Breeding Buff Leghorns

[danhonour]

Yes Arie the pullets' color is a nice even shade of buff.

Keith Bjelland said he showed some of his Buff Leghorns at a fair and the judge said they were too dark of a buff.

Light pale buff is a weak colored buff and that light shade is hard to hold and buff tends to breed lighter.Pale buff females almost always have white under color.Dark buffs are much more valuable for breeding as it is a reserve of color pigment.When the light shade is bred,the popularity of buff drops as it is to hard to breed,the color runs out to a washed out shade loaded with white.A medium,sound and even buff is right in the middle and close to the proper balanced shade of buff. There is a point when buff can be too dark to be buff and becomes light red.The dark shades can be uneven.However, red can be used by careful breeders as it is a related color to buff.Looking back over years of breeding buff,most do not have to fear too dark of a buff as much as too light a buff,especially Buff Leghorns.

 

[ArieBLB]

Quote:
I thought about breeding for color selection are as follows:
1st: Look at the color you would like to see yourself,
2e: breeding the color you want and like to see
3rd: breeding animals with solid colored buff to Skin,
4th: The judge sees them only five minutes from the animal's life,
5th: If you breed for prize winners, try this all the judges to explain what color is right.

That is the difficulty of Buff, what's the right color ????? Everyone has a different perception of the color yellow / buff. For me the right color yellow / buff is smooth / even, and buff color to the skin. The down, no more than two shades lighter.

Leghorns are hard feathered and that makes the look of the color buff looks darker too.

 

[nicalandia]

Quote:
I thought about breeding for color selection are as follows:
1st: Look at the color you would like to see yourself,
2e: breeding the color you want and like to see
3rd: breeding animals with solid colored buff to Skin,
4th: The judge sees them only five minutes from the animal's life,
5th: If you breed for prize winners, try this all the judges to explain what color is right.

That is the difficulty of Buff, what's the right color ????? Everyone has a different perception of the color yellow / buff. For me the right color yellow / buff is smooth / even, and buff color to the skin. The down, no more than two shades lighter.

Leghorns are hard feathered and that makes the look of the color buff looks darker too.

Dan(or Danne?)

Here some Awesome Reading From you Using a Time Machine(WayBack)
http://web.archive.org/web/20060208033027/http://www.panopliageneticus.com/testmatingwheaten.html

Dann I am trying to Isolate Dilute from Buff Cochin, the test breeding you did(check link) is very simmilar to what Brumbaugh and Hollander found using Buff Minorcas.
http://books.google.com/books?id=VM... crawford&pg=PA122#v=onepage&q=Dilute&f=false

where you able to Isolate the gene? I would love to hear more about this from you..

Thanks
Marvin

 

[cochinman2005]

Quote:
Arie,
I believe that bird is actually one of last year's Buff Rock Bantams. She was from a cross I did with Buff Rock x White Rock, from which I got several color variances. The females looked like her mostly, but the males were all over the charts. I had a couple males that looked Birchen (although brassy), and some that were poor Columbian colors. I culled all the males and actually only used that pullet in the photo this year. I bred her back to a pure Buff Rock male. All chicks are Buff with varying degrees of Black in them. My main reason for the cross in the first place was to improve the type of the Buff Rocks. The heads on the Whites are also better, so that was a secondary goal. I can take some photos of the 2011 hatch birds, but don't want to hijack the Buff Leghorn thread.

Tom

 

[ArieBLB]

Quote:
Arie,
I believe that bird is actually one of last year's Buff Rock Bantams. She was from a cross I did with Buff Rock x White Rock, from which I got several color variances. The females looked like her mostly, but the males were all over the charts. I had a couple males that looked Birchen (although brassy), and some that were poor Columbian colors. I culled all the males and actually only used that pullet in the photo this year. I bred her back to a pure Buff Rock male. All chicks are Buff with varying degrees of Black in them. My main reason for the cross in the first place was to improve the type of the Buff Rocks. The heads on the Whites are also better, so that was a secondary goal. I can take some photos of the 2011 hatch birds, but don't want to hijack the Buff Leghorn thread.

Tom

Hi Tom, I have an other tread about buff colored poultry.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=544593

Maybe you would like to place there the pictures and share them with us.

Greetings Arie

 

[danhonour]

I have written an article on my forty years breeding Buff Leghorns with some pictures of my stock.It is suppose to appear in the mid October 2011 issue of (aviculture-europe.nl,magazine).Dan Honour

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[gallorojo]

I think my birds are about 22 weeks or so now. The pullet still has a very small comb. Can I expect her to begin to lay this fall?

 

[danhonour]

I find my birds lay at 6-7 months (24-28 weeks)when hatched in late winter or early spring.They should comb up and start laying in a few weeks for you,the days are getting shorter in daylight,so having lights on will help.
I have had early maturing birds laying at 5 months but they always stop growing and lack size.Later hatched birds seem to get mixed up with the daylight,temperatures and season changes.Some even molt in the winter as pullets.

 

[nicalandia]

Quote:
Dan in your 40 years of breeding buffs, when outcrossing to other breeds what is that you find most, Blue, Dun or Dominant white? I mean in the Buff leghorn genetic make up... something is making them lighter, I mean just look at buff columbians, they are just Co based on eb and that's all... and they keep that shade of color...

 

[danhonour]

Each Buff breed was created using different combinations and in the process each carries a different sequence of genes,but yet giving the buff phenotype.Some of the genes are covered up or hidden.When these extra genes recombine,perhaps in a single dose or double,some birds look different.To make matters more complex,each strain within each breed,may have been made different.This is why when outcrossing,results can be very different each time.Buff Leghorns can come in many shades,even dark buff ones,so not all are light .I do think White Leghorn has been used often and many lines contain dominant white,which may be a factor in the light buff shade,maybe having a diluting influence.Dominant white can also give the false illusion of blue or dun,but it is dominant white in most cases.It is possible to get rid of dominant white by the exclusive use of pepper,as in theory peppered birds breed true,but white can carry pepper in one dose.The columbian gene can lighten and can show up as white outer lacing on males wing bars and perhaps as white tipping on breast feathers.The lighter yellow hackle/saddle may be dilute,and might have come from the wild type/duckwing,through Light Brown Leghorns.The pattern gene is in some strains of buff,also.

Buff can be complex when you try to figure it out from a genetic standpoint.I think buff has many modifier genes that,diffuse,enhance,or suppress.There are likily skin and shank color inhibitors and sex linkage too. It is often noted crossing,that two yellow legged birds can produce green legs and a blue shade beak ring close to the face.The reciprocal cross can behave differently,indicating sex linkage.

Some sex linkage comes with White Leghorns,which may carry hidden genes like barring and silver.

When it is all said and done,buff has to have several combined genes to give the buff (phenotype) appearance,the other genes are extras that do not have to be there but have not been eradicated from the gene pool.It would take years of test mating to eradicate and hardly worth the extreme effort to do so.