I was looking at some pictures of my growing up buff orpingtons, these birds were from hatching eggs received from HobbyChicken in Ontario. There are three lines of the orpingtons in this egg shipment. A rooster, which was a grand champion two years in a row in a show in that province, and an unrelated rooster paired up with this champion's daughters. The champion rooster was mated with a different line of hens. Nice to have the different series of genetics here. Hope I got this right (HobbyChicken, if you read this, please corroborate if this is the way it is, got kind of mixed up a little in my mind).
The first series of pictures is showing the difference in size of these young birds from Ontario compare to my good ol' tried and true hatchery gals, of whom are coming up to three years old this spring, still laying strong, huge, brown eggs. I have another hen, she is now one year old, that again came from different lines. She is unrelated to any of the birds and survived a marek's outbreak that affected her sister and brother, who are no longer with us, and had been vaccinated by the breeder for marek's. Only those two birds and 2 other 12 week old chicks in my chicken yards were affected by the disease. Who knows where it came from, but it came. As an aside, but had to mention this....
The Ontario group of birds will be kept separated from my hatchery stock and will not be used in the breeding pool, but kept as egg layers, as they are so darn good at what they do, and might I mention, they are friendly too, smiling. Enjoy the pictures, and have the most wonderful day, CynthiaM.
The Ontario gals on the outside, the hatchery hen on the centre, hatchery gal almost 3 years, Ontario line 25 weeks old, and began to lay just two days ago.
Larger birds are the Ontario line, smaller hatchery, 25 weeks old
Another shot of the different lines of gals, 25 weeks old
This is a picture of the two cockerels, the picture was taken 3 weeks ago, so the birds are 21 weeks old. There was 6 cockerels, a choice had to be made and these were the two fellows that stayed with us on the farm, one is much bigger than the other. The larger one I had taken to the National show in Armstrong the beginning of November and he had written on his cage card, BB
One of the cockerels, 21 weeks old here, same as the picture above
A good face on view of the cockerel and pullet, 21 weeks old, same as picture above. Note the big looking head of the pullet. These pullets, ever since they were gender-ascertained had huge heads!! Much larger than the cockerels of the same age. That really was another clear difference with gender, the size of the head. The cockerels seemed to have a pin head compared to the roundness of the pullets. Think they were gendered very early by head size (not wing flight feather sexing, that DID NOT WORK with these buff orpingtons, smiling that big smile). I do not wing feather sex orpingtons any more, it doesn't work, been there, done that!!
The first series of pictures is showing the difference in size of these young birds from Ontario compare to my good ol' tried and true hatchery gals, of whom are coming up to three years old this spring, still laying strong, huge, brown eggs. I have another hen, she is now one year old, that again came from different lines. She is unrelated to any of the birds and survived a marek's outbreak that affected her sister and brother, who are no longer with us, and had been vaccinated by the breeder for marek's. Only those two birds and 2 other 12 week old chicks in my chicken yards were affected by the disease. Who knows where it came from, but it came. As an aside, but had to mention this....
The Ontario group of birds will be kept separated from my hatchery stock and will not be used in the breeding pool, but kept as egg layers, as they are so darn good at what they do, and might I mention, they are friendly too, smiling. Enjoy the pictures, and have the most wonderful day, CynthiaM.
The Ontario gals on the outside, the hatchery hen on the centre, hatchery gal almost 3 years, Ontario line 25 weeks old, and began to lay just two days ago.
Larger birds are the Ontario line, smaller hatchery, 25 weeks old
Another shot of the different lines of gals, 25 weeks old
This is a picture of the two cockerels, the picture was taken 3 weeks ago, so the birds are 21 weeks old. There was 6 cockerels, a choice had to be made and these were the two fellows that stayed with us on the farm, one is much bigger than the other. The larger one I had taken to the National show in Armstrong the beginning of November and he had written on his cage card, BB
One of the cockerels, 21 weeks old here, same as the picture above
A good face on view of the cockerel and pullet, 21 weeks old, same as picture above. Note the big looking head of the pullet. These pullets, ever since they were gender-ascertained had huge heads!! Much larger than the cockerels of the same age. That really was another clear difference with gender, the size of the head. The cockerels seemed to have a pin head compared to the roundness of the pullets. Think they were gendered very early by head size (not wing flight feather sexing, that DID NOT WORK with these buff orpingtons, smiling that big smile). I do not wing feather sex orpingtons any more, it doesn't work, been there, done that!!
. Thoughts anyways, thanks for the comments, they really are huge. I picked up the bigger rooster dude and he was freakin' huge in my arms, almost covered up my torso, smiling again, well, a little bit of an embellishment, but not by far. He has a great ability to mate too, seen him doin' his thing many times already. Hoping for great fertility in the spring. I'll begin to check that around the beginning of January and forward. Doubt it now, with him only being a youngster and his testes just developing nicely and nicely protected with being "shrunk" (happens in winter, testes actually shrink 
