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LF buff leg color

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Guest:
...(Go to home page, photos, large fowl, buff male for a photo of a inhibited leg color. This is not Slate)...

John:
You are right.  The shanks don\'t show slate.  I can tell he has the genes to have blue/slate shanks, but the clear/white epidermis is too thick to allow the black color to show through completely.  It seems to be easier to get dark legs to show properly on the LF buff females.  Some LF buff chicks hatched with very dark legs this year, but that may not be a good thing if we need to have recessive wheaten at the E-locus to get good buffs.  
That was the best photo that I could find of a LF buff male.  I don\'t know if anyone has a better bird or photo of it, but they have not sent it to me to use.
I cropped the legs off the bantam silver male\'s photo because his are definitely clear/white.  Yet I didn\'t have a better photo to put up.
Some varieties have not been developed yet, even though they were recognized.  In order to help develop them I have resisted work on new varieties.  
As I and other have said many of these are \"a work in progress\".

Guest:
Dominate dilute and dominate white and wheaten are three genes that will inhibit the dermal melanin gene. To get a buff color, dominate white and dominate dilute are sometimes used. Dominate Wheaten is also used to make many buff birds. I would think dominate dilute is the problem. I do not know how the cream gene or the lavender gene effect dermal melanin but  I think the cream gene or the lavender gene would work better.

Tim

To learn more about chicken genetics visit the following web site:  http://home.earthlink.net/~100chickens/

Jean:
How long does it take, or how long should I wait to see if a Buff\'s legs are going to turn slate? I\'m so impatient.....

I am working on the buffs also and I have many questions.  Which is worse.... poor leg color or poor angle set on the tail?  Or to put it another way, which is easier to fix in a breeding program? (yeah, I\'m a newbie)

The buffs really are a beautiful bird!  I have great color on my birds, but I have to work on size, tail set, fertility and egg color.

I would like to thank John B and Paul S for selling me some of their stock so I can improve my flock!  

Jean

Mike Gilbert:
Jean, I\'m not sure what you asked when you said \"how long should I wait for leg color?\"   How old are your birds?  Because the buffs are based on wheaten at the e-locus, dermal melanin can be slow to develop, but it does develop in time.   My bantam buffs, wheatens, and blue-wheatens all are hatched with yellowish-pinkish legs.   Some take up to four to six weeks to turn fully slate.    Another problem (unrelated I think) is the thickness and transluscency  of the epidermis of the legs.    Those that have orpington blood seem to have a thick, not transluscent epidermis, especially in the males.   This prevents the melanin in the dermis (under layer of skin) from showing through.   In the picture of the large fowl buff on the website, I believe that is what we are seeing.   The slate is present underneath (where it should be), but the thick epidermis is hiding it.    This can be verified when one of these birds is butchered.   Peel back the outer layer of white skin and the under layer will be dark.

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