Is every orc once an Elf?

Are every Orc that lives in Middle-Earth at one time Elves?? The orcs in Moria were they Elves at one time also??? Or is it just the Urk-hui and Sauron's orc's that were once elves. Cause is every orc in middle earth was once an elf, than that's a hell of a lot of captured elves.

Thanks ya'll

Not every orc was once an elf. In fact I'm assuming all those died a waaay long time ago. Most Orcs are grown like the Uruk Hai were in LOTR. However I can't account for Orcs like Bolg who had a "son".

The orcs are their own race. They are like Men are to Chimpanzees, not knowing proper ancestory, if you get what I mean. The race of Orcs originally came from Elves, but only the original Orcs were once Elves.

Which, may I add, was a looooooong time ago.

Melkor twisted and tortured the elves and turned them into Orcs as mockery towards them.

melkor craeted orcx from elves, as a mockery and once he had quite a few he just mated them, and they mate to make more, not every orc is an ex-elf although they all will have elves way way way way way back in ancestory

the question is are they immortal like Elves?

The real question is are Orcs immortal...

i dont think so, well no or yes

Little is known for certain of the beginnings of the Orcs, the footsoldiers of the Enemy. It is said that they were in origin corrupted Elves captured by Melkor before the beginning of the First Age. In appearance, Orcs were squat, swarthy creatures. Most of them preferred the darkness, being blinded by the light of the Sun, but the kinds bred later in the Third Age such as the Uruk-hai could endure the daylight.

I just realized that peter jackson crafted the Uruk breeding scenes in the building. They never say how they were bred in the books do they?

orcs and men

I remember reading somewhere that Tolkien once wrote that the Orcs were created from Elves and would thus have the same natural lifespan but the twisted & evil way of life they lead would short their life expectancy considerably

No, you misunderstood me Sauron. I meant the specific scene with the mud and stuff under Isengaard

Melkor turned a few elves into orcs in mockery and so they mate and this whole breed comes about...Uruks, I'm not sure, one time I thought that Saruman created the Uruks from Orcs I also believed that they were dead orcs who formed into Uruks.

*shrugs* Sauron's got it pretty much down packed

no gabriel i know what you mean, uruks in the book are orcs and men bred together

I think that Orcs could live for a long time, but like elves they can die by steal, is that right?

No, Orcs are not immortal - elves are immortal because they are bound to the earth, and they are immortal as long as the earth lives. They can be parted from it but their spirits always will return to Arda through Mandos' halls; they love earth and earth loves them.
Thats quite different with the Orcs who hate the earth and so are most probably not bound to it anymore, kinda like Men, so that that can die and be parted from the world, but when the world fails, elves will die and men survive, thats the "gift of mortality"...

yeah but men arent parted from earth because they hate it, it is a gift, the gift of Ilúvatar to his Younger Children, allowing them to go beyond the confines of the World. After death, Mortal Men were gathered in the Halls of Mandos, and then departed from the World for a destination unknown even to the Valar. Whereas all other beings in Arda, including the Valar themselves, were bound to the World and its fate, the Gift freed Men from this destiny, allowing them to shape their own lives as they wished.

Those Men with the greatest understanding treated death as the Gift it was originally intended to be, and when their time came gladly gave themselves up to it. We see this, for example, in the earlier Kings of Númenor, and Aragorn also accepted the Gift at the natural end of his life.

Elves turning into orcs..... that's just a disturbing idea. Melkor was pretty twisted for doing it in the first place.

well nothing evil can crate new life, he needed an army, elves were the only possibility, they are strong, long life spans, agile and do not tire