| Pigeon Breeds and Color Classes: Juggling with
colors in practice
Colors in the licensing process
Crossing pigeons with
different colors is for some a taboo according to the motto 'breed
pure and breed real'. For some it is a lottery game and for others
it is combinatorics that is applied to genetics. For organized
pigeon breeding it is rather a horror. The specific colors that
occur automatically at crossings pigeons from different standard
colors, each have their own genetic code, are treated in the general
exhibition provisions (AAB) as if each color was a separate breed
and had to go through special licensing procedures in order to be
allowed to be exhibited. And if it has not been exhibited for a
while, the organisation even reserve the right to delete it in the
standard. The next person who 'stumbles' over such a rarity at
crossings and finds it interesting can then go through a licensing
procedure again. Some manageable combinations from our own breeding
pen, in part about 20 years ago. Even if 90% of the breeders will
not believe it, and those responsible for the AAB do not anyway, the
example of the Pomeranian is exemplary for all other breeds. There
is no inheritance theory for individual breeds, the knowledge gained
from one breed can be transferred to others. And by pairing pigeons
with different hereditary factors, there is no mixing, but factors
are recombined and original combinations may come back unaltered in
the following generations.
Examples of mating
different colors at the author’s strain of Pomeranian Eye Crested
Highflyers
Ash red bar x Blue check
The Ash red bar cock x blue
check hen results in the first generation in the red-checked
dominant red shown in Fig. 1). They are not a standard color in this
breed. It's a typical intermediate-color class and doesn't bother
anyone, just the AAB, the provisions of the fancy poultry breeding
organization. It can be meaningfully mated with the other colors and
thus not reduce the breed’s base. If you love a stock of uniformly
colored pigeons, you can continue to breed them in large numbers.
Fig. 1: Ash red bar x Blue Check = Ash red check
Spread Ash x Blue bar
Spread Ash can be a pure
surprise bag of inheritance. If you know from the lineage what is
genetically in it, you can also estimate what colors will come out.
The heterozygous Spread Ash cock shown, mated with a blue-bar, has a
blue checkered and an ash red pale bar in a round (Fig. 2), and a
Spread Ash and a blue bar in another round (Fig. 3). And in very
clean colors! If you did not know beforehand what he was
genetically, then some of him is known from the offspring. The adult
cock is heterozygous for the color spreading factor, it is
heterozygous for the black base color, and thirdly it is also
heterozygous for the bar and check pattern.
Fig. 2: Spread Ash (heterozygous) x Blue bar = Blue Check and Ash
red bar
 
Fig. 3: Spread Ash (heterozygous) x Blue bar = Blue Bar and Spread
Ash
Spread Ash x Spread Ash
The Spread Ash, mated with a
Spread Ash hen, resulted also in a black hen (Fig. 4). Pigeons only
inherit the color gene from the father, so the dominant red base
color of the female is irrelevant for the daughters.
Fig. 4: Spread Ash (heterozygous) x Spread Ash = Black (a hen)
Spread Ash x Sprinkle and
Sprinkle x Black
Finally a mating of the
Spread Ash with a black sprinkle hen in the terminology of the
oriental roller in Fig. 5. A blue bar and a blue check in the
documented brood. The clean basic color of the young should also be
noted here, especially for the blue bar. Geneticists know that both
are hens. More common ist he mating of black sprinkles with black,
resulting here in sprinkle and black offspring in Fig. 6.
 
Fig. 5: Spread Asch (heterozygous) x Sprinkle (white with black
sprinkles) = Black and Blue bar (hens); Fig. 6: Sprinkle x Black =
Sprinkle and Black
Black x Black
Word has got around for most
pigeon fanciers that a black check or blue-bar youngster
occasionally is produced out of two blacks and is not so surprising.
That was also the case with the black pair shownin Fig. 7, a
relatively dark blue check young. Next to it a black with
recognizable bars. After moulting it will appear more intensely
colored. Now the darker bars are clearly recognizable, which are not
completely covered by the color spreading factor S. The parents are
both heterozygous for the color spreading factor.
Fig. 7: Black x Black = Black and Blue Check
Ash red bar from Blue bar
and Black?
Interesting a pairing, in
which an inexperienced observer could suspect that ash red from two
blacks, that shouldn't be! It is also not, the young in Fig. 8 is a
barred platinum. The black parents are obviously both heterozygous
for the hereditary factor platinum and also for the color spreading
factor. The difference between platinum-bar and ash red bar is best
seen in the color of the wings.
Fig. 8: Blue bar x Black = Platinum bar
Fig. 9: Platinum bar (at the left) and ash red bar - youngsters
Spread Ash and
outcrossing upon other breeds in part with undesired traits
However, you can also take
on too many and not suitable factors in the play. Like a juggler who
wants to keep too many rings in motion at the same time and then
starts spinning. With some combinations it is already clear in the
1st generation that negative traces remain and have to be
laboriously deleted by selection. From the pairing of the Spread Ash
with the red Tschinny Uzbek (Fig. 10) a dark Spead Ash has been
produced. The plumage color goes into the dark, which can have
different reasons.
Fig. 10: Spread Ash x Uzbek flying type, Tschinny with a Spread Ash
youngster
The smoky factor that all
Pomeranian Eye Crested Highflyer have is not present in the Tschinny.
The dominant hereditary factor dirty has been added. Probably the
gene for T-pattern and not bar or check. The young is
heterozygous-recessive red, and it is likely that there are other
dominant and recessive modifiers that are undesirable for a nice
ashen coloring of pigeons. Selection against such modifiers is
nothing more than eliminating undesirable factors or enriching the
strain with positive modifiers.
A current update of the
history of the strain
At the
end of the year, a practical report from the own strain of
Pomeranian Eye-Crested Highflyer. Pigeons shown at the special show
in Grimmen in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania on December 14th and
15th. For experts obvious the color difference between Spread Ash
(cock with 97 points V) and Platinum (cock with 94 points sg).
 
Fig.
11: Pomeranian Eye-Crested Highflyer
Spread Ash cock, Special Club Show 2019 V 97 points; Fig. 12:
Pomeranian Eye-Crested Highflyer
Spread Platinum cock, 2019 sg 94 points
A main
feature of this color-class is the gender-related difference between
the lighter cocks and the darker hens (the hen with 95 points sg).
Finally a black cock with 93 points. On the lower plumage of him,
some feathers indicated that he is split-platinum. Without mating
different colors from time to time with each other, the strain still
by inbreeding depression would have perished.
 
Fig.
13: Pomeranian Eye-Crested Highflyer Spread Platinum hen, Special
Club Show 2019 sg 95 points; Abb. 14: Pomeranian Eye-Crested
Highflyer Black cock sg 93 points.
For the
genetic background and
history
http://www.taubensell.de/art_visions_and_genetic_limitation…
Literature:
Sell, Axel and Jana, Vererbung bei Tauben,
Oertel + Spörer, Reutlingen 2004/2007
Sell, Axel, Genetik der Taubenfärbungen,
Achim 2015
Sell, Axel, Pigeon
Genetics. Applied Genetics in the Domestic Pigeon, Achim 2012
Sell, Axel, Taubenzucht. Möglichkeiten und
Grenzen züchterischer Gestaltung, Achim 2019
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