Breeding Buff Leghorns

[chickenboy100]

Quote: Like cats lol

 

[ArieBLB]

Hello, how is everyone doing?
How are your Buff Leghorns doing lately and have you reached progress with your birds?

Greetings from the Netherlands

Arie

 

[Sylvester017]

Hello, how is everyone doing?
How are your Buff Leghorns doing lately and have you reached progress with your birds?

Greetings from the Netherlands

Arie

Hi Arie,

Your birds are some of the most beautiful on this thread.

We gifted one LF Buff sister to a friend and kept one LF Buff for our small backyard flock. They were from a breeder who got stock from Dan Honour - gorgeous birds in beautiful glistening golden buff! We had to re-home our White Leg to my friend who had the gifted Buff because the White Leg started getting aggressive with the gentles in our flock. She was so well behaved for 3 years and then went a bit aggressive. So we had hopes that the Buff Leg would be a gentler mellower variety. But at 13 months old she turned out more aggressive than the White Leg. The Buff ran around mercilessly chasing the gentle breeds pulling out their crests, beards, and muffs bald! We had no choice but to re-home her to join her Buff sister in our friend's flock. She tried to aggressively chase after the girls in the new flock and they quickly fought back and she learned her submissive place around the older girls. She's a model citizen now in an equally matched flock of her peers.

I love Legs for so-o-o many reasons and grew up with them on the folks' farm. But we had to pass on having any assertive breeds around our gentles flock. Legs can get pretty wild and crazy in temperament and I just had to make the decision to weed them out of the rest of the flock. They were my best layers and it was disheartening to let them go. Legs need to be in flocks of ther Mediterranean peers for the best flock politics - otherwise they'll ride rough-shod over non-assertive breeds.

Legs are the best chickens for alertness, intelligence, friendliness (if you don't approach them and let them take the initiative), good production, longevity, beauty (so many colors to pick from) and non-stop active foragers. If they're snoozing in the afternoon it's because they EARNED a rest LOL!

Smiles!

 

[Nomibear]

I still have 6. They are my best foragers and very independent. They have been the Best at staying out of trouble with predictors, as we free range.

 

[danhonour]

Did you get your RCBuff Leghorn flock started?

 

[Sylvester017]

I still have 6. They are my best foragers and very independent. They have been the Best at staying out of trouble with predictors, as we free range.

Oh, I'm so glad to hear you still have your Buff Legs. I miss our Legs so much. They have got to be the smartest breed in the chicken world! Our friend took our Buff Leg & our White Leg & had to separate her breeds when the city said she didn't have the ordinance measurements to keep her birds. She separated the breeds into 3 separate homes - the aggressive larger dual purpose breeds like Java, Marans, & Sexlink went to one new home, the gentle non-combative Ameraucana birds went to her son who has a toddler and needs gentle hens, and the 5 Legs were kept together in a 3rd new home who are absolutely delighted with all the eggs they're getting!!! IMO there has never been a better consistent layer than the White Leg - our Buff was a consistent layer but her eggs never got bigger than 2.0 oz while the White Leg layed 2.25 oz eggs. Both are steady layers but the White Leg had slightly bigger eggs. I liked the Buff color of our Leg - she glistened in the sun and was a sizeable bird.

 

[Danny1]

I've been reading this forum. I just got two trios of buff leghorn bantam, from a breeder in TN. Are any of the previous postets around? The last post was 2015. I'm new to buffs, but love them. I will need some help. I already have learnef alot and only on page 8. I read if your birds are light, try and cross to red. Does anyone have red leghorn bantams?
Thanks
Danny

 

[Sylvester017]

I've been reading this forum. I just got two trios of buff leghorn bantam, from a breeder in TN. Are any of the previous postets around? The last post was 2015. I'm new to buffs, but love them. I will need some help. I already have learnef alot and only on page 8. I read if your birds are light, try and cross to red. Does anyone have red leghorn bantams?
Thanks
Danny

I've been reading this forum. I just got two trios of buff leghorn bantam, from a breeder in TN. Are any of the previous postets around? The last post was 2015. I'm new to buffs, but love them. I will need some help. I already have learnef alot and only on page 8. I read if your birds are light, try and cross to red. Does anyone have red leghorn bantams?
Thanks
Danny

Last I corresponded with Dan Honour last year he was raising White Leg bantams. You might PM him and get his expertise on breeding Buffs which is phenomenal! He has written published articles on Buff breeding and some of his Buff Leg photos are on feathersite.com under the Leghorn chicken photos. Sandhill Preservation has Red Legs but they are standard size, I believe. PM with Dan, he is my guru for Buff Leg breeding!!! The Buff Legs I had were thru a breeder that carried Dan's line of Buff Legs.

Our standard size Buff Leg pullet from Dan's line





Buff Leg as a one-year hen - sorry the pics are faded - poor photo quality

 

[RCleghorn]

I've been reading this forum. I just got two trios of buff leghorn bantam, from a breeder in TN. Are any of the previous postets around? The last post was 2015. I'm new to buffs, but love them. I will need some help. I already have learnef alot and only on page 8. I read if your birds are light, try and cross to red. Does anyone have red leghorn bantams?
Thanks
Danny

Dan honour is definitely a person you need to speak with if you are really interested in breeding buff leghorns. There are not many good quality ones in this country. As far as red leghorns go curtis Oakes from pa would be the only person that may have them. And thats a longshot. Even if you do find red leghorns the quality will not be very good. So i wouldnt recommend doing a cross to reds because that would not improve anything.

 

[Wappoke]

I've been reading this forum. I just got two trios of buff leghorn bantam, from a breeder in TN. Are any of the previous postets around? The last post was 2015. I'm new to buffs, but love them. I will need some help. I already have learnef alot and only on page 8. I read if your birds are light, try and cross to red. Does anyone have red leghorn bantams?
Thanks
Danny

The buff color in chickens is a polygenetic trait. Buff birds should be light wheaten at the E locus, carry sex-linked gold, the dark brown gene, the columbian gene and mahogany gene. Some lines of buff leghorns carry dominant white and even the blue gene. Lines that have problems with black pigment in the feathers carry dominant white to eliminate the black pigment in the feathers. Dominant white does not effect red pigments only black pigments.

Undoubtedly there are modifiers-other genes or pieces of cDNA that can effect the color.

As you can see there are lots of genes that produce the buff color. -

The buff color is best produced on birds that carry wheaten because this E locus allele produces very little black pigment on the body of the female and works well with the dark brown and columbian genes. If a bird carries another E locus allele along with the wheaten allele this can effect the buff color.

The number of genes the birds carry also effect the color, if a bird carries one columbian gene and two dark brown genes and one mahogany gene- this will effect the color of the bird.

A chicken normally only carries two of each of the previously mentioned genes (2 columbian, 2 dark brown, 2 mahogany). There are 16 different combinations that are possible with these genes- so you can get some variation in the birds color.

The dark brown gene and the columbian genes work together to remove black pigments from the feathers of the bird and changes the red pigments produced by the sex-linked gold allele to a buff color- the mahogany gene deepens the buff color and also helps remove some black pigments from the bird's feathers.

If your birds have white under color, and a light color it may due to the dominant white changing the black pigments to a white color. If this is happening, you do not have the correct combination of genes to eliminate the black in the feathers. The dominant white is changing the black to white.

My suggestion is for you is to cross your birds together- keep track of which chicks came from which female and male combination. You are going to have to hatch at least 50-100chicks- keep good records by banding the chicks. When the chicks mature, you will know which birds you crossed to produce each chick. Then only cross the birds that produce the offspring with the best color. Then start crossing the birds with the best color together- produce as many chicks as you can afford to hatch.

By hatching a large number of chicks- you are increasing the odds of getting the correct combination of genes in your birds and producing the best buff color.

If you like to read- here is a good place to start. Get a pencil and notebook and make yourself notes.

http://www.aviculture-europe.nl/Buff-Coloration.pdf

If you are serious about breeding buffs, you have to hatch as many chicks as you can afford to hatch.