I recently put the new Blue Orpingtons from Gilman Farms in with my Black Orpingtons from Small Acres Poultry.   The goal here is to obtain a cross between the lines resulting in all 3 colors; Black, Blue & Splash.  Why cross the lines you ask?  Well, frankly I feel it’s necessary!  The Gilman Blue Orps are really nice looking, REALLY nice looking, but already they are late layers and I find they have little to no instincts.  I couldn’t get them to peck at the ground, perch on anything and to this day I’ve still not seen ANY of them (Gilman White’s included) dust bathe.  I hope that by crossing in Small Acres lovely Blacks that we will not only get beautiful offspring, but will also gain back some of that natural instinct.   Once the Blues moved in with the Blacks, they did start perching with them, so I do have hope for everyone perhaps learning by example.

Back to Black/Blue/Splash.  What is Splash?  It’s mostly a white bird with “splashes” of blue & black here and there.   I’ve never had a single request for a Splash Orpington, but they are extremely useful if you ever want to breed Blue Orpingtons full time.  You see, when you pair Blue hens with a Splash rooster, ALL the offspring are Blue.    Blue is a color EVERYONE wants, probably more than any other color, and so I’m working my way to consistent Blue offspring for its marketability.  Now ideally, you would want to mate blue & blue to get blue offspring, but it just doesn’t yet work that way.  Someone should work on that, I believe that I read in The Orpington Fowl, that it COULD be done but would take generations and generations of breeding Blue on Blue while culling any Splashes.

But MY goal, is to have a Blue Pen & a Black Pen for next spring for predictability in the hatches.  And so I can accomodate egg orders for those wanting one or the other.   I already have two orders for Black & Blue pullets this fall, and have several orders waiting for eggs in both colors.  Right now though, the Blue hens are not yet laying, so I can only pull fertile eggs from the Black hens who are being mated by the new Blue Roosters.  He’s still young, but so far he’s good looking and I can trust he’s from good lines, so I’m taking a chance going forward.  One really SHOULD wait to see what the rooster looks like before deciding if he’s a good breeder, but time is NOT on my side, neither are numbers!  I only have 1 Blue Roo, 1 Black Roo.. I need more in order to have choice!  So my goals for this year were to expand my numbers to get choices, and I’m well on my way!

The same is also true of my other pens, White & Buff, but I have to find good sources of each.   I have a friend named Bill, he’s working tirelessly on some great looking buffs.  One day soon, he’ll get the mix JUST right and share some eggs with me so that I can expand that pen too.  Whites are nearly impossible to obtain, so I will be looking to my hatchery whites to see if any of those girls stand out and look better than another.  Hopefully I can get at least one out of that group to add to my Gilman Whites, to create some diversity, and again gain choices.

Well.. the sun is out today so I have to get going.  I have to finish a blog for one of my clients, www.LakefrontCabins.com and then i can get outside to deal with some more of the rain effects of yesterday.  There is fuzzy mold building up in some of the dark & damp areas.  It needs raked, dried & disinfected, preferrably by sun exposure.