I have read about many crosses with buff.My Buff book has many detailed accounts and buff histories in its 400 plus pages. In my 40 years working with Buff Leghorns I have made a few crosses too.Those being recessive white,dominant white and red duckwing.With Leghorns,White Leghorns are common and usually dominant white,hence Buff Leghorns often have dominant white hidden in the geneotype. Dominant white is a funny factor as White Leghorns are really a black bird with pigmentation stopped,hence white leghorns are closely associated with barred,black,blue,smokey,lavender,etc. My point is White Leghorns and dominant white are not the best choices to use.They can be used and I have done it,it takes about 4 backcrosses to Buff males to get back to good buff color. Recessive white often has colors/patterns hidden underneath and will show up in the f1 and f2,generally I find duckwing under recessive white.If you use Light Brown Leghorn (red Duckwing),it is the wild type with dilute.Dark Brown Leghorns are often Db ,not wild type(-no dilute and no salmon breast). Buff is on wheaton and the chicks are all creamy,duckwings have back stripes.If you cross Buff (wheaton) with duckwing wild type (back stripes) ,the f1 are split for both alleles namely wheaton and duckwing.The chicks will be intermediate downed having faint back markings and spotted heads instead of clean buff or cream as wheaton or neck stripe and eye markings of duckwings.If the f1 are mated back to Buff (wheaton) about25% should be buff/wheaton,50% split like F1,and 25% duckwing striped.Select the wheaton /buff 25% and mated back again to buff and you will be on your way.Another point,you may get black tailed reds and these are genetically on wheaton too and can be used (black tailed red males have red breasts). Duckwing males are black breasted. Black Leghorns can be used,it is better on the female side ,and will take about 4 backcrosses to buff,with black you will not know what is hidden(stay away from the silvers and silver birchen),with buff you want golds/reds not silvers.With black (and sometimes other crosses) you will get dark shanks-willow green.By backcrossing to pure buff leghorn males enough generations you can get back the yellow legs. It takes about 4-5 years to get back good buff color after an outcross to another color. If you are willing to invest the time and all the culls,it can work,and at the same time type to incorporate some other good Leghorn traits from the other (non buff) color;like size,egg production,egg size,big white shapely earlobes,great type,etc. .Now you know why I would rather recommend staying within the Buffs,raising big numbers,culling heavy and not breeding too close (wide based gene pool).
