The Buff Silkie

What is a Buff Silkie?

The Buff Silkie Bantam is a Golden variety of the Silkie Bantam breed, In the UK they are sometimes called Gold Silkies.

Silkies are miniature chickens that originated in China and were all originally white and new colours have been added over the years.

Buff Silkie bantam chicks are straw coloured with some, especially the cockerels, having brown streaks down the back. The skin, beak, legs and toes are black.

Most colours will cover up buff and it need to be selected for carefully otherwise you get chicks the colours of their mothers and most will likely have buff leakage.

They are buff coloured with the same black skin of the other Silkie varieties, and mulberry comb, face, and wattles. These are fairly rare

Buff Genetics:

Buff is be based on either e^b or E^Wh. The clearest buffs are wheaten based. Silkies, however are almost always brown based. You can tell the difference by looking at the under-colour.

Buff is diluted form of red.

Blue dilutes black pigment but has little effect on red pigment. What blue does to a buff is dilute the black feathers so that they are less noticeable; it does little or nothing to the buff colouring, and knowledgeable breeders would not expect it to.