# Piebald



## dtrojcak (Aug 31, 2010)

Is piebald a dominant or recessive gene?
I have a recessive white cock that is apparently a pied, ash-red check underneath the white.
So far his offspring have been 6 red, pied, checks and 2 red checks when he was mated to a dilute blue bar hen. I currently am trying to mate him back to one of his daughters in order to create more white pigeons.

My question is if the pied gene is a dominant gene, ie. it will show up if a bird is "het" for it. If so, then I should expect 50% pied offspring from the 6 pied birds I now have if they are paired with a non-pied pigeon, correct?

I have a blue check, carrying bar cock I want to mate to one of the pied red hens. Because of the sex-linked color, I would expect all males to be red, carrying blue and all females to be blue. If the pied gene is dominant, I would also expect approximately 50% of the offspring to also be pied, correct?


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## Henk69 (Feb 25, 2010)

What kind of pied pattern are we speaking about?


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## sreeshs (Aug 16, 2009)

I have heard that the pie genes in pigeons are one of the least studied and very complicated, is that true ?


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## Henk69 (Feb 25, 2010)

They are a mess alright.


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## dtrojcak (Aug 31, 2010)

Henk69 said:


> What kind of pied pattern are we speaking about?


All of the pied ones have at least 3-4 white wing feathers. A couple of them barely have any red feathers at all, I would guess they would be about 75-80% white. One of the ones I thought didn't have any white feathers, actually has 1 white wing feather on only 1 side.
My question is will these birds produce pied offspring and in what %'s.


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## loonecho (Feb 25, 2010)

dtrojcak said:


> All of the pied ones have at least 3-4 white wing feathers. A couple of them barely have any red feathers at all, I would guess they would be about 75-80% white. One of the ones I thought didn't have any white feathers, actually has 1 white wing feather on only 1 side.
> My question is will these birds produce pied offspring and in what %'s.


I don't know what percentages would be, but my pied birds produce mostly pied young. Seems like if one parent is pied and the other is not, about half of the young come out pied. If both parents are pied, I seem to get nearly all pied young and it seems to be additive. That is, the young seem to have more white expressed than either of the parents. Some pied patterns in my loft are repeatable in that the markings are very similar or nearly identical to one of the parents. Two pied parents have also produced nearly pure white young on a regular basis in my loft as well.

Loonecho


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## dtrojcak (Aug 31, 2010)

I guess another question would be, is pied recessive? In other words, can two non-pied birds produce pied offspring? Or is pied sort of like grizzle, where a bird is either showing pied or is not pied. If they're "carrying" the gene, then they show it.


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## Matt Bell (May 5, 2010)

The problem is, like mentioned earlier, the pied genes are a mess, lol. There are several of them, and I think that some are dominant and some are also recessive. An oldtimer once told me that if a bird DOES NOT have any white toe nails then they CAN NOT produce any offspring with white (pied) markings. As far as all of my birds go, this has held true. Now thats not to say that it is true for everyone, and I don't have anything scientific to back it up, but thats what I was told and thus far it has rung true for me. Yes, even on a blue check with no white feathers, I have had them with white toe nails and they did produce young with pied markings. I thought it was odd, but it matched what the old timer was saying.


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## rastgo (Mar 29, 2011)

@dtrojcak. 
Whenever, I have crossed a pied racing homer to a non pied racing homer, I have always obtained non-pied youngsters. I guess this makes it recessive.


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## horseart4u (Jun 16, 2011)

loonecho said:


> I don't know what percentages would be, but my pied birds produce mostly pied young. Seems like if one parent is pied and the other is not, about half of the young come out pied. If both parents are pied, I seem to get nearly all pied young and it seems to be additive. That is, the young seem to have more white expressed than either of the parents. Some pied patterns in my loft are repeatable in that the markings are very similar or nearly identical to one of the parents. Two pied parents have also produced nearly pure white young on a regular basis in my loft as well.
> 
> Loonecho


thank you for telling everone this know i know what to expect from my 3 pieds in the future. i am hoping to breed 1 to an ash red tiger, 1 to a grizzle & 1 to a white with blk tail with stencil markings


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## amumtaz (Jun 13, 2007)

http://mumtazticloft.com/m_baldheadpied.asp


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