January 2009
I am new to the love of chickens, and have only had them 1 year, but was instantly attracted to Orpingtons. When you do research online, you open yourself up to so many things, including learning to fancy a chicken that you can’t even GET in the United States! I had no idea that the Gold Laced Oprington would be practically impossible to obtain for my own flock. I am only starting out the first year on this project and have not yet committed to a life-long journey toward creating Gold Laced Orpingtons. But I have committed to making this the only real “project” that I work on.
Since I’m new and NOT a geneticist, I will be “winging it” for the first couple of years and intend to keep my records public for anyone to see. I’m also MORE THAN HAPPY to share fertile eggs & chicks coming from any of these project pens to anyone else who would like to give this a try! I’m using information & assistance from www.BackyardPoultry.com forums, as there are at least a few GLO (Gold Laced Orpingtons) owners & breeders information available through there. Also my friends at the www.BackyardChickens.com online forum are also a major source of information as well as birds to stock my breeding pens!
For the moment, may I have you take a look at this lovely breeding flock owned at http://chirpychicks.com/gold_laced_orpington.htm in South West Wales, UK. I can only hope that someday American flocks are blessed with the presence of beauties such as these.
And this is a little about the plan....
Everyone is still young only 7-9 months old on this date 3/11/09
We will simultaneously breed the following combination:
- 1 Gold Lace Wyandotte Rooster with 2 Buff Orpington Hens
- 1 Buff Orpington Rooster with 2 Gold Lace Wyandotte Hens
I will then be handpicking the offspring we want to keep for our project and make the others available for backyard flocks. The combination of Orpington and Wyandotte will make excellent egg layers and good size table birds as well. Plus there will be fantastic color combinations coming out of these, each with practically it’s own unique look. They will make lovely yard decorations, egg & meat providers as well as pest control if you allow them time out in the yard or garden. Not too much time in the garden though or they’ll eat your plants!
4/29/09 Project Update:
All of our males are now breeding the females! HOORAY! It’s taken some 5 weeks for everyone to become accustomed to eachother, and honestly, they could likely use some more time before I could call them all happily in love. But regardless, the girls are allowing the new boys to mate them, and THAT is what we’ve been waiting for!
I am starting 2 familial lines so that we can enjoy good diversity in future breeding lines.
I will begin collecting fertile eggs on May 2, 2009 from each of these pens. I will hatch a small number of chicks with the first generation as I have learned there should actually be very little difference in appearance on generation 1. I will collect approximately 20 eggs from each pen and start with those. I will then prepare to hatch a LOT of chicks for generation 2 which we could be ready for at the beginning of 2010.
GLO Family 2 Chicks - Hatched June 6/7 2009
GLO Family 1 Chicks - Hatched 6/14&15/09
6/8/09 - Only 3 of the eggs I collected are fertile.
5 Weeks Old - ALL of them, both clutches. GLO 1 has straight combs, GLO 2 have rose combs
I haven’t yet told you on this page about Goldiflocks, he is a mixed Blue Orpington/Gold Lace Wyandotte, and is a product of running all of our chickens together with one Blue rooster over the winter months. I wasn’t certain what to do with him a few months back, but it’s become clear to me that he should be used in this project. I suppose I’ll have to wait to use him a while, and since he’s the only one, I’ll work him into the project somewhere with one of the other F1 females from the other families.
3 Day Old Chick (Left)
3 Weeks Old (Top)
2 Months Old (Right)
5 Months Old (Left)
He really is filling out nicely!
6 Months Old (Right)
I am IN LOVE with this boy, he is beautiful and sized just like my other Orpington boys.
GLO Family 1 Chick at 4.5 Weeks of age. The jury is out on this little guy, some folks I’ve shared my progress with INSIST that this little guy could NOT be a product of GLO Family 1. In fact some have decided that this must be the product of a Buff Orpington Hen with a Black Orpington Rooster, although I can’t for the life of me figure out how they explain the pattern that is definitely showing through. The only way this would’ve even been possible would’ve been through wood & wire walls, since the Black Orps were next door, so I am going to have to decide how to proceed from here. I am not really sure what to do but I have a little more time to figure it out.
I’m expecting one more lonely egg from GLO Family 1 on August 29, 2009. Again I put in over 2 dozen eggs from GLO Family 1 and this time I got only 1 viable. I put this other clutch in in hopes to hatch another like him, in order to prove his roots. But I’m guessing with my luck so far, it’ll hatch for sure, but it’ll be buff. We’ll see...
At 2 months of age, he is still looking really good! He’s such a stark contrast to all the others in both groups, he really stands out. Everyone who sees him thinks he’s beautiful, but we’ll see how he turns out over the next few months.
Updated photos of the rest of the family are shown below at the same age of 2 months old. In the photo on the left side, the lighter two bodies are from GLO Family 1 like the dark one, and the rest are GLO Family 2. As I suspected, MOST ALL are boys. :(
My 2nd test hatch from GLO Family 1 revealed a buff chick with few black markings... that means that the lovely black & buff cockerel shown above, is likely NOT from this family and is instead the product of mating through the walls. Rest assured all breeding pens have been adjusted to prevent this in the future and either solid walls or 1/4” welded wire has been used.
Because of this, I will have to move to my next step with only pairs. As I understand it to this point, each of the following chickens contain one gene for lacing, and when mated together will produce a certain number of offspring with 2 genes for lacing. It’s a numbers game though, I will have to hatch as many chicks as is possible, targeting 50 or more eggs per family. Only a small percentage of those hatched will be useful for the next step of this project. Because I’m beginning this next stage with limited stock, I may have to repeat selection for “type” with the next generations and not yet worry about lacing. But I do not know yet, and as of today, 8/31/09, It will be almost a whole year before I begin that selection process. We are approximately 3 months away from laying age on this generation. I’ll really just have to wait until February or March to get started, because of the quantity of chicks to be hatched, housing them inside during the winter is problematic. If I wait until spring, at least the weather will be in my favor. My next thing to learn is how to properly format a poultry family tree.
11/5/2009
Well, if you have learned anything by reading this far, I hope you have learned that just as soon as I think I know what’s going on, it all changes. When I first started with chickens and learned I couldn’t have Gold Laced Orpingtons, I instead collected Buff & Black thinking that I would cross them and PRESTO, Gold Lace! THEN I learned that was not going to happen, you need “Pg” a pattern gene to create lacing and “eb” a brown based chicken to get where I was headed. So then I collected the Wyandottes who have both Pg & are eb. NOW, more than a year later, there has been a discovery, or breakthrough in genetics. The CURRENT thinking as proposed by Sigrid van Dort, is that this lacing CAN be achieved through a combination of genes that ARE available in already exsisting colored Orpingtons AND that “eb” was NOT needed for the basis. ----- Where is a good “pull my hair out” emoticon when I need one!!!???!!!! ARRGGGHHH!!!
Ok.. so back to the drawing board you say? Nope, just another bump in the road, with some sad realizations. First, the black & buff cockerel pictured above was exactly what I needed, unfortunately I sold him thinking he was useless. 
Second, that all the 2nd generation breeding I planned on for Spring may not be necessary. Third, I better hurry and get my breeding pens sorted out and try this new cross as well. Its no time to just scrap my current path, Goldiflocks is beautiful and a good start at breeding on the “eb” path, plus I have the other GLO Families too all who are a month away from starting to lay. So the only logical course of action, is to start ANOTHER breeding group(s) and get going!!!! Yes, I am aware that I am nuts, but I just can’t help myself I really want to succeed at this.
In summary, this project is about to get really complicated and I hope I can keep up with the demands. And I hope that you can learn something from what I’m doing here and maybe give it all a try yourself! Here are some updated photos for you.
Please excuse the moult (or molt) which is apparent on everyone but the blue pullets. It’s November and everyone is growing the bulk of their feathers back but still are losing a few here and there. On the left we have the new “GLO Family 3” and on the right we have “GLO Family 4”. I’m not sure yet but I probably should distinguish between the Blue Pullets & the Black Pullets as mothers in future generations... so maybe it’s more like GLO Families 3(blue), 4(black) & 5. I warned you it might get confusing!!!
As I said everyone is finishing moulting, no one is really laying right now so its a good time to worm everyone and then turn on the artificial lights in a couple of weeks to get started. I’m setting up a winter brooder on my back porch so that I can collect eggs as soon as they are ready and only be a few months behind the other families. The GOOD NEWS with this grouping is that everyone likes eachother here and gets along great, so mating will be no problem and is already underway 
As always, more updates to come as I figure out what to do!
As this year, 2009, is coming to a close and this page is quite lengthy, I have opted to begin a new year on a new page, and to continue with that tradition as the years progress.
You are here: Gold Laced Orpingtons 2009 Additional Pages:
You are here: Gold Laced Orpingtons 2009 Additional Pages:
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