pure colour in a Pekin bantam - have we lost it?

beccy boo · **Posted:** Tue Apr 06, 2010 10:21 pm

i breed pekins and half my yong stock is not pure. all you have to do is find some one that breeds pure breeds and ask them if they have any pure good stock for sale. thats how i started. [smilie=a_cookiemonster.gif]

beccy boo · **Posted:** Mon Aug 29, 2011 10:17 pm

CalaisV8 wrote:

Is it just me or is it very hard to buy a pure colour in a Pekin bantam these days? I brought a pair of so called pure buffs only to breed everything but a buff in fact 40% were white the rest a mix of god knows what. I then brought yet another pair from another breeder and the same thing! I think it’s sad that we seem to have lost those specialized breeders that breed good pure Pekins and breed what they are supposed to breed. There seems to be this trend to mix all the colours together in one coop [and some breeders mix in Belgian & sebright) and hope to fluke a new colour then embarrassingly claim they developed a wonderful new colour but they have no idea how or who are the parents. I also breed sebrights and I know when I sell someone a pair of silver sebright they will breed silver sebrights and nothing else. I have no problem with new colours in pekins but please don't try to palm off the mongrels mixes along the way. It would be nice to buy a pair of buffs that only breed buffs or whites that only breed white and so on.......
John

one of the most well none breeders are K&K Adams they would have to sell the most purest pekins you can find. auctions are full of cross bred chooks and it is very hard to find what you are looking for unless you know the breeder

fivemorehens · **Joined:** Tue Aug 23, 2011 10:07 am **Posts:** 3

A lots of it has to do with the new colours so many people are trying to come up with especially with pekins so they mix in so many breeds and then sell off the experiments

beccy boo · **Posted:** Tue Aug 30, 2011 8:34 am

just one question. should buffs have a trace of black in them. mine has black on her wing

OakA · **Posted:** Tue Aug 30, 2011 8:48 am

NO, Bec.
The Buffs should be a solid even colour, either pale lemon through to dark orange gold.
The important thing is the colour must be EVEN and solid to the skin, no light/white or grey in under colour and no black in tail or wings, either as ticking or solid patches.
The Buffs were the original Pekin colour and unfortunately have declined in quality over a period.
The blacks these days generally are the superior colour for type.
Getting the true buff colour and keeping it is a hard task, combine that with maintaining and improving type is a lifes work.
I read once a very good article re improving buffs, the author acknowledged that blacks were superior in type but to use them to improve the buffs was fraught with problems, he recommended using the blacks to breed superior blues and then these blues to improve the type in buffs, both blues and buff being more compatible than black and buff.
The real test then is to maintain the even buff colour while you improve the type, not an easy task as breeding buffs good and true is a very tall order.

mummaroo · **Posted:** Wed Sep 28, 2011 2:21 pm

Quote:

BUT there is a local electical dealer that has had Buff and nothing else his entire llife - perhaps his is one of only a few pure lines left??

I have just come across this post and only because its raining so I am stuck inside.
Soozorp are these the buff pekins that you got for me from this breeder and sent up when I lost most of my birds to poison.
I was ever so grateful for you to go to the lengths that you did to secure me those birds. Unfortunately at the end of last season I lost nearly all my pekin bantams and have had to start from scratch again.I have been looking long and hard at breeders and there stock before buying anything.It is a slow process but I am getting there.I mainly only have trios of colours all in there own yards and I have been painstakingly breeding these birds and keeping a lot of records on them to see if they are breeding true.Many hours and days have gone into this breeding season to work this out.There have been some very big disappointments also with them. I have been to the point a week ago were I told a friend I have had enough with the pekins they are all going.Seems when you think something is pure and all going well,something happens.I have many hundreds of pekin chickens atm and what is breeding true I am keeping but the rest are being thrown in my compost now.I am over it.Bugger selling them to anyone.I just have had enough and unfortunately it is still in the back of my head they may all still go.Not worth the hassle any more.I am probably just tired and over worked but very disappointed also.

hatefoxes · **Joined:** Sat Oct 01, 2011 9:41 pm **Posts:** 1

I have to agree it seems so hard to buy a pure colour even from those that boast it I have lost count of how many buff hens that are supposedly pure colour and give a high % of white so I understand where you are coming from and understand the frustration I gave up years ago and buying a true black that proved too hard

Sebducks · **Joined:** Wed Mar 11, 2009 3:41 pm **Posts:** 812

I will tell you what is irritating me about pekins at present, I can understand breeding for colour you like, cross whatever you want for backyard pekins to have at home with the family, not an issue. Its the made up names that irritate me at present, such as salmon and dun and being sold as "show quality". This I believe is totally unfair to youngsters starting out and also to those who think by buying birds touted as show quality that they are getting a bird that meets to standard. Now I see how you could say it could be shown as AOC but really?

*sheepishly hops down off soapbox* :oops:

beccy boo · **Posted:** Sun Oct 09, 2011 3:06 pm

i find that the black pekins are the purest pekin you can get, i havent seen one buff yet win a champion pekin. my friend breeds pekins and is really high up in the showing side, he shows white's and blacks. every time i look at the champion pekins they allways seem to be blacks. i find that if you want to get a good show pek, blacks and white are the way to go.

mummaroo · **Posted:** Sun Oct 09, 2011 3:13 pm

That may be true with the black but they can carry a lot of colours that just don't always show up.They can carry mottle or cuckoo for starters and unless you breed a lot and know what you are looking for you would think they are pure.Some people even cross black over the white to make the white crisper and stop yellowing in the feathers.To me that is not pure.
Even buffs that have been bred as buffs for 30 years are not always buff they can carry say buff colombian and you don't find this out till you breed a lot of them over time

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