Our Buff Orpingtons

I haven’t written specifically about our chickens for a while now. We changed out the flock last summer with chicks from McMurray Hatchery. We bought Buff Orpingtons, Black Giants, Light Brahmas, and Partridge Rocks; all large, dual purpose, heavy breeds. Here they are in the box when we got them from the post office on June 24th:



The yellow ones are the Buff Orpingtons which is the breed I want to write about for this post.

Here is what McMurray has to say about them from their catalog:

One time years ago at our Hamilton County Fair the poultry judge was asked to describe the correct plumage color for this variety. Taking out his gold watch he said, "That’s the color for Buff Orpingtons." And pure gold they are, symbolic of great value and high quality. Introduced from England in the late 1800′s, they became one of the most popular farm fowls in this country. These are large, stately birds of quiet disposition. Easy to dress for the table they are white skinned, plump, and juicy, a beautiful eating bird. Their heavy, full plumage make them excellent winter layers, shelling out brown eggs right through cold weather. They also make excellent setters and mothers. These "Golden Beauties" have been one of our most popular varieties for years and years with their glistening plumage and pinkish white skin. Baby chicks are a soft light buff color. (http://www.mcmurrayhatchery.com/product/buff_orpingtons.html)


I think the Wikipedia article on them is pretty accurate. Here is part of it:

Appearance
Some characteristics of an Orpington are:

Heavy (7 to 10 pounds),
Soft, profuse feathering, which almost hides the legs of the bird,
Curvy shape with a short back and U-shaped underline,
A small head with a small comb.
Large and usually tame
Its fluffy feathers that makes it look distinctively large.

Personality
The Orpington chicken is thought of as a highly docile bird and is suitable for families with small children. They are very popular and their popularity is increasing. They also tend to be smarter than other breeds, some people tend to claim their Orpington has performed tricks and they usually come when their name is called.

Eggs
Orpingtons lay between 110 and 160 eggs a year. They do not stop laying in the winter. The eggs are a light brown to tinted white and range from small to large depending on the heredity of the breed. Hens tend to go broody more than other heavy egg breeds, which is to say occasionally.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orpington_(chicken))



Now for some pictures of what our grown Buff Orpingtons look like.

This is the alpha rooster of the flock, King Arthur. I thought King Arthur was an appropriate name for an English breed of chicken:



Isn’t he beautiful?

And here is one of the hens:



This is King Arthur with another of the hens:



I like this picture of Simon feeding them because you can get an idea of the size of King Arthur next to Simon:



In this one you can see our other Buff Orpington rooster back in the cage on the left. His name is Sir Lancelot. He is actually the rooster that we put with the hens in their secluded lot to get pure-bred eggs. That way it didn’t bother the rest of the flock to loose their dominant rooster, King Arthur:



I guess they have been one of our favorite breeds and they seem to be most in demand from folks wanting to purchase chickens from our farm. More than once someone has seen our Buffs and then asked if we have any for sale. Hopefully we will be able to raise some for a profit.

Only 4 of the 7 hens from McMurray survived. A couple died during the first couple months from unknown causes and one was killed during the winter when I failed to close up the coop for the night. We found the remains of the hen along with 2 Partridge Rock roosters. I'm not sure what exactly got them, but it served as a potent reminder that I must be diligent to close the coop every night possible!

I put the four remaining Buff hens and one Buff rooster (Sir Lancelot) in a secluded lot for about three weeks to make sure the eggs would be pure Buff Orpington. When we had a game hen go broody (the one we had named Wingleg) I collected the pure-bred eggs for four days and put them under the setting hen. During those 4 days they only laid 10 eggs, so that is the number that got set under the hen for incubation. 9 of them hatched on Sunday and the 10th hatched out on Monday! I was impressed that we had a 100% hatch rate, all adorable little yellow chicks! I will try to get a picture of them soon and put it in here later.

I had also picked up 6 Buff Orpington chicks from the new Tractor Supply Company store we have in town with the hopes of adding them to the mama hen. Here are the chicks from TSC:



Last night we successfully placed them under the mama hen! At first she was very upset and concerned that something was happening to her chicks and she tried to flog me in the dark. Soon all 6 new chicks were in the pile with the first 10 and Wingleg started cooing and purring to the disturbed chicks and settled down on top of all 16.

This morning I only counted 14 chicks, but I did not disturb them to count them thoroughly. Hopefully all 16 made it through the night.

So far our new chicken experiment is working out well and we are thankful to God for the lessons we are learning.


PS added later:
Those chicks from Tractor Supply turned out to be Red Stars instead of Buff Orpingtons, which are good chickens but won't breed true. Don't trust what they tell you about the breeds of chicken they are selling at TSC as they usually don't really know.
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1 comment
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Judy on April 16, 2009 at 8:47 am
You have beautiful chickens,,love your rooster he is sooo handsome. I am trying to put together a sturdy chicken coop so that the raccoons etc. cant get into it…I miss my chickens and those fresh eggs. I have ordered from McMurray's before, very happy with what they send..