# wht color? would it be good to pair with a copper black wing archangel hen?



## chinbunny (Mar 1, 2010)

Im thinking he may be a bronze breasted copper headed blue wing?



















Would it be wise to pair him with my copper black wing archangel hen? She is proven. I have her paired with my other cock bird,and they aren't producing anything. The blue one is the only other bird I have to pair her with at the moment. would it intensify the blue, or mess up the color on the black? or would I get copper blue wings?


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## Iceland (Jan 28, 2007)

Wow! Beautiful bird there.


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## MaryOfExeter (Sep 30, 2007)

Pretty bird. Yes, you can breed coppers with golds. There is only one gene that separates the two colors - pale. Some lighter colored birds are that way because of dilute. I'm not sure if the bird in question is dilute blue or just pale/gold (although I am pretty sure it is pale). Either way, it is fine. If he is pale, then it is a sex-linked mating in which all daughters will be gold and all sons will be copper. I think the two-toned look on the bird is due to poor covering of the pale and archangel bronze genes. Breeding it to a more consistantly colored bird should improve it.


Edited because I kept calling the gold color "bronze", which can be very confusing  It's already confusing enough because most people call pale recessive red "gold".


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## chinbunny (Mar 1, 2010)

MaryOfExeter said:


> Pretty bird. Yes, you can breed coppers with bronze. There is only one gene that separates the two colors - pale. Some lighter colored birds are that way because of dilute. I'm not sure if the bird in question is dilute blue or just pale/bronze (although I am pretty sure it is pale). Either way, it is fine. If he is pale, then it is a sex-linked mating in which all daughters will be bronze and all sons will be copper. I think the two-toned look on the bird is due to poor covering of the pale and archangel bronze genes. Breeding it to a more consistantly colored bird should improve it.


His father is a copper breasted blue wing. He has the very dark bluish green head. The momma is a gold blue wing. The dad is very very dark, the momma is light. So yeah, still learning about colors, I can see what you mean by it possibly being a pale now. The camera also has him off a shade. He is not dark blue, but he is not light either. That would be great if he threw sex llinked babies. I have a new breeder that is interested in buying some young hens from me out of anything of mine that has the copper blue in in them. Ive been told my copper hen has awesome color, so it should help. Thanks for the advice mary, and thanks iceland, yes he is gorgeous.


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## MaryOfExeter (Sep 30, 2007)

Can't wait to see what the babies look like!  The slate bars on the male have a really neat effect too.


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## chinbunny (Mar 1, 2010)

Do you think its a blue bar? I looked at pictures of blues, and they all seem to have those markings. Also I competed against some copper black wings at the hillsdale county fair last year.These had the black wings with blue tail feathers that looked like the ones on my two blue, and my toy stencil. I was afraid if get colors like that. Those birds beat my copper black wings, even though mine were better colored. I was told by someone the tail feathers like that might be a fault. The babies will be interesting. I can wait till they nest. I did sell what I think was a sister to this bird, to someone else least year. She looked like she was going to go gold marked, and her color and markings were much paler. The rest of her siblings I sold were marked exactly this guy. Could she have been a pale you were talking about? The head was similar to his, but also much lighter.


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## MaryOfExeter (Sep 30, 2007)

Birds with black wings and blue tails are blue t-pattern, not actual black. Yes, your bird is a blue bar  Slate makes them fade out a bit like that.

It sounds like the sister was probably dilute, which makes the birds lighter overall than the pale gene does. The pale gene is what turns copper into gold 

If your blackwings have black tails, then you will get blues (either bars, checks, or t-patterns) and more blacks when mated to this guy. You may get all blackwings if it is pure black (two genes, in which all the kids would get one. It's dominant).


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## chinbunny (Mar 1, 2010)

MaryOfExeter said:


> Birds with black wings and blue tails are blue t-pattern, not actual black. Yes, your bird is a blue bar  Slate makes them fade out a bit like that.
> 
> It sounds like the sister was probably dilute, which makes the birds lighter overall than the pale gene does. The pale gene is what turns copper into gold
> 
> If your blackwings have black tails, then you will get blues (either bars, checks, or t-patterns) and more blacks when mated to this guy. You may get all blackwings if it is pure black (two genes, in which all the kids would get one. It's dominant).




Is blue t a showable color? I was told it wasn't desirable on blacks. I see some archangel websites list them as breeding quality blacks. I would think they woul dbe good to pair with a god blue. Her tail feathers are black. I thought it was odd that one of those would beat a nice colored black like that. the judge really didn't know what he was doing though, and was going for body type over color. He kept forgetting where his winners of each class were at, and said he'd only judged homers.

Yeah she was almost gold colored. The guy I sold her to seemed to like her alot. She was pretty. I was gonna keep her until he said hed be interested in her. from the way her coloring looked, I think she was going to go gold breasted. 

So far my black hen throws dark copper blacks and bronze breasted blue checks, depending on what she is paired with. I wish I could get a sucessful clutch out of her and my copper black cock, but that doesn't look like its going to happen. 

Would I still get sex linked babies from breeding to the copper black, since her tail is pure black. or would it be anyones guess? I went and ahead and put them together. So I guess we will see what we get.


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## MaryOfExeter (Sep 30, 2007)

Yes, all patterns and spread are in the standard. As long as the wing is solid black, I don't see why it couldn't be considered a blackwing. For a long time blackwings were blue t-patterns because it takes a little more effort to get good bronzing on spread birds.

About the sex-linking, as long as you put a copper male with a gold hen, you will have a sex-linked mating. The base color (blue, ash-red, brown) and pattern doesn't matter  Spread also doesn't get in the way.


http://www.angelfire.com/bc/Bouvreuil/StandardArchangelAACc.html


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## chinbunny (Mar 1, 2010)

hmm I wonder if thats what happened with the original pairing of the copper breasted blue to gold and blue hen? Could that be why the female was lighter then the others?

This guy is going to be paired with a copper hen, and he isn't gold, so probaby not? Sorry a little confused.


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## MaryOfExeter (Sep 30, 2007)

Yes, that is why she was lighter 


I thought he was considered gold? He looks lighter than the mahogany colored coppers. Could just be the lighting of course


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## chinbunny (Mar 1, 2010)

I got to looking at him again tonight,and I think you are right. I think he is a gold. his chest color is the same of his mommas, and she is gold blue wing with the blue bars. Her color is a nice rich gold, all the way through. The dad is the copper breasted blue I mentioned above. so I think I understand what you are saying now. that if they are sexed links, out of the original pair, the hens might turn out lighter then the cocks right? That would explained the attitudes these guys had when I sold them. The new owner was gonna let them breed with the copper blue checks, I sold them. I think they were copper. they might be bronze, since they were lighter colored copper.I don't ill have to find a picture of the one hen I kept from the the stencil wing breeding that threw the checks. 

That if I paired this bird with the copper hen the cocks would be copper, and the hens would be gold, along with the multiple wing colors you mentioned. Got it now. Thanks. think im gonna mail the link to this to the guy I sold the siblings to so he can read up on this too.

LOl pigeon varieties are so confusing!


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## chinbunny (Mar 1, 2010)

That's the blue check I mentioned before she molted into her adult colors. Her head is an off shade brown, not really dark copper like the mom is. You can't see it that well, the color fades from from her chest, to almost blue/grey near the legs. Its almost like a rusty brown, with the two toned colors on the head. That's because the dad doesn't have the correct color he should have. he has a splash of copper on the chest. the rest is blue ice. Kind of looks like some of the check homer colors. That's what I got when I bred him to my copper hen. I bred her back to her dad, to see if I can get them to throw more toy stencils. That's what a local archangel breeder told me to do, was to breed her back to him,and I should get some toy stencil wings. I have two babies out of them right now. Probably gonna be a non showable color. I plan to keep the best cockbird to line breed back to her. hopefully that will bring in the chest color back, plus more toy stencil wings. 

She is a very good momma for a first timer. I tried to breed her to this blue. They just didn't get it that the eggs are supposed to be laid in the nest, not on the wire. So I split them up and placed with them with more experienced breeding birds.


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## chinbunny (Mar 1, 2010)

any ideas on the true hen color mary?


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## rudolph.est (May 14, 2009)

MaryOfExeter said:


> Yes, all patterns and spread are in the standard. As long as the wing is solid black, I don't see why it couldn't be considered a blackwing. For a long time blackwings were blue t-patterns because it takes a little more effort to get good bronzing on spread birds.


I think the terminology for the archangel is confusing. Copper blackwings (or the true archangel) are NEVER spread, even though their tails are black (almost - if you look closely at the tail, you might be able to make out the bar.) Spread archangels should never be called copper blackwing, but rather true-black, or black firebird. It is difficult to breed good copper coloration on these true blacks. The standard requires that the copper (or gold) covers the whole the head, neck, breast, belly, upper legs and down to the hock feathers. Spread makes this coloration extremely difficult to achieve.

I have a spread youngster from an archangel (copper blackwing) and a spread barb mating. This birds shows very good bronzing around the neck, but due its extreme iridescence, it is difficult to see the bronze clearly. With selection the coverage intensity of the bronze can be improved, but a single mating of such birds back to the normal blue / blackwings would probably undo much of the hard work that went into the selection process. 

Conversely mating blackwings with bluewings always produce blackwings / bluewings. The only factor in that case is whether the bird is T-pattern or not. Much simpler in my opinion.

Kind regards,
Rudolph


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## rudolph.est (May 14, 2009)

Hi Chinbunny,

Your cock bird is definitely a gold blue wing, and it looks to be smoky as well, a good modifier to have on archangels, because of the darkening effect. I am not sure whether is barred or barless with sooty. Not that the difference matters if you are breeding him to blackwings to produce gold blackwing hens.

The hen in the picture is just a blue check with archangel bronze, possibly only a single dose. Both birds seem to have too little of the bronze / gold coloration required by the standard.

I would mate him to a very good colored copper (whether black or blue wing doesn't matter). That would probably give you some very good colored gold hens, and possibly even some good copper cocks as well.

As to the hen, I am not sure I would use her in any breeding program unless no better birds are available. If her dad is off-color, but has some genes you would like in your stock (toy stencil for instance) you should mate him with the best hen you have, breed three rounds or so, and then mate his best daughter back to him. Breed three rounds choose the best colored hen and cock and inbreed to the parents again, and so forth. Otherwise you might never get show quality birds with the desired traits. Inbreeding on weak (off colored) birds tend to produce more weak birds.

Kind regards,
Rudolph


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## MaryOfExeter (Sep 30, 2007)

I agree with Rudolph. Sorry I didn't see your reply sooner!


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## chinbunny (Mar 1, 2010)

@ rudolph already beat you to that on the stencil.  I only ave three pairs. The young cock, and the older cocks. My best two hens are a gold blue wing, and a copper blue wing. As you an see I have limited stock, and space. My really dark blue cockbird only likes one hen, and that's the gold one. I tried pairing im with another and he killed her. I mated the copper black to the toy stencil, which produced the younger hen. She was one that got lucky it didn't get sold. She actually escaped on me the night I was vaccinating and getting her ready to take to a rabbit show with me the next day, to be sold to another breeder. Then she came home two days later. I think she was the only hen they threw, I believe the rest out of their clutches were cock birds. That's exactly what I planned to do was keep the best cockbird, and mate it back to her,and the best daughter form that breeding back to him. i do the same thing with my rabbit breeding program, so I figured the same thing would work for birds. I would love to eventually get a show quality toy stencil. 

I really hope the cockbird produces gold blackwing hens. I think they are very pretty. Would be a show quality color, or just a brood cock? 

Thanks for the information! Its greatly appreciated.


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## chinbunny (Mar 1, 2010)

BTW that picture was taken when that hen was baby. Her head is copper colored. Its not dark though and fades off into gray around the legs. 

What if I eventually invested in good copper blackwing cock to breed her with, after the toy stencil matings?


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