I began experimenting with the Mealy grey colour in: 1998 - when I mated a standard coloured mealy grey female to an impure Birchin male, 1998 - Impure Birchin male Mealy Female ,and his colour was not a pure silver top colour but more to a yellow silver up. This mating to the standard coloured Mealy female produced over coloured Birchin males also a Birchin pullet with very little chest lacing , 1999 – An overcoloured birchen son from the above mating was mated back to the Mealy grey female and produced standard coloured Mealy grey males and females The Birchin female from 1998 mating was mated back to the impure Birchin father and produced some clear coloured birchins with minimal lacing, still not the stark silver colour yet. ( but some of these chickens were very clean silver/both ckl & plt but some were still dirty)

I mated Mealy grey to Mealy grey and produced 5 Columbian chickens, The Columbian females had darker neck colouring than the males who tended to be quite undercoloured in the neck., however all 5 were quite good type and had I gone further with these the ideal mating would have been to put either a good type mealy male to them or a well coloured Mealy bred Birchin male over the females, to increase the clarity of the neck hackle striping and the black tail colouring.
( the ckls were lacking front )

2001 I brought in another impure Birchin male of large size and feather quality whose mother was an outstanding black female. To him I mated the best of the Columbian females and produced what I could only describe as “Mealy Golds”.These females had exactly the same feather distribution on the body, neck hackle and chest as a Mealy grey would have only in this case, it was gold and not the stark silver white as in the Mealy. Type was extremely good * type was ok

In 2001 Mating therefore consisted of Impure Birchin Male X Columbian Female and produced 4 females of initial ground colour similar to the wild Partridge. There was some striping in the neck which has later developed to full lemon or more near the colouring of a Ginger OEG. The ground colour of the body is lemon laced mid- brown moving to soft brown and the footings are slightly edged with lemon. At this early stage some females show wing colouring as a wheaten would exhibit, very soft buff to half the primary & secondary feathers. All females were not of the exact shading of Lemon or Brown

One could also describe these as a Ginger Pekin as their colour patterns fell within that standard description Birchins were also produced from this mating but no pure Columbians

These ginger/golden - mealy females were of an unknown quantity but because they contained the wing colouring of partridge or wheaten females (as in the Black red old English) I realise now how important these females could become in the production of other in their make-up they contained the following colours’ Mealy grey, Black, Impure Birchin, Columbian and gold component via the impure Birchin male (the black, the Columbian & the mealy all had gold in their genetic make up)

Young Columbian male to undercoloured Birchin female was also mated in the same year which was the reverse mating and produced the same batch of mealy gold offspring, only in this mating, the brightness of gold was not as evident as in the first mating the same year, from other side matings the following were produced:

Columbian Male X Impure Birchin female (Mealy mother)
Produced Mealy-grey pullets

Impure Birchin Male X Mealy Grey female
Mealy Grey both sexes

Experimenting has given me the opportunity to draw some safe conclusions that once these three colours ,Mealy ,Birchin and Columbian are intermixed with some careful selection for type and colour, that successive generations can be improved upon by careful colour out-crosses It may not always result in perfectly predictable results but it can be far more beneficial having the three colours cross-related in your breeding program where uniformity can be more easily predicted

One of the difficulties now will be to continue producing the Columbians with a quality of type and colour retaining that rich depth of tail-black and neck striping as well as crisp white body colour.

One of my forecasts would be that it will be necessary to bring in another mating of Silver Birchin into the Columbian offspring to enhance the black striping in the hackles and the volume of black required in the tail feathers of future Columbian offspring.

Genetically it appears that the Columbians and the Mealy greys carry several different colours in their make up and depending upon their breeding partner , they have the potential to produce a myriad of other different coloured Pekins.

On closer inspection and photos have been recorded, some secondary tail feathers of the Columbian Male with the best black tail colour , had some Partridge and Mealy coloured feathers amongst the black feathers. This would substantiate the fact that this particular Columbian carries these colours in its Genetic make-up.
it does not mean that every Columbian has these colours in its make up.

EARLY CONCLUSIONS Ideally anything produced from the Columbian colour, when mated back to the Columbian should produce a percentage of pure Columbian. The keys to the subtle art of breeding the Birchin, Mealy grey and Columbian colour patters appears to be locked into the method that the breeder utilises the three colours that appear to be interwoven, in a breeding program to complement each other. There is every chance that that a Line of Wild Partridge or Ginger coloured Pekins could be developed from these initial matings that would represent the Partridge or Ginger colour as we see it in Old English Game. Please bear in mind these notes have been based on just a few years of my breeding experiments and no doubt other results will emerge each year., particularly from other Breeders attempting to produce these colours. To date however results from which I have discovered much, are more than encouraging.