Buff orpington cockerels at 17 weeks old

At seventeen weeks old, one has crowed, he needs to be marked, but just haven't gotten around to it yet, smiling.

These dudes are 17 weeks old, they are hatchlings from the eggs I got from Hobbyfarmer in Ontario, the eggs were flown from Ontario to here, and 10 of the 34 worked out, to go to the finals of being hatched out.

There is two different lines of birds, two different fathers, mated with two different lines of gals, so quite a diversity.

By the way......I have so much egg on my face I could spit. And I will have to make a thread and comment on wing feather sexing with the buff orpington breed. It does not hold true. I found that out the hard way, smiling again.

There was a thread that was created and I participated in with regards to wing feather sexing buff orpingtons at a young age. It doesn't work with this breed, although it was indicated in a list of breeds that can be wing feather sexed at a young age that they could be. Trust me. It doesn't work.....

According to the wing feather sexing, I had one cockerel and 9 pullets. Nope. Some pretty clear differences at a young age. I thought that I had several pullets that were just displaying a larger comb and wattles. Well, yes, they did, but that was because the larger combs and wattled birds are cockerels!!!! So I have 6 cockerels and four pullets, go figure. Anyways, wing feather sexing does not work with the buff orpington breed, period. Don't question this, because it doesn't. It does, absolutely and 100% with the gold laced wyandottes, cochins and brahmas, as I have raised enough of these to maturity to feel comfortable to say that this system works, but after having raised buff orpingtons to maturity, I will say nope.

Anyways. Got some beautiful pullets and cockerels. Now 17 weeks old (did I mention one of them is crowing?).

The one chick that displayed the short flight feathers still did turn out to be a cockerel and looks very different than his nestmates. He still is the only cockerel that looks different than the others, he was the one that, according to the wing feather sexing, was a cockerel, I think that he will be a nice specimen.

The other 5 dudes that should have been pullets, according to wing feather sexing look totally different than the cockerel that had the short wing flight feathers (the other males displayed the longer flight feathers, typical of female in the other breeds I had spoken of in this thread).

You will see two pictures here.

The first picture is the picture of the chick that had the short wing flight feathers, always had the slower to mature look, but now, he is massive compared to the other cockerels. Take note of the fluffy buffy looking tail. Very round looking. Again, he was the one that I noted had no long flight feathers that showed up at a young age. This fellow is the son of Homer, the buff orpington pappa that took grand champion of his breed at an Ontario show.

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Now this picture of the following cockerel is one of the 5 that appeared with long flight feathers. Still a nice looking cockerel, but look at the long tail feathers, compared to the first picture that I put here. According to the wing feather sexing, he should have been a female. But nope. He is showing all signs of male. totally different looking bird. This fellow is offspring of Jason, an unrelated rooster, but living on the farm where I got the eggs from.

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Time will only be the teller of the tale of which two cockerels of the 6 I will keep. I am pleased though, that I have 6 cockerels and 4 pullets. I originally thought I would only have 1 rooster, with no choice between others for the breeding group. I will keep all the roosters for a good long time, as I know that choices should be made for keeping the breeders should not be made for some time after they achieve sexual maturity. Gonna be fun. Anyways, some good food for thought here. And trust me, wing feather sexing does not work with the orpington breed, I was wrong with things that I have said and seen. Have that beautiful and wonderful day, CynthiaM.

More to come on the buckeyes soon, smiling.......

Thanks for this great post, Cynthia. I was interested hearing about your feather sexing discoveries. I do compare the baby buff orp chicks and make a mental note of how many males vs. females based on the rates of feathering. But I don't mark them and follow through to see how accurate it ends up being.
Orpingtons are on the list IPF provided on here of breeds that can be successfully feather sexed. So I'm not sure what happened. Maybe we need to allow for a margin of error, no matter what method is used.
Anyway, thanks for those great pics...handsome young roos you have there!

Well you know I was sort of depressed when you said you could feather sex your orpingtons. I tried and was totally wrong and thought I was an idiot. So you've made me feel much better. I find the group I raised have enormous differences in their combs. Some hens have almost no combs, then they go right through the range of sizes to being almost as big as a roosters. But the roosters get feisty early and so reveal themselves by behavior. They also show wattles earlier than the hens. At least I think they do. I sold all my pullets early based on their lack of wattles and kept any young ones with wattles for meat birds, we'll see if I'm right. I've been away for two weeks now so it will be interesting to see when I get home.

Great photos. That red background really makes the colours of the birds "pop"!

Well, this wing feather sexing thing with the orpingtons had driven me completely nuts. In the past I have raised only a very few in each hatch. Those birds turned out to be wing feather sexed correctly, but now I know that was only luck. Really. The wing feather sexing is absolutely and completely not possible with this breed. I raised 10 and there should have been 1 cockerel and 9 pullets.

There was always the four that never developed much of a comb. But then there was the other 5 that developed combs and wattles, very noticeable. As I said, according to what the wing feather sexing said, there was only one cockerel. He always had the shorter wing feathers, the others grew the same rate. I watch and I keep very close track on these types of things.

In all honesty, I thought that of the 9 pullets, there were 5 that grew larger wattles and combs than the other 4, consistently those wattles and combs became larger, more noticeable and certainly more red. I thought, well, I know that sometimes hens can have quite large wattles and combs, seen it, have some buff orpington hens that if you only saw those two parts, you would think they were roosters.

I kept watch on these thinking how lucky I am to have 9 pullets and one cockerel. But then on the other hand, I wished that I had 9 cockerels and one pullet. Then going back to the other hand, wished that I had 4 cockerels and 7 pullets. That would have been a perfect world and I could have had four cockerels to choose from to keep two for breeding. Sigh....so I watched and I watched these 5 cockerels that I was sure were pullets, because of the fast flight feather growth, they began to change....ALOT!!! The one cockerel that was wing feather sexed, which had the very slow growth in his flight feathers, always looked different. He had never began to develop long tailfeathers, and still to this day has a very fat looking buff looking tail (he is the one in the first picture), the other "pullets" (I call them that because that is what they should be, but weren't), began to get long tailfeathers and the sickle feathers began to really show, and pointed!!! Oh brother. This was not really, really, noticeable until about 2 weeks ago, when they were about 14-15 weeks old. Freak!!! Those are not pullets, those that grew those big red combs and wattles and the long tailfeathers were ding dang cockerels. I was horrified and shocked and was very embarrrassed. BECAUSE, according to that thread that spoke of breeds of birds that could be wing feather sexed was not holding true in my yard. Did I have some kind of deviation in the breed? Nope, don't think so. Just know it doesn't work (so Heda, get out of the depression, it doesn't work).

What I found was the most embarassing thing about this was how I spoke of how I could wing feather sex buff orpingtons. And I thought that I could, and told everyone that I could -- now I must RETRACT that statement and tell people that I can't, and you can't either, no one can, they are not able to be wing feather sexed and that short and fast feathering gene thing and sex may work for others, like I know for a fact it does with cochins and brahmas and gold laced wyandottes (raised enough of these through to age of visual to see gender to know that it does work). But not this breed, the orpington. So, in a sense I have delivered a type of deceit, well not really deceit, but telling people something that is not true, guess it is deceit in one form or another, and this bothers me immensely. Oh well, it is what it is, I am taking back my "bragging" about knowledge of wing feather sexing buff orpingtons at a young age -- IT DOESN'T WORK.

Rats, where was I? Right. OK, so it has turned out good actually. Now I have a good number of cockerels of whom to choose 2 or 3 for the breeding end. I have 4 pullets and 6 cockerels!! I am happier than having 9 pullets and only 1 cockerel from those lines from Ontario, I am pleased as can be. I know that Heather will come out and help me to choose which to keep as the breeders. I am very fortunate that this great woman has taken me beneath her wing and will mentor me. I thank my lucky stars for that. Have a beautiful and most wonderful day, CynthiaM.

I wonder if my post made much sense? It seemed it was all over the map, and that is just sometimes how I feel, all over the map, trying to keep in one place with train of thought is beyond my capability, sometimes think that I am an adult with hyperactive attention deficit disorder, smiling that huge smile!!

How can I be depressed when you are so honest and modest and make me laugh!

I think we might do an egg swap of orpingtons in the spring. I'll post photos of my rooster later this week - he was the choice of about 10 cockerels and I think he turned out very well. You can also opine on my young stock if they aren't clearly sexed by now...

heda gobbler wrote:How can I be depressed when you are so honest and modest and make me laugh!

Coolio!! So I made you laugh, now that has made my day, to think that I have brightened another's. I like that.

Wow, out of 10 you had a choice of, that is just really wonderful. That is why I am stoked about having 6 to choose from. Ya, perhaps we can get some really nice buff orpington breeding going on here. I love the breed, not as much as the buckeye, but it is a close second, that is why I am only going with those two (and of course my cochins, they are just as nice, but is so many other ways, my big furry fluffy butt cochins, they are another love of my life). I love the deep and throaty call of the cochin rooster, so different than the shrill of the other two breeds, he stands out above the crowd when he expresses his voice!! Beautiful, so deep, so majestic, oops, this was about buff orpingtons.

Did you ever tell me where you got the line from of your buff orpingtons? You may have, but I forgot. The line that I am keeping came from Hobbyfarmer, she has some really nice orpingtons and one from Heidi that is a keeper, she is freakin' massive in size!! Have a wonderful and great day, CynthiaM.

I got my Buff Orpingtons from Performance Poultry. Didn't want them really - I wanted to stick to Buckeyes and White Chantclers but at the last minute he couldn't get me Buckeyes so substituted The Buff Orpingtons. I'm trying to remember if I've added to that stock at all but I don't think so. I think of 12 or 13 I got from Performance I had 10 cockerels and 2 or 3 hens. I kept one cockerel and put the rest in the freezer and then this year the rooster and hens were really good performers so I have quite a few more, but I won't be expanding much I think. I just don't have the separate space to devote to another breed. If you know what i mean!

Love cochins too, I have some bantam hens but no rooster and I swear I'm not going there.