# mealy pigeons



## tstjohn

Could someone tell me what a mealy racing looks like, or send me a picture.

Thank You

Terry


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## MaryOfExeter

Mealy is the racer term for ash-red bar, especially the light silvery looking ones. Here's some pictures: 


































All of those are Sky Lake Sions Loft birds. There's many more red bars in their breeder section, along with those above.
http://www.skylakesions.com/


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## Crazy Pete

Call them what you will, i'm old school. Thats just a silver.
Dave


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## learning

Crazy Pete said:


> Call them what you will, i'm old school. Thats just a silver.
> Dave


I'm with you Dave, for me they are much to pretty for an ugly name like "mealy". Sounds like they are a second class citizen. To me they are silvers. Much more dignified sounding. 

Dan


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## MaryOfExeter

To me they are red bars, simply because silver is dilute blue, LOL. My dad calls them red bar silvers.


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## ZigZagMarquis

tstjohn said:


> Could someone tell me what a mealy racing looks like, or send me a picture.
> 
> Thank You
> 
> Terry


Attached are photos of a couple of my birds. The first is of Janey, what I've heard called a mealy bar. OBTW, don't let the name fool you, he's a cock-bird. The second is of one of his offspring, JJ, short for Janey Junior. Again, don't be fooled, she's a hen.


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## ohiogsp

I got alot of silvers this year and love them especially is they have those small black streaks in them (like on the head of the first one becky posted). There is a mith that all silvers with the black streaks are cock birds. It is true in my breeders so maybe not a myth?


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## Crazy Pete

How is a silver a dilute blue? Even if you hold them up to the light you can't see blue. Look at the Sky Lake Sions, they even have a silver shine to them. Calling such a handsome bird a mealy or a red bar just does not do them justice.
Dave


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## MaryOfExeter

'Silver' as in these red bars, are NOT dilute blue. 'Silver' is just a commonly used nickname for ash-red bars, not the genetic name.


TRUE silvers, as in, the actual genetic color called silver, is dilute blue. Most people call these 'dun bars' or 'dun checks' (even though dun is actually dilute black).

This confusion is why I try hard not to call a red bar, silver. Because I know silver is actually a whole other color.




As for the 'myth' of red cockbirds having black flecks, this is NOT a myth 
Only cockbirds can have these black flecks in the tail, flights, and sometimes even on the head and wing shield. What causes these flecks is the fact that these cockbirds are carrying a gene for blue. The three basic colors can only be carried on the X chromosomes. Cocks have two X's, and hens have one. This is why the more dominate color (in this case, red) is shown while the recessive color (in this case, blue) is carried hidden. Hens can only have one color gene. So a red hen will not have blue/black flecks, because she isn't carrying it!
Having that said, cocks who are not carrying blue, will not have black flecks. They may have red flecks (or no flecks at all) if they are pure reds. Or they may have brown flecks if carrying brown. So it is possible for birds who look like hens, to be cocks, if they are pure red birds.


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## Crazy Pete

I've never had the dilute thing explained to me befor and it all sounds good, but i think i'll just stick with silver
Dave


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## Salah ud din Malik

How do we make white necked mealy pigeons?


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## showracer

In OZ it is a Mealy


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## Rod Hultquist

I'm with "Mary of Exter" I believe she's got it right. Some twenty years ago I got into a similar dicussion with an older club member that spent some time with the Army Signal Corps. He eplained it just the same as M.o.E. He told me that that in Belgium, silver was a term only used by the fancy pigeon breeders. That said I don't think the term "silver" will ever be dropped from the racing pigeon fancier's vocabulary.


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## pigeon_racer

I don't know what you would call this color (it's what we call a mealy)! A silver (red bar ash for color breeding purists) that has no red bars and very fine flecking of black and blue. Regional differences in what people call a certain "color" just add to the confusion. There are people around here that call a solid dark blue almost black upper bodied bird with a blue belly a "black". My son when he was about eight, unintentionally insulted a breeder who had one of these birds which he called black. When told by the breeder that it was a black pigeon my son told him, " My dad breeds blacks and this is not a black!" Was I mortified, he did this while standing in the man's breeding loft. I apologized for my son's misstep. That was easy compared to trying to explain to an eight year old that the breeder calling the bird black was perfectly alright even though in the strictest sense of the word the bird was not a "Black"!


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## ERIC K

What if the bird is the silver color but doesn't have bars ? 

Pigeon racer what does a black pigeon look like ?


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## pigeon_racer

*Black*

Black to me is just that, other than down feathers, that's all they have, black feathers. If it has any feathering that is not black, this is when you run into color tags like blue bar pied, red splash, black white flight. I hope this makes sense.


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## ERIC K

Okay what color is this. It's almost is a bar less. and I know it's young but it is a sliver color just a lighter shade. The father is black and the mother is either a red bar or mealy or silver.


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## pigeon_racer

Nice youngster, if you ask a person that studies color genetics I don't know what it would be called. For the layman pigeon racer, which I am, it's almost a SILVER! If it lacked the red bars entirely it would be. Don't get me wrong, I don't have a problem with fanciers that like to study the proper terms for color genetics, and try for certain colors in their breeding, to each his or her own. WE (both sides of the question) have to quit telling people that they are wrong when they call a pigeon a certain color. We are all here to enjoy our pigeons as we see fit, let's not get hung up on semantics.


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## akbird

I would say an ash spread. JMHO.


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## pigeon_racer

And you're probably right!


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## ERIC K

Just wanted to know and I could have posted this in the colors don't fly thread cause this little guy has a LBRA auction band so it's going to be shipped to Walter AKA Pigeon 0446for his club race.


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