Orpington Chickens

Our Story

We kept our first Orpington chickens in 2008 with just a couple of birds, but as the rest of you know it never ends there!

Dedication

In 2010-11 we travelled the country to collect birds from some of the UKs leading Orpington chicken breeders and exhibitors to add to our existing stock.

In the following years we have built what we believe to be the largest collection of large fowl Orpington chickens in the United Kingdom.

Exhibition quality

We have all the breed standard colours, most of which are of exhibition quality, as well as many non standard colours which we have developed to a very high standard.

Garden Bird

With a very docile temperament and striking good looks the Orpington chicken has become a very popular garden bird.

The fact that they don’t tend to jump fences or fly out of pens due to their size and weight is another added bonus for the home hen keeper!!

Egg layers

The Orpington chicken are not prolific egg layers but will still give 150/200 medium sized light brown eggs during the first year.As with all chickens this will decrease year on year.

New Site

The enthusiasm shown to our previous Orpington chicken website has led us to create this new site, which will allow us to post many more images and gives us the platform to provide much more information regarding Orpington chickens as well as our topical events.

Our flock

As well as our extensive breeding stock of over 250 birds, we  have a few sexed Orpington chickens  from our 2015 breeding season that will be made available  in early springtime.

We will soon begin hatching our 2016 offspring  in most of the colours on our website.This year however we will be concentrating on improving the quality of our flock by very selective breeding which will mean a limited amount of growers made available to the public. Also for 2016 there will only be a very limited amount of hatching eggs available.We plan to resume breeding and supplying hatching eggs eggs in the 2017 season.

Vaccinations

From 2016 Essex Orpington’s has taken the step of vaccinating all offspring against IB, EDS, etc… with a multi-vaccine from Nobilis Laboratories as well as vaccinating for mareks and coccidiosis.

Good health

This will assure that no challenges  affect the growth and development of the Orpington chickens which is vital in achieving the maximum size, feather quality and general good health.

This also gives peace of mind when integrating new birds with your existing flock.

Success story!

Essex Orpington’s is very proud to have been the first in the UK (to our knowledge) to develop the wonderful colour of Lavender Isabel in large fowl orpingtons.

Through our hatching eggs this colour is now established throughout Europe and America.

Genetics

We will continue to enjoy the challenge of genetics in developing more wonderful colours on these beautiful Orpington chickens and sharing them with you.

Improvement

Whilst we are happy to list and show pictures of some of the Orpington chicken project colours in their development, we are not prepared to sell eggs or birds from certain colours that we think still have much room for improvement and awaiting confirmation of breeding continuity.

Carriage : Bold, upright and graceful; that of an active fowl

Type: Body deep, broad and cobby. Back nicely curved with a somewhat short, concaved outline. Saddle wide and slightly rising with full hackle. Breast broad, deep and well rounded, not flat. Wings small. nicely formed and carried closely to the body, the ends almost hidden by the saddle hackle. Tail rather short, compact, flowing and high, but by no means a squirrel tail.

Head: Small and neat, fairly full over the eyes. Beak strong and nicely curved. Eyes large and bold. Comb single, small, firmly set on head, evenly serrated and free from side sprigs. In the black variety, comb may be single or rose, the latter small, straight and firm, full of fine work or small spikes, level on top (not hollow in centre), narrowing behind to a distinct peak lying well down to the head (not sticking up). Face smooth. Wattles of medium length, rather oblong and nicely rounded at the bottom. Ear-lobes small and elongated.

Neck: Of medium length, curved, compact and full with full hackle.

Legs and feet: Legs short and strong, the thighs almost hidden by the body feathers, well set apart. Toes, four, straight and well spread.

Plumage: Fairly profuse but close, not soft, loose and fluffy as in the Cochin or close and hard as in the Game Fowl.

Handling: Firm.

Female: The general characteristics are similar to those of the male. Her cushion should be wide but almost flat, and slightly rising to the tail, sufficient to give back a graceful appearance with an outline approaching concave.

More information on the Orpington chicken can be found here on this website.