Breeding Orpringtons

Resident English Orpington breeder chiming in:

If you want to keep Orpingtons and have them in a variety of colors, while not advised, you could have Blue, Black, Splash, Chocolate, and Lavender all in the same pen. You could even add birds of those varieties that are Mottled as well. Blue and Chocolate will yield Mauve chicks as well. I would not add any Buff or Red-based birds. I'd avoid Laced as well. If you happen upon some birds carrying Recessive rather than Dominant White, those can pop up from time to time.
@ColtHandorf does the Jubilee coloring work.i have 2 pullets and 2cockrels ( not sure which of the two I am keeping, theother will go to a friend's very large egg and meatbird yard bird flocktoimprovetheirbirds ( they are many generations away from their original purebred, they cull for meat and produce eggs. But wheni mentioned my extra cockrel they were excited to cross with some of their better layer/heavier hens ,so he stays put off freezer camp and helps improve another flock.. )
 
Can you clue me in tohowthe coloring/the genotype of the Jubilee if you have a clue obviously they appear to be mahogany with mottling/spangled type coloring just on observation, but I know that the genotype will not be that.
I think you're pretty close.

They do have the mottling gene (makes the white feather tips with black behind them.)

And they do have the Mahogany gene (makes gold into a darker red).

I think they also have E^Wh (Wheaten) and Co (Columbian), which are the other main color genes found in Rhode Island Red and other such red/mahogany birds.

I don't know Jubilee Orpingtons very well, so I spent some time picking through this thread trying to figure it out:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/the-imported-english-jubilee-orpington-thread.582401/
I couldn't find an authoritative answer, but several people did mention the combination of genes that I listed above.

And there are quite a few genes they obviously do not have:
not silver
not Dominant White (turns black to white)
not blue/splash
not chocolate
not lavender
not cream or any other gene that dilutes gold to a pale shade
not recessive white

@nicalandia are Jubilee Orpingtons E^Wh, Co, Mh, mo, wild-type at all other color loci? Or am I missing something important?
 
I think you're pretty close.

They do have the mottling gene (makes the white feather tips with black behind them.)

And they do have the Mahogany gene (makes gold into a darker red).

I think they also have E^Wh (Wheaten) and Co (Columbian), which are the other main color genes found in Rhode Island Red and other such red/mahogany birds.

I don't know Jubilee Orpingtons very well, so I spent some time picking through this thread trying to figure it out:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/the-imported-english-jubilee-orpington-thread.582401/
I couldn't find an authoritative answer, but several people did mention the combination of genes that I listed above.

And there are quite a few genes they obviously do not have:
not silver
not Dominant White (turns black to white)
not blue/splash
not chocolate
not lavender
not cream or any other gene that dilutes gold to a pale shade
not recessive white

@nicalandia are Jubilee Orpingtons E^Wh, Co, Mh, mo, wild-type at all other color loci? Or am I missing something important?
Thanks,I had not found that thread, found some. I am working my way through it
 
Can you clue me in tohowthe coloring/the genotype of the Jubilee if you have a clue obviously they appear to be mahogany with mottling/spangled type coloring just on observation, but I know that the genotype will not be that.
@ColtHandorf does the Jubilee coloring work.i have 2 pullets and 2cockrels ( not sure which of the two I am keeping, theother will go to a friend's very large egg and meatbird yard bird flocktoimprovetheirbirds ( they are many generations away from their original purebred, they cull for meat and produce eggs. But wheni mentioned my extra cockrel they were excited to cross with some of their better layer/heavier hens ,so he stays put off freezer camp and helps improve another flock.. )
I'm not sure what you're asking. I don't have Jubilee (yet). I can't decide if I like them or not. I go back and forth.
 
If you want to keep Orpingtons and have them in a variety of colors, while not advised, you could have Blue, Black, Splash, Chocolate, and Lavender all in the same pen. You could even add birds of those varieties that are Mottled as well. Blue and Chocolate will yield Mauve chicks as well. I would not add any Buff or Red-based birds. I'd avoid Laced as well. If you happen upon some birds carrying Recessive rather than Dominant White, those can pop up from time to time.


@ColtHandorf does the Jubilee coloring work.
If you are asking about in a breeding pen like what was described, no Jubilee does not work.

The ones that work well together are the black-based colors:
black
blue and splash (black birds with the blue dilution)
chocolate (black birds with the chocolate dilution)
lavender (black birds with the lavender dilution)
mottled (black birds with white dots)

If all of those are mixed in a pen, you can eventually get chicks in all of those varieties, plus Mauve (genetically blue + chocolate), plus blue mottled, splash mottled, chocolate mottled, lavender mottled, and mauve mottled.

You could have cuckoo (black with white barring) instead of mottled, and get many colors of cuckoo birds. You probaby don't want barring and mottling in the same pen (birds that have both patterns don't seem to be very popular.)

But in a pen like that, you do not want any buff or red birds, or laced birds, and you would not want Jubilee birds either. Because of how the genes interact, mixing them in would make a bunch of non-standard colors or birds that have lots of leakage (red or gold or silver showing on birds that are not supposed to have those colors.)

Of course this is all talking about the colors. Mixing colors in different ways will produce chickens that are just as healthy, lay just as many eggs, and are just as good to eat. So it's a matter of what colors you want to look at, not anything that would harm the chickens themselves.
 
Last edited:

New posts New threads Active threads

Back
Top Bottom