Breeding Buff Leghorns

[danhonour]

The wild type gene is duckwing and chicks show back stripes,dominant white can appear as faint white back stripes.Dominant white is closely related to dun,smokey,and lavender,so blue shades can appear.White Leghorns can carry black,barring and columbian .A few points to ponder,more background information,rather than anything else.I do not consider these genes as preventing anyone from working with stock having them.They all recombine and will allow you to select and improve ( purify and refine)your gene pool.An exception would be when all the birds are pure or have two doses (homozygous) for a gene,or total lack a gene,then you would have to introduce it again to get results.After several years ,and no varition showing up in the offspring,this is what could be happening.

In general the best advice is to raise lots of offspring to give genes and combinations a chance to appear.Since the male chicks are 50%,of each hatch on average,you can cull them heavy for color and type,as only a few are needed for breeding.They are 50% of the blood the next generation will have and so are important for improvement.Always keep a few spare males around,in case of loss and using several males lowers inbreeding depression. I was just talking with someone who only bred a tiny number of birds each year,one year he got no male chicks and the old male died.He could not find any stock he liked and his line died out. I would say he did a number of things wrong and he was to blame. Dan Honour

 

[Birch Run Farm]

I hope all of you post your hatch results!

 

[poultch]

Thanks Dan

will look for the faint white dorsal stripe next year in the chicks aswell.

expected varitation this year so hatched lots, and had a great sucess (although the 2 dams of last season's chicks may have carried het dom white and Co they still knew how to lay like leghorn) and will do the same next year with pairings made up from a choice of 100 animals not just 2 like last year (looked for a year to find that roo, rung countless random mediterainian chook breeders to see of they knew of anyone with buff leghorns)

thats sound advice re the Roosters and not letting your line die out as the person i sold my first draft surplus to was a dead keen leghorn fan so we spent a bit of time mixing and matching the best 2 pullets from each of the 2 pictures below

we decided to we should work together in the future so i let her have the best coloured outcross cockeral from the eggs i bought (regret that a little now) but am still happy with that i kow where to go if i am ever stuck in the future

but should i be concerned with inbreeding depression since i have let the only decent outcross fella go and i left myself with next years breeders will all be paternal or full sibs..but it is something i planned to manage in the f2 and f3 generation by going to the lady described above for 'same line outcross' animals .. is that a sound strategy? or will i loose too much fecundity, fertility and vigour in the short term by mating full & half sibs?

its funny to think that i looked on feathersite to get a 'template idea" of what a Buff leghorn should look like when i was looking for a roo and now getting advice fromthe person who bred the birds in the pictures- pretty cool

thanks Dan and thanks to everyone else

and Birch Run Farm will definately try keep a photo record of hatches from individual pairings etc but chooks aren't the only critters on my farm that demand time and effort in spring

thank you all, love to see others pics aswell

 

[cochinman2005]

I would think that full and half siblings for a generation would be fine. You should have enough genetic diversity right now where it won't be a factor. Especially if you plan to go back to a male from the sister flock.

 

[Buff Leghorn]

I hope we can all keep this thread goin with picutres of the birds paired up so people can see the breeding stock and what is produced from that... I hope people can show there culls as well as there good birds it all helps with the future of keeping a colour and a breed alive ....

I must say you guys have been great sharing the imformation in helping us out it could save us years in getting things right a lot of breeders wouldn't be so open with imformation like this .....I think it is great and i hope down the track i can help some one out as well...I'm really looking forward to breeding some birds now been looking at some young cockerals i penned in trainning cages and i think i might have posted the wrong birds i think some of these other birds will really fit into a breeding program but like normal to many cockerals and not enough pullets.... My plans are to keep this thread goin with up to date pictures of chicks and birds as they grow out and try to paint a pitcure of the season and i hope all you other breeders can do the same....

I hope one day to have birds of a similar colour and i hope qaulity as what your birds are Dan if it wasn't so hard to import birds and eggs i would be ordering some maybe one day the laws will change and make it easier for use.

so a big 2

from me and i hope everyone else is finding this thread of value ....


chers and thanks again shane

 

[cochinman2005]

sounds good. I have fertile eggs from two pens in the incubator now. First ones hatch next week. Will post progress throughout the breeding season.

 

[jake mashburn]

I breed large fowl buff leghorns, red leghorns and buff leghorn in the bantams, dan honour and I started out raising buff leghorn and buff minorcas about the same time back in the mid 1970s and have been friends since. some of my females are real good type wise but are on the light color side so I crossed in a red leghorn male with my buff leghorn females with good results the females from this mating I will cross back to my best buff leghorn male on the 2generatiom and a male from the first cross back to females I have with good solid golden buff color see I have 3 different strains of the buffs and I am working on my own strain. then the offspring I will breed together in the f2 and f3 mateings my goal is to have a nice golden buff solid with the under color as dark as the surface color
I like a little pepper in the tails of my female breeders but it should not be on both the male and the female at the same time I prefer it on the female side but if you have a male with a little pepper is ok in a breeder but not in a show bird, never breed together birds with the same faults if a female has a 6 point comb find a male with 4 points the same goes for everything else, if you use a light brown or dark brown female to a buff male you will get a lot of culls and uneven color for a while but always use a good golden buff male with females of that cross dont use the males untill a few generations down the road. in my use of the red leghorn with my buff females I have had good sucess in the first generation undercolor as dark as the surface color in my female crosses some are all solid and a few have a white feather in the tail but the feather shaft is a redish golden buff the same as the rest of the color of the bird the white and the dark feather that pops out sometimes in the tail will be bread out in 2 to 4 generations it just takes time I do not like to breed buff birds that have good golden buff color but the breast of the male bird will be a shade lighter and I see this in the buff leghorn bantam males and the buff minorcas that I have gotten years ago from some hatcherys in the past. if you order any birds from a hatchery order 75 to 100 birds and cull hard I have done this and have gotten at least 2 good males and 8 to 12 good females and breed up from there this year I had pop up a buff leghorn cochin light buff but an even colord buff so far , the cochins were the orig. source of the buff color over a hundred years ago when they were developed in england and this could be a throw back popping up from there orig. genetic makeup makeing it self known.
just remember red and white will produce buff and red and buff will darken the buff but over the years buff to buff will grow lighter unless steps are taken to keep the buff sound.
look at the light brown leghorn male a lot of differient colors , the dark brown has black and the mahogany gene black can be bred out in time but it takes longer , mahogany or red will enhance buff and some times feathers that were black will change to white when mateing to buff and will just have to be bred out with time and selective breeding at one time I had as many as 400 buff leghorns and red leghorns and have raised thousands of them over the years, I have crossed in the buff minorca, if the buff minorcas are used use the minorca male to buff females then you have to make sure the backs are not a slopping minorca back and leg color minorcas have white legs and the buffs have yellow legs and it takes 4to 6 years to fix but you could get throw backs for a while. myself and others have used the buff rocks to improve size and color also then you have to breed out the plymoth rock type out and it takes 10 to 12 years raising 2 generations a year and keeping good breeding records one of my 3 strains have had the buff rock added I did not do this but I have had problems with red earlobs and extra fluffy females but good size and good color my other 2 strains I keep pure and my own strain that I am working on that is why I added in the red leghorn you want a good tail spread and breed for nice long wide tail feathers and a back and shape that is decribed in the APA standard not a minorca back. the tail of my red leghorn was all solid red no black but the feathers could have been longer and wider but the females that I bread him to had width and the length of the tail.
any more questions any body has feel free to ask.keith bjelland
[email protected]

 

[jake mashburn]

Tom robuck of golden feather farm (cochins rule.com) and dan honour are top breeders of the buff color and know what good buff color is and know how to breed them for color.
[email protected]

[email protected]

 

[jake mashburn]

Natures Hatchery in ILL.
and Ideal poultry hatchery in Texas have buff leghorns , I would really like to see pictures of there birds does any one have any.
talking to dan honour we both have been wondering about there buff leghorns and how good they are if any one knows please let us know how many you orderd and how good they were in color size and type , would really like to know. Keith Bjelland

 

[jake mashburn]

this breeding season I had a couple of throw back chicks were stripped like light brown leghorn chicks( wild type) or red leghorn chicks they did not look like your average buff leghorn chick so far looks like good color so far and another 2 chicks with white stripes
across there wings as this is differient from the other ones they so far seem to have good buff color I will just have to wait and see what they will finish out like down the road, but it is interesting to breed and watch to see what one gets it is from a line that I hve not bred from before and it is interesting to see what another breeder has done in the past or what genetic throw back shows up from years gone by.