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My hatch date is 8th april, so next friday {fingers crossed}...and wondered if anyone knows an easy way to sex buffs?

I did ask on another forum and it seems I have chosen the hardest one to raise for my 1st lot of chicks....

Thanks

Growing up is not to bad just clean them out everyday and make sure the food is clean and change the water and sawfdust etc at least twice a day in the first week. Orpingtons are one of the hardest to hatch but once they are out they are relatively easy to look after. Sexing is quite hard with orpingtons you won't know until they are couple of months old and you can tell by the size and neck fethers, hope this helps you :)

I have always found Buff Orpingtons (my favourites) easy to hatch, every time I have hatched I have got great hatch rates, the 1st time every one hatched!!! I manage to sex them at about two to three weeks old, and if only I had the courage to neck the males last time, I would would have only ended up with one. I look at their combs and thickness of their legs carefully, thicker legs are the males, smaller combs females, although the difference is small. When they're fully grown I have found, and been told that the best way to sex them is to look at the wattles as the head features don't develop until later in life, the wattles are first to come, and are always the males. Sorry to contradict you but its just what I have found myself.

thanks both

well hatch day is nearly upon us.....friday and we have 5 eggs, 1 actually burst the other night ...
we sort of knew that 1 was no good but didnt want to get rid just yet as 1 of the other eggs seemed to have developed a little later than the others.....the others now seem ok and think if any of them were not fertile they too would have met the same ending etc.

Anyway, i'll post pics and see if we can get to see if the sexing can work...hopefully have a choice of 2 people to take the ones I dont want and are happy to take males...hoping we get a couple of girls to keep though..lol

How did you get on?
If you have a bad egg (usually smelly) take it out of your incubator, when they explode they can contaminate all of the other eggs, so you get none hatch.
I have always found Orpingtons easy too hatch, and if you catch them right so is sexing, the hens develop the shoulder feathers a lot sooner than the males (but as Cluckieran says, you need the courage to neck them) also all of the feathers on hen orpingtons develop quicker.

Michelle xx

we have 7 under our orpington due this week coming 5 lav and 2 buff. bought the lav but stuck the buff in to see if hes doing his thing yet as not very old the girls were from a breeder hed been using there eggs for couple years but think this if first time ever hatched out their own eggs
i hatched 2 last year but xed were very easy by 2 weeks

i love black orpingtons, but we could not catch them, then Chatsworth house advatised they needed some black orpington hens for there Education Centre, and they had a Rooster, so I let them go there and i will say they have never Been so happy, we moved from a very big garden to slightley smaller and i don,t think they were Happy at all, So then i got xbatters, and loved them.