BREEDING BUFF COLOR

Mark Peterson

                When I was in Australia in June with Jim Adkins’ group, I was asked by Adrian Kuys to write an article on Buff color for their Plymouth Rock Club newsletter.  Adrian assured me that he would keep after me until I finished this article.  I assured him that I would do my best to put my thoughts to paper for you.

                Where to begin is a question in itself.  I will give you some background about myself and my qualifications that I have to write this article. 

                The first fowls that I raised as a young man were large Partridge Cochins.  I worked with them for about four years.  Somewhere along the way, these birds picked up Pullorum-Typhoid, and as nice as they were, they had to be destroyed.  So went my career with Partridge Cochins.  Liking the Cochin breed itself, I was next able to secure large Buff Cochin chicks from Arthur Manly in Fresno, California in the spring of 1968.  So it was then that I started my journey with Buff colored fowl.  We should back up a minute here and mention that Arthur Manly was a good friend of Marcus Davidson of Bath, Pennsylvania.  Manly secured his original breeding stock from Davidson. 

                Marcus Davidson was the foremost breeder of Buff colored fowl in the United States at that time.  In my opinion, he is probably the greatest breeder of Buff birds we will ever have.  On his farm, he raised all Buff colors of birds.  Cochins, Orpingtons, Rocks, Leghorns, and Minorcas.  My first trip to his farm was in the early 1970’s.  At that time, Marcus was in his late 70’s, and had primarily large and bantam Buff Cochins, Buff Leghorns, and a few Buff Rocks.  Upon our visit, we discussed at length, Buff colors.  From the seminar he was conducting on my behalf, I obtained as much information as I could.  Marcus Davidson was a very humble person and was totally unselfish with any information that he could convey that would help me with my breeding program.

                Here is was Davidson told me about Buff color, and since that time it has been my goal to breed good Buff color.  The shade of Buff that you desire to reproduce doesn’t make any difference whether it is light or dark, as long as it’s even.  By even, I mean that the hackle, breast, saddle, and undercolor should all be the same.  As for the undercolor, the lighter the shade of top color will cause a lighter shade of undercolor, and so forth.  Undercolor will be the hardest to keep in the hackle, as it always wants to get lighter in this area.

                It has been my experience that the darker the shade of Buff, the more “pepper” you will get in the tails of the females.  The males can get to the point where they actually have solid black tail feathers.  In these birds, you will most likely have outstanding undercolor right to the skin.  This is true even in the hackle area, which we said was hard to achieve.  As a whole, these birds will be too dark a shade of Buff, bordering on reddish, especially the males.  However, the females may be useful if you are trying to darken up your birds.  I will say here, that in a breeding female with good type, I am not afraid to use one with a bit of pepper in her tail feathers as I think it helps with the undercolor.  But for show purposes, she would be marked down for this.

                On the other hand, if your birds are a lighter shade of Buff, you will have to guard against the opposite of pepper in the tails.  This will come as light undercolor, and signs of white in the primaries and toe feathering in Cochins.  In Plymouth Rocks, I’ve found with the light color of Buff, will also tend to lose leg color.  You will also have lighter eye color, especially in the females.  This will help eliminate pepper in the tail sections, particularly the males.  When breeding the lighter shade of Buff, pay close attention to the quill  color in the primaries.  Use birds that have as good a Buff quill as possible.   I have found this will help you hold your Buff color, and keep the white out of the primaries.

                I’ve listed some things to watch out for with both the darker and lighter shades of Buff.  Ideally, the medium shade of Buff would be perfect, but this is where the challenge comes from trying to maintain the medium shade.  My experience has been that it is easier to lighten the shade than darken it, especially with females.  I’ve had even more trouble with Buff Pymouth Rock females holding their color.  It may be that the Rocks lay eggs at a younger age than do the Cochins.  Whichever shade of Buff you choose to breed to, be careful not to breed from too much of an extreme color difference.  In doing so, you will probably be all right with males, but the females will be mealy.  The color won’t be that nice, even shade, but rather will look dusted with flour or cornstarch.  To avoid this, we need to breed from only slight color differences when trying to make your shade of Buff a bit darker or lighter.  I think this helps keep shafting out of the feathers as well.  Shafting is very hard to eliminate once bred into your birds, so I always select away from it if possible.

                This may be the place to mention that shade from the sun will help you keep the Buff color that you’ve bred.  When I visited Marcus Davidson all those years ago, I thought his place somewhat overgrown with what we call “horseweeds”.  They are about eight  feet tall, with big, broad leaves.  It looked overgrown, but this was the idea.  They made perfect shade, and all of his birds were a nice, even shade of Buff.  How he ever caught a bird in that tangle, I’ve never figured out, but they did have beautiful color.  Shade will definitely help you keep the eveness of color, especially in the females as they tend to bleach out from too much exposure from the sun.  Here again, I think it’s compounded when they are laying, as they lose feather color along with the normal pigment loss.

                I’ve come to the conclusion in my twenty-five years plus of breeding Buff colored birds that if it were easy, more people would breed them and the color would be more popular.  I like all colors of birds, but even if I’m partial to Buff, I think I’ve come to appreciate a good colored bird even more over the years as I’ve learned the complexities and difficulties in breeding a colored bird.

                In closing, I hope that I’ve answered some of the questions surrounding Buff color that you may have had.  I tried to keep with more of the basic things that I look for, and from personal experience that I’ve had from breeding Buff colored birds.  Nothing beats trial and error.  After all these years, every year is still a learning experience for me.  Some years you take two steps forward, and the next year a step back.  It just takes determination on your part to reach that elusive goal of the perfect type bird and the color you have been striving for.