Why does my Buff Orpington cock have different color tail feathers?

[wilds of pa]

yup after over 7+ years with buff orpington to present, buff silkies for a few years and buff ameraucana you do and will get culls with white and black dusting in tails and also mealiness with buffs.

one must choose there breeders wisely..

don't matter were the birds come from sooner or later if you breed long enough and many you will see this..

 

[Chris09]

I found this on the web some time ago.
The Buff Orpington was produced by Crossing the Gold-Spangled Hamburghs with the Buff Cochin, the offspring crossed with the Dark Dorking and their offspring with the Buff Cochin again.

If in fact the Buff Orpington has Gold-Spangled Hamburghs in them that could be where the White or even Black tail feathers are coming from..

Chris

 

[danhonour]

Buff color is made up of a bunch of genes,of which two copies of each gene generally makes a reasonable phenotype.When only one copy of one or more genes is present,the bird can have off color or color defects.Another factor is how the breeders are mated up,since all birds have color defects,great care in picking the mates will result in better offspring.Hatcheries need to keep a large number in the breeding flock,so they are not very well matched up as a rule and produce more color variation.Another thing is many people have small numbers and many times the luck of the draw leaves you with a poor colored bird,where if you had a hundred Buff males you would get an array of gradations of buff shades,many very nice and even.Black,white and red feathers are not considered foreign in buff nor are partial or mixed feathers.Much of breeding buff depends on ones ability to select,pick and cull the right colored ones and then knowing what shades to put together for next years chicks.Dan Honour

 

[wilds of pa]

Hey Dan was just going over your book tonight again, what a major download it was a few years ago on dial up..shees..

However i find my self reading it all the time.. lots and lots of awesome info in it....its the most compiled info on buff one could ever dream about..

 

[danhonour]

Charlie I PM you a few minutes ago.I am glad you liked the Buff coloration book,I have added a bunch more pages to it (now 444 pages) and 330 articles all on buff,it will be available later in the year in paperback. Ian Selby is doing the layout on all 4 of my book,adding some color pictures and drawings to dress the text up.THOUGHTS On BREEDING WHITE LEGHORNS is already out and THE ART OF BREEDING will be any day now. THE SPANISH BREEDS and BUFF COLORATION are bigger books and are taking longer.There is lots of good information in these and I am delighted to have my name on them. Dan Honour

www.poultrynz.com

 

[wilds of pa]

Dan, awesome... we'll be watching for it when it comes out..i would love to add it to my poultry book collection..