# creast question



## spirit wings (Mar 29, 2008)

I have a plain head hen and a cr cock, they have been through two rounds of hatching and the young are one pl head and one cr. my question is this is the creast sex linked? will the young bird with the creast be a certain sex?


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## dimerro (Nov 23, 2008)

No, the crest is not sexlinked. It is an autosomal recessive trait. You plain head hen is heterozigous for crest and the young birds will be a half cocks and a half hens.


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## spirit wings (Mar 29, 2008)

dimerro said:


> No, the crest is not sexlinked. It is an autosomal recessive trait. You plain head hen is heterozigous for crest and the young birds will be a half cocks and a half hens.


Thank You!


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## sreeshs (Aug 16, 2009)

Interesting, I have a cock with crest and a plain head hen. First 3 rounds I got plain head chicks. Now I have started getting a "close to crests" The color pattern of these youngs are almost exact as the cock but they have little curvature of the feathers back in the head that they cannot be called crest, but not plain head, somewhere in between. Why would this be happening ? only the chicks with the same color and spread pattern as the cock is having this growth.


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## spirit wings (Mar 29, 2008)

sreeshs said:


> Interesting, I have a cock with crest and a plain head hen. First 3 rounds I got plain head chicks. Now I have started getting a "close to crests" The color pattern of these youngs are almost exact as the cock but they have little curvature of the feathers back in the head that they cannot be called crest, but not plain head, somewhere in between. Why would this be happening ? only the chicks with the same color and spread pattern as the cock is having this growth.



wow a blast from the past!!! lol..

the creasts I have are shell creast on a frillback. the curve forward encircling the head like this helmet http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c6/Crested_helmet_pigeon.jpg 

I have had two nest mates with creasts now, so my hen must carry a creast gene.


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## MaryOfExeter (Sep 30, 2007)

A crested bird with a pure plain headed bird will give you all plain heads in F1. They'll be carrying the crest gene, so putting them with another crest will give you 50/50. With a plain headed mate, it'd be just like the initial pair.

Works the same way as most of the other recessive traits 


But like in all things, you have poor quality and bad quality. Sreeshs, if you're starting to get slightly crested birds out of that same pair, then I'm assuming your hen is split for crest, and it's just been the luck of the draw that the majority so far have been plain headed.
I have a dove hen like you're describing, with just the slightest little peak on the back of her head. Sometimes it's easy to miss it. She is with a plain headed cockbird, and all the kids look like dad. However, one of her daughters, gave me the most beautiful crested dove. You cannot miss a crest like that!
If it was a matter of all birds with a certain trait looking the same and to perfection, then selecting show birds would be much easier  So some things have to be improved on before they look as they should.


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## sreeshs (Aug 16, 2009)

So what you mean by that is the hen is also carrying one gene for crest inherited someway down the line. When from the cock and the hen the gene for crest is adopted I am getting a crested young one. But its still not having a crest like its father because the hen's crest gene is actually not of the same quality for crest as of the cock ? Is that the answer ?  I am pretty new to genetics in pigeon and on the course of learning the A,B,C,D,.....


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## sreeshs (Aug 16, 2009)

What about foot feathers ? Is this also autosomal recessive trait ?


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## spirit wings (Mar 29, 2008)

here is some creast info I got from someone.... it is handy ... not sure about the muffs.

Crested x crested would have 100% chance.

Crested X non-crested (non-carrier) would have 50% chance.

Crested X non-crested (carrier) would have 75% chance.

Non-crest (carrier) X non-crest (non-carrier) have 25% chance

Non-crest (carrier) X non-crest (carrier) have 50% chance.


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## MaryOfExeter (Sep 30, 2007)

After doing some punnett squares and realizing I made a mistake in my last post (I'm not trying to do these in my head anymore, LOL), I'm confused.

I don't see how some of those things would work out.
Here's what I got:

Crested x crested would have 100% chance.

Crested X non-crested (non-carrier) would have 100% Plain-head and carrying crest gene.

Crested X non-crested (carrier) would have 50% Crest, 50% Plain-head carrying crest.

Non-crest (carrier) X non-crest (non-carrier) have 25% plain-head carrying crest, 75% pure plain-head.

Non-crest (carrier) X non-crest (carrier) have 25% crest, 50% plain-head carrying crest, 25% pure plain-head.


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## MaryOfExeter (Sep 30, 2007)

As for the muffs, I have no idea. I think this came up one time here, but I can't remember. I know there is grouse-leg, but I'm not sure if there's another feather-legged gene or not. If not, then it must come with a switcher gene that tells it when to stop growing, or we'd have the same length feathers on their feet all the time. Which I suppose could be why some crests are more developed than others....hmmm. Or maybe I'm just thinking too hard about the possibilities of genetics in pigeons  
Since there's both peak crest and shell crest, does anyone know if there's two separate genes for them, or if there's just a general 'crested' gene?


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## hasseian_313 (Oct 31, 2009)

yah but i notice in my breeds too like i have what think ppl can a dun hen and a blue cock and they throw either one blue one dun or 2 duns but the blue is all ways a male


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## spirit wings (Mar 29, 2008)

MaryOfExeter said:


> After doing some punnett squares and realizing I made a mistake in my last post (I'm not trying to do these in my head anymore, LOL), I'm confused.
> 
> I don't see how some of those things would work out.
> Here's what I got:
> ...


lol... all I know is my pl head girl must carry crest as they hatched two (same clutch) crested babies. and one clutch had one crest and on plain. I would say if you want crests, breed crest to crest and you don't have to wait and see if you have a carrier...lol... Good stuff Becky


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## spirit wings (Mar 29, 2008)

MaryOfExeter said:


> As for the muffs, I have no idea. I think this came up one time here, but I can't remember. I know there is grouse-leg, but I'm not sure if there's another feather-legged gene or not. If not, then it must come with a switcher gene that tells it when to stop growing, or we'd have the same length feathers on their feet all the time. Which I suppose could be why some crests are more developed than others....hmmm. Or maybe I'm just thinking too hard about the possibilities of genetics in pigeons
> Since there's both peak crest and shell crest, does anyone know if there's two separate genes for them, or if there's just a general 'crested' gene?


as far as the muffs go, just kinda interesting, my first frill babies had what I thought were poor muffs or not as long as they should be, a bit longer than grouse leg, and the last clutch both with crest mind you, had long muffs....from the same pair...what up with that?


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## MaryOfExeter (Sep 30, 2007)

hasseian_313 said:


> yah but i notice in my breeds too like i have what think ppl can a dun hen and a blue cock and they throw either one blue one dun or 2 duns but the blue is all ways a male


Could be luck. I guess it somewhat depends on what color you mean by dun. The REAL dun is dilute black, but many people call silvers (dilute blue) and browns 'dun' as well. But I'm assuming it isn't brown in your case because unless the cockbird was split for brown as well, they'd all be blue.


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## MaryOfExeter (Sep 30, 2007)

Just checked for dilute as well. Still isn't sex-linked in the way that all blues are always male, in the pairing you have. So I suppose it is just your luck.
http://www.angelfire.com/ga3/pigeongenetics/diluteresults.html

Also, notice your cockbird must be split for dilute. IF this is silver we're talking about.


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## indigobob (Nov 12, 2008)

MaryOfExeter said:


> As for the muffs, I have no idea. I think this came up one time here, but I can't remember. I know there is grouse-leg, but I'm not sure if there's another feather-legged gene or not. If not, then it must come with a switcher gene that tells it when to stop growing, or we'd have the same length feathers on their feet all the time. Which I suppose could be why some crests are more developed than others....hmmm. Or maybe I'm just thinking too hard about the possibilities of genetics in pigeons
> Since there's both peak crest and shell crest, does anyone know if there's two separate genes for them, or if there's just a general 'crested' gene?


In Paul Gibson's book _Genetics Of Pigeons_ he states the crest gene (cr) produces shell and peak crest - modifiers/polygenes determining whether peak or shell is produced.

Three types of feather footing are generally recognised - grouse, slipper and muffed.


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## MaryOfExeter (Sep 30, 2007)

Thank you!


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## sreeshs (Aug 16, 2009)

indigobob said:


> In Paul Gibson's book _Genetics Of Pigeons_ he states the crest gene (cr) produces shell and peak crest - modifiers/polygenes determining whether peak or shell is produced.
> 
> Three types of feather footing are generally recognised - grouse, slipper and muffed.


That was informative, thanks


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## hasseian_313 (Oct 31, 2009)

thanx yawl


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## sreeshs (Aug 16, 2009)

So are the genes for foot feathers dominant ? or it has the same properties of the crest gene ?

and why is that white is different from spread ?


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## MaryOfExeter (Sep 30, 2007)

I think they are recessive, but then again I'm not positive. I had a groused bird mated to a clean-legged bird, and all their babies had normal legs. The most I've gotten out of mixes between featherlegs and clean ones, is just a tiny bit of extra feathering down the legs.


The reason white isn't the same as spread, is because it's controlled by a different gene. Although the birds are solid colored like spread does, they are still completely different  A recessive white bird could actually be black, blue, or any other color/combo of colors...but the recessive white basically bleaches the color from the feathers. But in the genes, all those other colors and modifiers are still there.

Another way to make white is homozygous red grizzle. These will be the whites with colored eyes, instead of black. Tiger grizzle (what makes mottles) also helps a lot with making birds more white.

And lastly, there's always the possibility of combos. A lot of pied markings could easily make a bird almost all white. I'm not sure how many of those different "white" genes (other than rec. white, but those who make splashes, saddles, etc) can be present at once, or if they all can.


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## LUCKYT (Jan 17, 2009)

Does not the Breed make a Difference? Dave


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## sreeshs (Aug 16, 2009)

MaryOfExeter said:


> I think they are recessive, but then again I'm not positive. I had a groused bird mated to a clean-legged bird, and all their babies had normal legs. The most I've gotten out of mixes between featherlegs and clean ones, is just a tiny bit of extra feathering down the legs.
> 
> 
> The reason white isn't the same as spread, is because it's controlled by a different gene. Although the birds are solid colored like spread does, they are still completely different  A recessive white bird could actually be black, blue, or any other color/combo of colors...but the recessive white basically bleaches the color from the feathers. But in the genes, all those other colors and modifiers are still there.
> ...


I have a pair with mixed markings of brown and white, the cock close to a borwn saddle with white markings on him and the hen with brown and white round like patches all over the body. First three rounds, one baby always came pure white. I mated that white with another white female hatched in my loft and they produce pure white squabs only 

Funny part of the story is actually this, the white from the mixed pair had good size obtained from his father, while the female white had good crest but not that size. So without knowing anything about the recessive and dominant genes, I paired these two up hoping they will give me crested above size white birds  Well luckly the size was always obtained, but the crest never appeared


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