productive, and they are low on the pecking order to the point of being a little skittish around the other girls. So I don't think we will be breeding them.

I hadn't thought much about breeding the EEs because they are hybrid already so it seemed like a crap shoot, but it does make sense, since they are such great layers and so spunky and fun. Plus a crap shoot might be fun with a wider variety of egg colors, so I will move them up on our list!

For dual purpose, I say you breed him to a few breeds. RIRs are supposed to be high production layers. BRs and BAs too. They are also not too small in size.

For color, definitely breed to EEs, but they produce less (not bad, just less) than my RSLs which are derived from RIRs.

EE crosses will definitely surprise you!

 

[Kimi BK]

Buff Orpington x barred rock (hens won’t be barred in your cross):
https://www.backyardchickens.com/th...s-in-first-post-before-adding-content.629715/.
Buff Orpington x black australorp: http://forum.backyardpoultry.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=8039007
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/black-australorp-buff-orpington-cross.612679/post-11311828
https://www.backyardchickens.com/reviews/buff-orpington-x-black-australorp.11918/.

The mottling (white spots) of a speckled sussex is recessive, so you won’t see it in the first generation. However, breeding the SS mixes together or breeding them back to an SS will produce mottled offspring.

Wow, that first link is a great thread! I went down a rabbit hole with that one! I'm surprised it didn't come up in my earlier searches. I had found the BO x BA thread before; looks like a really pretty mix and we really like both breeds, so that's why we had them high on our list. Thanks for posting those links!

And thanks for the SS info -- I think if we breed them we'll keep them within breed. They are such pretty birds. Unfortunately ours were fostered by a nervous nelly hen, so they are terrified of us and aren't the friendly chicks we expected. Mom's back with the big flock, and we are spending lots of time with the chicks to try to make friends before they get too big! (They are ~8 weeks now).

 

[Kimi BK]

For dual purpose, I say you breed him to a few breeds. RIRs are supposed to be high production layers. BRs and BAs too. They are also not too small in size.

For color, definitely breed to EEs, but they produce less (not bad, just less) than my RSLs which are derived from RIRs.

EE crosses will definitely surprise you!

Sweet pics! Yes, I love our EEs. We've had 9 so far, and they are all so different from each other, but every one is beautiful and they seem so cheeky, we just have a soft spot for them. We actually have 2 chicks that are the most similar and both mostly white with touches of grey, but one has a beard and blue feet and the other one has ears and green feet. So fun! I guess crossing them will just take it to a whole nother level.

We've only had 4 laying EEs so far (we currently have 5 juveniles), but they have all been crazy productive... although our oldest, who we had for 10 years, did have long dry spells when moulting (and of course slowed down after her first few years)

 

[3KillerBs]

I don't know what your goals are, but my intent for next year since I have difficulty telling who is laying what egg is to isolate the hens I like best so I can collect their eggs and, of those eggs, choose the best egg characteristics -- no abnormalities, good size, appropriate shape, desirable color, etc.

 

[Sally PB]

I don't know what your goals are, but my intent for next year since I have difficulty telling who is laying what egg is to isolate the hens I like best so I can collect their eggs and, of those eggs, choose the best egg characteristics -- no abnormalities, good size, appropriate shape, desirable color, etc.

What criteria do you use for choosing the hens you like best?