There is little wonder that the Buff Cochin bantam ranks so high in popularity among our many bantams. The colour, buff when realized, is one of the most glorious of all colours known to our poultry, and its attainment presents a very real challenge to breeding effort. That there is much confusion and seemingly misunderstanding among breeders of buff, as to what buff really is, is quite natural. It is primarily due to the fact that we, as human beings, are just made in such a way as to admire what we have. Consequently, our ideas as to what buff is changes rather rapidly at times, in consequence of our having birds of a certain shade of buff. Sometimes we advocate light buff, at other time dark buff, and, as a general rule, it will be found that we are advocating pretty much as correct the particular shade of our actual birds. Real and true buff is a very soft colour, and a rather light colour in actual shade. For buff feathering, the colour is described as a golden buff. Now, golden buff as used here, does not denote any particular shade of this colour buff, but it does denote the kind or sort of colour that this buff shall be. Golden, as used, demands that the buff feathering shall be bright, alive, vivid, having reflective ness and brilliance. The colour buff is not bright and reflective, but soft and rather flat. The colour golden buff is intensely brilliant and alive, having the reflective ness of glittering gold. The term golden merely qualifies the term buff by denoting the impression that should be given by this colour when viewed.

The more experience I get in handling buff birds, the more convinced I become of the futility of a wide margin of counteraction. By that, I mean the practice of using dark birds with light birds in attempts of getting desired and proper colour. This amounts to nothing more or less than using two separate colours and involves all the complications incident to that practice. Colour counteraction must be held within narrow margins so that colours foreign to the one to be desired are not introduced. Actual buff has distinct bounds beyond which limitations the colour ceases to be buff at all and becomes, in reality, some other actual colour than buff can be said to be. It is, furthermore my most sincere belief that under colour is a positive essential to actual colour and I consider birds not having, to a very considerable extent, really sound under colour to be valueless in attempts to produce good colour. The practice of using dark birds as counteraction for light birds is, of course, necessary to resort to on many occasions. In such cases of counteraction, it must be born in mind that no bird failing in an actually good amount of under colour has much power in the real transmission of its colour no matter how dark or light its surface may be. A rather light bird with solid under colour has far and away greater power of colour transmission than a darker bird without under colour. Proper colour intensity and its transmission is, in my frank estimation, dependent upon under colour much more than upon surface colouration.

So far as I am able to gather from what I have seen, heard, and tried, true and real buff colour or any other colour is controlled best by the use of birds having fairly narrow margins of difference in their actual colour. If a strengthening of colour is desired, birds should be combined with as deep an under colour as possible. If a lightening of colour is desired, birds should be combined having less depth of under colour. When under colour is considered as the basis upon which to judge a bird’s power of colour transmission, as is so often taken as the basis for judgement, wide margins of counteraction are not found to be necessary and consequently, reversions towards colours which are not actually buff are largely eliminated. If this practice is followed for a few generations, you will, I am sure, be agreeably surprised about the number of fewer red birds and white-winged birds you will have to contend with. White and red are extremely powerful colours in feather colouration and extremely unfortunate colours in the handling of buff. The entire elimination of white and red are probably never will realized in breeding buffs, but there is far more hope that eventually they will be eliminated if we do not make use of them than if we do.

By Bob Stough