Buff Dewlap Toulouse Thread - Page 2

As I said on a previous thread - the Ganders that are split for Buff are invaluable to maintain size, type and vigour, so a high quality Grey line is well worth keeping alongside the Buffs.  Due to the scarcity of Buff Ganders in the UK it's impractical to breed splits this way.

We have used our Grey Ganders to Buff females to produce our Split males.

Hi Janet - so pleased you can add your experience and knowledge to the thread too  

It would be nice to keep the focus of this thread to the Buffs but also useful to refer to the Greys here for both comparisons and how they can be used to improve the Buffs and establish them fully.

I know our main goal is to breed more Buffs but also to improve them to the size, type and vigour of our Greys. Thats why this year we bred for Splits to introduce our old 'Dewlux' line into our Buff programme

aoxa, culling has a stigma attached so I totally understand the confusion. Unfortunately I have seen others buy Cull birds for cheap and then start breeding them and selling the off spring with labels they are from "so-n-so stock". 

Pete Dewlux was so impressive and I know you miss him. His son is stunning!

Yes he was a lovely bird and greatly missed but at least we have his line secured.  We used his sons with our Buff females to obtain this year's Splits. All were checked by DNA sexing so we could confirm what we had and didnt let a Split go in error!

I did get quite an extensive history that was kindly sent to me by Dave Kozakiewicz a little while ago.  This information was documents and photos of some excellent Buffs that were being bred 15-20 years ago in North America by Kreidler and Sarah McHolm in Canada. I know one of our 2 year old Splits is decended from the McHolm lines. The Buffs looked like the they were comparable to the size of greys and with excellent type.

Other than that of Overton and Holderread Im unceetain of the lines though some were imported into Canada by a Vet from John Hall in Suffolk.

Thanks, Pete.  I have very little knowledge and even less experience... but I make up for it in sheer numbers of dewlaps owned, ie, 8 buffs and 12 greys. 

aoxa, I am a severe duck and sebbie culler. The Dewlaps I am finding it harder to make any cuts, so we will grow them out for a long while before accessing. We do own a copy of the SOP, so I read and refer to it often when judging the birds for selection. One of our cull Khaki drakes went to a pet home recently, the rest went to the freezer. 

Temperament in all the birds is a deal breaker for me. they have to be calm and good natured or they are instant freezer material. I wont ever sell an aggressive animal as I dont want to pass off a bad bird making it someone elses problem. We have two ganders (sebastopols) who get along outside of breeding season, but during season they are after each other if given a chance. This is different than an every day aggressive bird, charging, and otherwise creating havoc around here.