# Understanding colors..



## NetRider (May 6, 2007)

Hey all,

I have tried to read as much as I can about colors in pigeons, but I am not fully able to apply the readings to my own birds. I assume my pigeons are grizzles, because they usually start out with the following marking as young birds:










The dark head, dark tail, and dark primaries, but once they molt they will transform into these birds:











Dark head, which will become darker and darker for each year, and after about 2-3 years the head will look all black, while the body might be white with a few spots, or in most cases pure white with no traces of other colors at all. Could this be a combination of homozygous indigo and Spread?










Dark head with lots of white spots. The dark feathers will glow with a green/purple shade to them. The body might again be pure white, or with some dark here and there.










This is the third type, and the result is a white bird with few dark spots around the neck. After a molt or two the bird might turn into a pure white bird, with no black spots at all. 

These birds might come with white nails and beaks, black nails and beaks, or a combination of these. They do not have bull eyes, even though there are some which have grey to black eyes.

Could you please help me sort this out? Most websites deal with the mating between red, blue, and brown pigeons, its tricky when you dont know what your birds really are hehe


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## Glyn (Jun 29, 2009)

I WOuld Say Grizzle Mate


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## NetRider (May 6, 2007)

Here is another bird which totally change after the molt.

It start out with this color as a young bird:










All dark with the exception of the white saddle on the back. Here is an adult picture of the same bird (on the left):










I mated him to the hen on the right side of the picture, and he produced youngsters which look exactly like himself as young birds, and once they molt they look like his picture as an adult. The reason I find him different from the other birds in my loft is that none of the other breeders produce this dark, with white saddle marking. Most youngsters usually only have dark heads, primaries, and tail.

Btw, these are all pakistani high fliers.

Oh and I have another bird in my loft, which is a mix of english tippler, and pakistani high fliers, what would you call this color?


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## Glyn (Jun 29, 2009)

Well it looks a grey bared bird lol i may be wrong but thats what it looks like


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## NetRider (May 6, 2007)

One more thing... If I mate two birds which look almost the same, they will produce the same color in their offspring. Like for instance two birds with the really dark heads will produce birds with the same dark head... the color wont be lighter than their parents, which I have heard happens in grizzles. In fact sometimes the offspring will show even darker color than their parents, with no white around the neck at all.

I guess thats enough questions for now  I have some other markings I would like to ask about, but we will deal with them later. Thanks for the help


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## Glyn (Jun 29, 2009)

they could come out the same coulors but in a better or worse pattern try it see if you like if you dont you can always give it to someone lol


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## NetRider (May 6, 2007)

Oh that wasnt a question, just more info  I have already tested such matings, and I can confirm that instead of showing more white, they might in fact show more black around their necks.

So we believe these are blue bar with the grizzle effect? Or wait, they never show the bar, not even as young birds, does it mean barless then? Its tricky


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## MaryOfExeter (Sep 30, 2007)

I see no indigo (in in the case of ****. indigo spread, 'andalusian') in these birds. But I will tell you, that what you have going on is likely one or a mix of two different grizzles, making your birds moult out into much white birds.

Homozygous blue grizzle will form what we call 'storks'. Basically a bird who has colored tail and flights after the moult, with little color on the rest of the body. The amount of color left over varies greatly.

Then there is the tiger grizzle gene. Tiger grizzle babies will often look much like classic (hetero.) grizzle babies (or like can be easily mistaken as regular colored babies), but with each moult, bringing in more and more solid white feathers throughout the body, mostly starting with the wing shield. These birds turn out to be what we see as 'mottles'.

Another thing you have to consider is piebald. Some regular grizzles who are pied, can look similar to mottles in that they have solid white feathers here and there. But with pied/splashed birds, the white feathers will be there from the very beginning, where as ****. grizzles turn more white as adults, and tiger grizzles will get more white with each moult.


From the pictures I think you do definitely have some storks, but you may also have some tiger grizzle effecting them too. Especially in the ones who had black/blue flights and tail as a baby, but as adults the flights and tail turned white.
As for the other bird you asked about, he looks like a silver (dilute blue) or brown bar. I'm leaning more towards silver.


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## Glyn (Jun 29, 2009)

if it has grizzle feathers its a grizzle bird


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## MaryOfExeter (Sep 30, 2007)

One more thing, grizzle can greatly effect the look of the pattern, so while you may just see a grizzled bird, it is actually genetically a check, bar, or sometimes barless (which I doubt, but possible! not common in most breeds)


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## MaryOfExeter (Sep 30, 2007)

Glyn said:


> if it has grizzle feathers its a grizzle bird


Yes, but he was trying to understand the genetics of them, in which there is more than one kind of grizzle...


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## MaryOfExeter (Sep 30, 2007)

Blah, I need to add oneeeee more thing, because I just noticed the part when you mentioned the eyes. A grizzle's eyes can be any color, but pied birds do seem to often have bull eyes or split eyes, which is a color eye with 'shadow' spots, sometimes leaving one or both eyes half black, half color. So your birds will bull or dark eyes are more likely to be carrying piebald genes.


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## NetRider (May 6, 2007)

Thanks for the help, I think I will have to study the grizzle effects a lil more in detail.
I do not have any bull eyed birds in my loft, so I do not think any of my birds are pied. They always show pearl eyes, a lil red, or a pearl kinda eye with dark shadows. 

Will be interesting to see what others think about these. You have been of great help Becky

Forgot to add one thing. In my first post where I have posted pictures of what that youngster might turn into. The third case where the bird is almost all white with only a few spots... I have earlier mated two of those birds, and they threw whites which in fact were all white in the nests too, but once they molted they got the black spots.


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## MaryOfExeter (Sep 30, 2007)

Well, like I said, pied birds often have bull OR shadowed (called split) eyes. I'll find some pictures of the eyes for you to see  I remember posting something about split eyes before.

Here's one thread:
http://www.pigeons.biz/forums/f5/ey...k-at-this-eye-26303.html?highlight=split+eyes
Shows some good pictures at the beginning, then I posted one of my roller with one bull eye, and one split white eye.


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## NetRider (May 6, 2007)

Nope no split eyes in my birds (Like your roller). But the first picture with the dark shadow on the red eye. Yup seen that in some of them, but in that case the eye has no color. Its white with that shadow, no orange, red, or any other colors exist. White/Grey/Black seems to be the only colors. Also the dark shadow only seem to be around the pupil, the outer area of the eye is always white with the last ring in blue/black.


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## george simon (Feb 28, 2006)

NetRider said:


> Oh and I have another bird in my loft, which is a mix of english tippler, and pakistani high fliers, what would you call this color?


*HI NET RIDER, I was checking out some of the old post and I see that you never got an answer on this bird. This bird looks like dilute blue or as show people would call a silver.I would like to see a picture of the parents of this bird.*GEORGE


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## Yeasmin (Jun 24, 2009)

Hei i've pakistani Tipplers too. And the 1st and 2nd round baby looks exactly as the 1st pics. Would my babies turn to white too.?.?


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## MaryOfExeter (Sep 30, 2007)

George, are you sure that highflier isn't brown? It can be hard to tell a the two apart sometimes but I'm thinking I may see a brownish tone to it 


Yeasmin,
If your babies look like those in the first post, then yes, they'll probably moult out to be mostly white


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## NetRider (May 6, 2007)

Yeasmin said:


> Hei i've pakistani Tipplers too. And the 1st and 2nd round baby looks exactly as the 1st pics. Would my babies turn to white too.?.?


They will most likely turn into the colors of my adult birds.


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## NetRider (May 6, 2007)

Hey George.

Here are two pictures of her parents.









The bird on the right side of the picture is the mother of this hen, and a pure pakistani high flier.









The bird on the right side of this picture is the father of the hen. He is 50% english tippler, and 50% pakistani high flier.

I believe she is a dilute too, but this was the first time he threw out a bird in that color, actually her nest sister had a more intense "red" color, but guess the hawk loved that color too. I have bred 5 youngsters from him with 3 different hens, and he always give them his color, they never end up as grizzles even though I mate him to a bird which looks pure white.


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## Henk69 (Feb 25, 2010)

Hi,

Just reread a german article by Andreas Leiss in the magazine Geflügel-börse about black pigeons with white shields.

He found out that they are based on Grizzle, or one of its alleles, combined with a factor he calls "pseudotiger". This gene pushes the white from the grizzle away from the head and onto the shield. So no stork homozygotes.

This case (start of topic) sounds similar.


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## sunson (Nov 13, 2009)

Your Pakistani Highflyers are in color (and type) just similar to the several varieties of Budapester Highflyers. No wonder this type of grizzle color appeared in flying breeds in Europe after the Ottoman army was stopped at the siege of Vienna in 1683, when the Austrians recovered the land occupied by the sultans for more than 200 years in eastern Europe.

Do not worry about color but just select only on highflying capacity in order to enjoy this breed. And remember: highflying is the first characteristic to disappear when one selects for exhibition. 

Normaly crossings of different breeds does not improve flying capacities. You will loose the typical flying style of both breeds. 

By the way: what are the performances of your birds? (time/height). What about the flying style? Do you have problems with overfly's?


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## NetRider (May 6, 2007)

sunson, thank you for your input.

I do select for performance, but I find it interesting to research on the pigeon genetics, and the easiest part to understand is the colors, as everything is visible, and you can see what you get much faster than testing other factors like performance.

But indeed if you can get good looks and good performance in the same bird, why not 

Most of my birds fly at a great height, they usually spend around 10 minutes before they start looking like pin heads in the sky, from here they will fly even higher where the human eye can no longer spot them. They will become visible, and disappear like this several times during their flight, sometimes being invisible for hours. They do not rake, and always stay at top of their loft, in circles of maybe 500-800 metres. 

In the competition 7 birds are released 6 am in the morning, and I have had birds land as late as 9.30 pm, while my friend has had a hen land at 11.15 pm. These birds do not fly in kits, but some individuals might kit for a while, before going solo again. When released this early, overflys are not normal, but if you have several good birds who are really competitive, it might happen, as some birds do not want to land unless the other birds drop first.

They might not fly as long as tipplers, but I doubt the tippler would make such times if they did not fly as a kit, the temptation to land is much bigger when you are flying alone. Also I do not signal the birds like Tippler fliers do. The birds land when they themselves feel like it.


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## Covenant Loft (Feb 10, 2009)

Also remember grizzle is a dominant gene therefore it has the possiblity to overtake your loft.

Walter


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## george simon (Feb 28, 2006)

MaryOfExeter said:


> George, are you sure that highflier isn't brown? It can be hard to tell a the two apart sometimes but I'm thinking I may see a brownish tone to it :confuse


*Hi Becky, Could be, that is why I asked to see the parents,The browns that Ihave in my loft look a bit different,its tough to tell some colors from a picture. ..... Did you get the pm I sent on project Backyard Feeder Watch?....... I just went back and saw the pictures of the parents of the bird the sire is a blue bar he could be carring brown as a second color and he also could be carring dilute ,I will change MOP on this bird to brown.*GEORGE


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