{"id":2136,"date":"2016-11-10T10:22:01","date_gmt":"2016-11-10T10:22:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bentpinefarm.org\/?p=2136"},"modified":"2018-07-10T14:36:04","modified_gmt":"2018-07-10T14:36:04","slug":"orpingtons-whats-the-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bentpinefarm.org\/?p=2136","title":{"rendered":"Orpington Egg Layers &#8211; What&#8217;s the Story?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-2997 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/bentpinefarm.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/chicken3_pinterest-1024x768.png\" alt=\"Hillside Opringtons\" width=\"474\" height=\"356\" srcset=\"https:\/\/bentpinefarm.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/chicken3_pinterest-1024x768.png 1024w, https:\/\/bentpinefarm.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/chicken3_pinterest-300x225.png 300w, https:\/\/bentpinefarm.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/chicken3_pinterest-150x113.png 150w, https:\/\/bentpinefarm.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/chicken3_pinterest-768x576.png 768w, https:\/\/bentpinefarm.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/chicken3_pinterest.png 1500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 474px) 100vw, 474px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-1147\" src=\"https:\/\/bentpinefarm.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/featherPen-1.jpeg\" alt=\"blog post\" width=\"125\" height=\"125\" srcset=\"https:\/\/bentpinefarm.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/featherPen-1.jpeg 225w, https:\/\/bentpinefarm.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/featherPen-1-150x150.jpeg 150w, https:\/\/bentpinefarm.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/featherPen-1-100x100.jpeg 100w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 125px) 100vw, 125px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Back in Jan 2015 we had just acquired 10 chickens (Orpington &amp; Barred Rock) that we had intended to use for meat birds. <a href=\"https:\/\/bentpinefarm.org\/?p=1680\">Read the original post&#8230;<\/a>. We decided to keep them for eggs because the Cornish Cross are far superior weight-wise for meat. <a href=\"https:\/\/bentpinefarm.org\/?p=2043\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">(Read about the latest flock of Cornish Cross.)<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s the story on the original Orpington flock &#8211; We were free ranging them on a limited basis, because chickens really can tear up a pasture and dig holes, etc. Because the flock of 10 was not producing more than 5 eggs a day, and it was costing too much for feed (remember everything organic is much more expensive than the industrialized products), we kept three Orpingtons and put the rest in the freezer. (end of Aug) They weigh in at about 2 1\/2 lbs. so it takes two for a meal. The three we kept are resident in <a href=\"https:\/\/bentpinefarm.org\/?p=1443\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Chicken Tractor One<\/a> and doing a good job weeding the Hilltop Garden.<\/p>\n<p>It all works out&#8230;moving forward.<\/p>\n<p>T.<\/p>\n<p>High today will be 81<br \/>\nLow last night was 54<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_1570\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1570\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1570\" src=\"https:\/\/bentpinefarm.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/IMG_3968-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"Hillside garden showing cover crops\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/bentpinefarm.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/IMG_3968-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/bentpinefarm.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/IMG_3968-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/bentpinefarm.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/IMG_3968-1024x768.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1570\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Hillside garden showing Chicken Tractor One<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"attachment_1430\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1430\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1430\" src=\"https:\/\/bentpinefarm.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/IMG_3716-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"weeding the Hilltop Garden\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/bentpinefarm.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/IMG_3716-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/bentpinefarm.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/IMG_3716-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/bentpinefarm.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/IMG_3716-1024x768.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1430\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Chicken Tractor One with resident Orpington hens<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; Back in Jan 2015 we had just acquired 10 chickens (Orpington &amp; Barred Rock) that we had intended to use for meat birds. Read the original post&#8230;. We decided to keep them for eggs because the Cornish Cross are far superior weight-wise for meat. (Read about the latest flock of Cornish Cross.) Here&#8217;s the &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/bentpinefarm.org\/?p=2136\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Orpington Egg Layers &#8211; What&#8217;s the Story?<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[48,51],"tags":[172,52,76,77,173],"class_list":["post-2136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-barnyard","category-livestock","tag-chicken-tractor","tag-chickens","tag-cornish-cross","tag-meat-birds","tag-oprington"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7igqH-ys","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bentpinefarm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bentpinefarm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bentpinefarm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bentpinefarm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bentpinefarm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bentpinefarm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2136\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bentpinefarm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bentpinefarm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bentpinefarm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}