The Orloff is a
breed
A breed is a specific group of breedable domestic animals having homogeneous appearance (phenotype), homogeneous behavior, and/or other characteristics that distinguish it from other organisms of the same species. In literature, there exist seve ...
of
chicken
The chicken (''Gallus gallus domesticus'') is a domesticated subspecies of the red junglefowl (''Gallus gallus''), originally native to Southeast Asia. It was first domesticated around 8,000 years ago and is now one of the most common and w ...
named after
Alexei Grigoryevich Orlov, a Russian Count. Reflecting this origin, it is sometimes called the Russian Orloff or simply Russian.
For most of its history, the Orloff was considered to be a product of Russia and Orlov, but modern research has discovered that the breed first appeared in
Persia
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the nort ...
,
and was distributed across Europe and Asia by the 17th century.
However, Count Orlov was a key promoter of the breed in the 19th century, and the breed became known in the West following his efforts.
It was not until 1884 that the first Orloff chickens were imported to Central Europe from the Russian Empire. In some sources they are also called "Orloff fighters" (lat. Gallus dom. pugnax, barbatus). A reddish-brown cock and five hens of the same color reached the
Saxon
The Saxons, sometimes called the Old Saxons or Continental Saxons, were a Germanic people of early medieval "Old" Saxony () which became a Carolingian " stem duchy" in 804, in what is now northern Germany. Many of their neighbours were, like th ...
professor Friedrich Zürn (1835-1900) in
Leipzig
Leipzig (, ; ; Upper Saxon: ; ) is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Saxony. The city has a population of 628,718 inhabitants as of 2023. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, eighth-largest city in Ge ...
. A yellowish, slightly white speckled cock with two hens as well as two white hens came again into the possession of Baron Ludwig von Villa-Secca Navarro d'Andrade (1822-1894) to
Vienna
Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...
-Ottakring. Baron Villa-Secca was at that time vice-president of the Club of German and Austrian-Hungarian Poultry Breeders (today's ''Bund Deutscher Rassegeflügelzüchter''; BDRG).
Orloffs were first introduced to Great Britain in the 1920s, and were also refined a good deal in Germany; Germans created the first miniaturized
bantam Orloff by 1925.
The breed was once included in the
American Poultry Association's
breed standard
In animal husbandry or animal fancy, a breed standard is a description of the characteristics of a hypothetical or ideal example of a breed. The description may include phenotype, physical or morphology (biology), morphological detail, genotype, g ...
, the
Standard of Perfection, but it was removed due a lack of interest from breeders. In the 21st century, the Orloff remains a rare breed in the West.
The Livestock Conservancy lists the breed as critically endangered.
The Orloff is a tall, well-feathered chicken with a somewhat
game
A game is a structured type of play usually undertaken for entertainment or fun, and sometimes used as an educational tool. Many games are also considered to be work (such as professional players of spectator sports or video games) or art ...
-like appearance. The head and neck are very thickly feathered. They appear in several recognized color varieties: Black, White, Spangled, Black-tailed Red, Mahogany, and Cuckoo. Their plumage, combined with their tiny walnut
comb
A comb is a tool consisting of a shaft that holds a row of teeth for pulling through the hair to clean, untangle, or style it. Combs have been used since prehistoric times, having been discovered in very refined forms from settlements dating ba ...
, small earlobes and minuscule
wattles, makes the Orloff a very cold-hardy breed. Males generally weigh and hens about . Orloffs are primarily suited to meat production, but hens are reasonable layers of light brown eggs and do not usually go broody. In general temperament, they are known to be relatively calm birds.
See also
*
Orlov Trotter, a horse breed named after the same Russian family
Footnotes
References
*
*
* {{cite book , title=The Field Guide to Chickens , last=Percy , first=Pam , year=2006 , publisher=Voyageur Press , location=St Paul, MN, US , isbn=0-7603-2473-5 , url=https://books.google.com/books?id=m2YXUOJEMeIC&q=field+guide+to+chickens
External links
Orloffsat feathersite
Conservation Priority Breeds of the Livestock Conservancy
Chicken breeds originating in Iran
Chicken breeds originating in Russia
Chicken breeds