ENGLISH ORPINGTONS
ENGLISH ORPINGTONS
The Orpingtons we are working with here at Waltz's Ark are unrelated imported lines from both Great Britain and various countries in Europe. We had worked years ago with the American Orpington, and for the most part were unimpressed overall - hubby having been born in Europe, he just was not pleased with how they looked or their overall personalities. Then we got a good look at the recently imported English Orpingtons, and I was hooked and he was happy! All that beautiful underfluff, the nearly perfect round shape, the incredible friendly demeanor - what's not to love?!
Much like the proverbial potato chips, we couldn't stop with just one variety of these gorgeous creatures. You won't be able to either, once you see a full-sized adult English Orpington wandering around your yard! There's just no good way to accurately depict how BIG these birds are, pictures just don't do them justice. We have many breeding pens of these birds, and intend to fill many more - let the projects begin! We are working with unrelated lines of each variety, so there is plenty of genetic diversity in our Orpingtons! We are diligently following the British Poultry Standard with these birds. We have no intention of "americanizing" these beautiful creatures, since we do not show Orpingtons we see no reason to make them more like the APA Standard as that would, in our humble opinions, defeat the purpose of their importation.
Please be aware prior to your purchase that these are mostly exhibition lines of Orpington. The focus of most of the show breeders "across the big pond" is on exhibition, not production. These birds are generally not fantastic layers, so if you are seeking high egg production, you will want to stick with the American Orpington, or choose one of our more prolific dual-purpose breeds. These English varieties tend to start and stop on egg production throughout the year, have fertility issues (see more info at the bottom of this page) due to their thick feathering (we do fertility trims on all of our breeders), and take longer to go through the molt cycle. They also require a high-protein diet from hatch to lay, and they eat plenty of it. Still, they are worth it all!
What We Breed For in English Orpingtons
First and foremost we follow the accepted British Standards for these birds (yes, we own a copy of the British Poultry Standards, and you should too if you are serious about breeding these!). Shape and feathering is important! Males should be a minimal weight of 10 pounds, females should be a minimal of 8 pounds. Note that going over these weights is not considered a fault in the UK. Recognized colors in the British Standard are black, blue, buff, and white. The other varieties may be recognized in the near future, but the basics of the English Orpington should apply to all other color varieties. We cull for bad combs, white in ear lobes, abnormally long legs, incorrect leg/skin color depending on the color variety, bad attitudes, and poor laying.
Each variety needs to be bred to its particular color correctly. In breeding, some of these colors can be a bit tricky to maintain, but diligence in the breeding pens will overcome the obvious pitfalls. For example, anyone who works with the lavender gene in any breed recognizes that due to the effects of that gene, some birds will start to exhibit the "tattered feather" syndrome. The correct fix is not to keep breeding the lavender to the lavender, but to take a lavender bird to a black bird, then breed the resulting offspring to a lavender male or female. This will bring the feathering back to what it should be. With the gold-laced, as with any gold-laced variety the black lacing will start to look less sharp, or messy. Taking these birds back to black and breeding back out puts the lacing back as it should be. These breedings are also a very good way to increase and/or diversify your genetic pool, by using completely unrelated birds in your first crossing. Our lines include birds imported from the lines of David Pownall, Rob Boyd, Priscilla Middleton, Ramsley Orpingtons, and several European breeders.
We promise to get better photos of all of our varieties soon!
Black
a basket of day old Black English Orpingtons
a pair of adult Black English Orpingtons
a pair of juvenile Black English Orpingtons
Our Black lines consist of birds from Three Ravens Farm (Adkins), David Pownall, and Ramsley Orpingtons. David Pownall is best known for his winning line of Black Orpingtons in the UK - He won Supreme Champion at the 2012 National Show with his Black Orpington Pullet, seen here on the cover of the January 2013 issue of UK's "Fancy Fowl" magazine.
We are pleased to note that our birds from the Pownall line bear a striking resemblance to this beautiful young lady, and we are proud to carry on such a distinguished line!
Blue
a pair of juvenile Blue English Orpingtons
Our Blue English Orpingtons are from the lines of Boyd and Adkins. We have been breeding a Pownall roo to a couple of nice blue hens from this group to increase genetic diversity, as well as to crisp up the lacing on the blues.
Lavender
newly hatched Lavender English Orpingtons
a trio of Lavender English Orpingtons
a pair of juvenile Lavender English Orpingtons
Our Lavender line was established with a trio imported by Marc Sacre of Heirloom Orpingtons, which came from Rob Boyd and Priscilla Middleton's show lines. We are also using a Pownall roo on daughters of the original trio, to increase genetic diversity as well as to deal with the feather tattering result of the lavender gene.
Gold Laced
freshly hatched Gold Laced English Orpingtons
trio of juvenile Gold Laced English Orpingtons
We are raising both Gold Laced Black and Gold Laced Blue. We have unrelated lines of these birds, so we already have a diverse gene pool to work with. Our original unrelated breeding trios came to us from Greenfire Farm, produced from birds they had imported directly. Our next breeding birds came directly from Marc Sacre. We have kept these lines separate, while integrating the offspring to increase genetic lines. We are also using Pownall birds on those offspring to crisp up lacing and continue diversifying genetics.
Red English Orpingtons
unrelated juvenile Red English Orpingtons
Our Red Orpingtons are from Greenfire Farm and from Marc Sacre lines. This gives us three unrelated lines to work with, and we are thrilled to pieces about that fact!
Chocolate English Orpington Bantams
We are working with unrelated bantams imported by Greenfire Farms. We also have imported Black Orpington males that came from an importation of Dutch birds, so we can keep that chocolate as dark and rich as possible for a long time to come.
Project English Orpingtons - beautiful different colors and patterns - more info on those as we develop them
A note about English Orpingtons and fertility. This quote is from an article found in Aviculture Europe (you can read the entire article here: http://www.aviculture-europe.nl/nummers/11EO1A08.pdf ):
"Achieving optimum fertilization is a problem in many breeds. Every year there are many breeders who complain that the breeding results are disappointing and poor fertilization is usually one of the main causes. Especially in Orpingtons this is common, since some of the typical breed characteristics are not conducive to optimal fertilization. Orpingtons are very large and heavy, and the strength of their relatively small wings is absolutely insufficient for the rooster to keep his balance. When we observe mating Orpingtons we often see the rooster fall off the hen before the actual fertilization is completed. They are also very short and compact and cannot therefore bend their body enough to achieve the needed "vent to vent" contact. Thus the roosters need many attempts to occasionally be successful. Even the most experienced breeders are very satisfied with 50% of fertilized eggs; they frequently have a bad year with much less success."
Add to these statements the fact that the hens lay infrequently, and you will come to understand why these birds are not inexpensive, why it takes so long to develop new colors, and why so many English Orpington breeders are unwilling to sell hatching eggs to the public. Waltz's Ark has decided that we will not sell hatching eggs from our large fowl English Orpingtons. We know how very disappointing it is to open that hatcher and realize that one out of 4 or 6 Orp eggs actually hatched. We know that you, our customer, would be extremely disappointed to pay a fair but large price for a rare bird egg only to discover that maybe none of the eggs were fertile to start with. There are enough problems with shipped hatching eggs, add in lots of infertility and everyone would be angry. We hope you understand our position, and we hope this also helps you to realize that maybe you don't want hatching eggs from other English Orpington breeders either. Chicks you can see is the way to go! So you will understand that when you put in a reservation with any breeder, it can take a while to fill your order regardless of how many breeder birds that person has.
