Dun variety project

[Pedro Nunes Marques]

I believe I'm getting a lighter khaki color.
They are offspring from a mother with the same color and a Buff male, some are hatching khaki and others Buff again.
It wouldn't really be an outcross for the Buffs, but I believe I may be achieving a new genetic combination. My Buffs aren't very fertile and tend to go broody easily.
The khaki hen, on the other hand, has a better profile, she's larger in size, lays many more eggs, and hasn't gone broody.
I hope to get some good Buffs from her, and I plan to continue working with a separate khaki line to see what I can achieve.
What do you all think?

[Pedro Nunes Marques]

This hen is a daughter of a khaki that appeared here, a recessive from the Buff line that came from John.
I crossed her with a black male and now have two females from that line. I'm currently breeding them with Buffs, hoping to achieve a sort of quicker partial outcross for the Buffs.
I also hope to clean out the black color sooner than it usually happens.
Later I might cross her back to blacks again, I'm not sure yet. My main priority right now is to improve the Buffs by reducing their level of inbreeding.
I have no idea how many generations it will take to get clean Buffs.

[Elijah Ensor]

Pedro, I know this is a Dun thread, but I too work with the LF buffs.   I've done several matings and got a number of straight buffs out, but few pullets.   I'll be playing with some outcrosses too.   

[John W Blehm]

Even after several years of breeding for a dark brown/chocolate bantam dun variety, I'm still not 100% sure of the day-old chick phenotype needed to mature into the color I desire...

But I'm getting closer. Last year I hatched a very nice black male with green sheen, but noticed upon closer inspection he had a beautiful brown/red or chocolate color that was nearly hidden. In the photos I posted, I labeled him as dun, but dun is supposed to inhibit black so I believe he is just a black with a gene(s) that allows the brown to show or without a gene(s) to inhibit it.

•E Extended black, hackle, shoulder and saddle of the males may leak groundcolor (eg red) depending on unknown absent genes.

I bred him over several black hens this year and all the chicks hatched black, some with brown/red foreheads. Because of this and the results from my first year of a LF dun breeding project, I think the reason I've had so much variation in chick phenotype with this bantam dun project is due to so many different genes in the breeding population. At this point, I feel black to dun will produce chicks with grayish-blue down which carry one copy of the dun gene and also black chicks without a dun gene. Both may have that brownish/red forehead and I believe whatever gene that represents is the reasonable for the brown dun or chocolate dun variety. Without it, dun produces the grayish/blue variety...almost a self blue (not lavender). It may also be the difference between an off-white khaki and more of a fawn color, but I haven't bred for that.

* Dr Okimoto has mentioned in the past that red enhancers may modify Dun expression.

From my LF dun project, I've only kept the grayish chicks. Below are a few photos of week-old chicks. Note, the one without any brown in its forehead is feathering out a dark or slate blue color. The one with a hint of brown in it's forehead has a hint of some brown color in it's wings. Maybe it only carries one copy of the unknown red enhancing gene(?). I assume the chick with the most brown in it's forehead is pure (two copies) for this unknown red enhancing gene and is feathering out quite brown/chocolate.

[Elijah Ensor]

Thanks for the Updates.