orpington chickens
Orpingtons are a great breed. They are calm, friendly birds that are hardy and often go broody. They are also dual purpose being a great layer of medium-sized brown eggs, laying often year round, as well as a great meat bird with a butcher weight of 7-9 lbs/hens and 8-10 lbs/roosters at 5 months As a bonus, they are simply gogeous!
Orpingtons come in a variety of colors: buff, black, blue, white, chocolate, lavender, and new on the scene, mauve. In addition to the color variations, there are a number of patterns such as mottled, cuckoo, splash, and laced. We have two separate breeding groups that produce orpingtons in a variety of colors and patterns.
Originally, my breeding plans with the Orpingtons was to just keep it simple, breeding lavenders and chocolates. I saw some silver laced and loved how striking they were. I was not a fan of the mottled until I saw a mottled lavender and went ooo. Then it was game on!
My Buffs are currently just my egg layers. I do not have a rooster with them, yet! (Well the irony is literally the week after I wrote this, one of my shes turned out to be a he lol. Our buffs are still primarily layers for our families eggs for consumption, but we do incubate them periodically.
When it comes to chickens, there is a vast amount of breeds to choose from. This website contains some information about the Orpingtons that we have, but I encourage you to do more research as well.
Our chickens are not exposed to any pesticides or fertilizers. They are fed non-GMO feed, mealworms raised by us, and fresh vegetables/fruits, as well as free ranging.
Our chicks mostly hatch by incubation, but at times will allow a broody momma the opportunity raise some babies. Our chicks spend two days in the incubator after they start hatching. They will then spend two to three days in the brooder to ensure they are eating/drinking and thriving before becoming available.
This is one of my "oops" chicks. I had a run/coop with a buff rooster and lavender hens, whose eggs I use only for eating. Next to them is my run/coop with my mottled lavender rooster and lavender hens. I collectd eggs and "intended" to incubate some eggs to have lavender chicks split to mottled. Well when they hatched, I'm like those don't look right. What is going on? Took me a couple days to realize I mixed up the eggs and hatched the wrong ones. But was a good oops. Chicks are sooo cute. I was anxious to see how they feather out. Although the sad reality was I ate my lavenders. I am dubbing them "Sable Orpingtons".
"Sable Orpington"
feathered out beautifully
Buffs
We have one buff orpington rooster covering five buff orpington hens. We have chicks hatching every week. We will have some available as young chicks as well as young pullets. Contact us for availability or to be put on a wait list.
Lavenders
We have two mottled lavender roosters each in a run with four lavender hens. One is a mottled lavender hen. The majority of their chicks will be lavender split to mottled lavender, which means they carry the mottled gene but do not look mottled. On average, one out of every four chicks hatched from the second run will be mottled lavender. Mottled is recessive and a chicken must inherit the mottle gene from both parents in order to present mottled.
These pictures are of a rooster and hen from the flock I got my rooster from. It was their pics that hooked me on mottled.
Blue, Black, Splash, Plus
I love variety and I wanted to maximize the potential in our last breeding group. Blue, black, splash (BBS) provides a unique opportunity for that. When breeding a blue roo with a blue hen, depending on how the genes pair up, you can get blue, black or splash. For extra variety, I have a couple chocolate hens in with our splash rooster. Blue and chocolate produces mauve. Our goal is to also have a splash rooster with blue, black, and splash hens. Hatching egg and chicks available later this summer.
(In process of establishing breeding groups)
Temporary stock photo
