# Sibling mating



## Lynnette (Dec 12, 2004)

hi all

I haven't read a discussion about this topic. I have a sibling pair of homers, only 5 weeks. I plan to have another pair in about a month. What is the thought re possible mating of a sibling pair? If this happens, should I remove eggs & introduce mates that are not siblings??
Look forward to some thoughts on this.
thanks
Lynnette (NZ)


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## Bird_girl(Ronni (Nov 29, 2004)

Um, That would probably would be a good idea. Try it and see what happens! K?


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## Jerry (Nov 21, 2003)

Lynette,
I'm fairly confidant that you do not know the gender of the two nest mates you currently have. Also, when you get the next pair in a month, your current two will still be only slightly more than 2 months old...still much too young to be mature enough to select a mate. The nest mates will still be "tight" for a while after you get your next two birds, but this will open more possibilities for future mating. Brother/sister matings are not the norm, but, also, not unheard of. It usually depends on the gene pool and how much you're trying to concentrate it. Are you going to be racing these birds or are they going to be more in the "pet" category? Are you planning on raising young from them?


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## Whitefeather (Sep 2, 2002)

*What is the thought re possible mating of a sibling pair? * 
Hi Lynette,
I asked this very question after Mikko & Pij'ette had Sadie & Sam as they all reside in the same 'home'. 

The answer I received was that it was OK for a parent to mate with their offspring, but not advisable for siblings to mate with each other. 
I don't raise, race or show my pigeons, rather adopt rescued non-releasable ones so I'm certainly no expert on the subject, only relaying what was told to me.  

As far as I know, I have had no attempts of sibling mating, but then I replace all eggs, no matter who lays them.  

Cindy


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## re lee (Jan 4, 2003)

In breeding is done to help set qualities that birds have. Brother sister matings are sometimes done. good records and controled breeding programs this wont hamper . but just thrown to together birds over time have mis fortunes. So yes if you plan to put a brother sister bird together. just remember they are. for later reasons. But if you plan to replace the eggs no harm done at all.


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## Lynnette (Dec 12, 2004)

*Sibling Mating*

thank you for all the thoughts re this. I am just thinking ahead. I plan to keep the birds and future ones as pets, not Show or Racing. I do also intend to keep chicks from breeding. So I will see how mating can be worked out after I receive my next pair. Thanks. 
Lynnette


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## pigeon george (Aug 7, 2003)

*line breeding*

From the books i have read what was posted above is pretty acurate breeding mother to son / father to daughter is done to bring out best quality of a bird its done more so in show and race birds and mateing of sister to brother while has at times worked ok generally is not sought after, mine pick their own mates most times


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## Motherlodelofts (Oct 9, 2004)

Inbreeding is to bring out "good" and "bad" to the surface. Some say that due to the exspansive gene pool that it doesn't start getting tight until about the 5th generation of full bro/sis. just theory


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## SmithFamilyLoft (Nov 22, 2004)

*Genetics Of In-breeding*



Lynnette said:


> hi all
> 
> I haven't read a discussion about this topic. I have a sibling pair of homers, only 5 weeks. I plan to have another pair in about a month. What is the thought re possible mating of a sibling pair? If this happens, should I remove eggs & introduce mates that are not siblings??
> Look forward to some thoughts on this.
> ...


 Brother to sister matings is an example of the most extreme in-breeding. You will need to do a heck of a lot more reading on the subject, then is available on these pages. In the racing pigeon world, this is normally done only in cases where an extremely valuable bird is in the pedigree. The pros and cons of attempting such breeding is to complex for these pages.


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## re lee (Jan 4, 2003)

Parents that are not close related the brother sister mating should not effect the out come of the young birds. And Beings it is for general purpose rather then future sets. I would not worry to much on it. Resetting one birds enhanced performance. Would be if its the cock bird per say. Father daughter mating then a brother sister mating making a 75% blood of the father in the young. But that starts getting close. to unrelated birds enhance both hen and cock line. But yes brother sister mating is controled breeding and should be recorded as such.


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## Lovebirds (Sep 6, 2002)

I will tell you about my experience with this first hand...............if you go to our web site you can see pics of the birds I'm talking about. We have Roosevelt and Bonnie. Their two children are Bo and Rosie. We mated Bo and Rosie (brother/sister) together in 2002. Out of 4 babies, one was a terrific racer and the other the had major problems. Walked like they were drunk, could not compete for food etc...........they were in bad shape. The next year, 2003 we mated Bo and Bonnie (son/mother). Again, out of 4 babies, one was normal, the other three were no where near normal. After all of this, I found out that in the pigeon world, Father/Daughter, Uncle/Niece, Parents to 1/2 children is ok but Mother/Son and Brother/Daughter is not a good combination. There is a chance that you will get perfectly normal birds but there is also a chance that you will get babies with problems. So I ask, why would you want to take that chance? We will never pair a brother/sister together again or a mother/son. Even though we got two good birds that went on the win races for us, it was not worth it to also have to see 6 other birds that would never have any "quality of life". This is just my two cents worth.


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## Motherlodelofts (Oct 9, 2004)

Lovebird inbreeding didn't create the problem it only exposed it which is "one" of the purposes of inbreeding. There are many factors to take into consideration when inbreeding and exposing faults is "one" of them. You mentioned the Son/mother mating seeing the same thing hmmm that hen would be very suspect to me. You can either eliminate the faults or continue covering them up by keeping the gene pool expanded in which case breeding is more hit and miss. My family of birds go back to basicly 3 birds which were inbred/linebred starting over 20 years ago (not by me but close friend) . They have been heavily inbred/linebred with every combination along with many full bro/sis matings and split into various lines within the family, fresh blood is brought into a particular line from another when needed. In fact I'm eyeing one hen now for stock out of a full/bro mating. Both parents are producers and inbred/linebred themselfs and she will go back on dad. Never have I seen what you described,personally I would find the scource and eliminate it,inbreeding will show you the source. just my opinion. Also not all birds can inbreed well as just to many bad faults pop up and brought to the surfice.This is a very good topic


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## Motherlodelofts (Oct 9, 2004)

Lovebirds I just got done checking out your site. What a GREAT job !!!!!!!! 
very nice


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## TAWhatley (Mar 6, 2001)

arty said:


> I would really like more knowledge in the points system, what does the breeder look for when judging a bird?  Arty & Rose.


You can go to this site http://www.azpigeons.org then click on Bird Standards on the left. From there you can select the links to the various breeds on the right and read what the standards for judging are.

Terry


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## Motherlodelofts (Oct 9, 2004)

Thought I would touch on a tad more here as inbreeding is more complex than how I described. It's used to set the good traits that you want in your birds by useing a bird that has what you are looking for. And it's used to eliminate the faults that you don't want. Basicly it is nothing more than circling the wagons around your best birds. It can also create problems when done in excess and is where linebreeding out of another line comes in,you go out and then back in. (pretzel breeding) Inbreeding is for a "purpose" although I've also seen it done just to make a pedigree look good. By crossing inbred/linebred lines together (battle crosses) you get what is called "hybred vigor" which can give you a high percentage of of very good birds, but due to the expanded gene pool of doing such they have a tendacy not to reproduce themselfs. On the Bro/sis matings although I'll do it here and there it is not my favorite mating, back to the original question of this thread though I would'nt give it a second thought on doing it as the gene pool (I assume) isn't tight enough to make any differance. Half/bro and half/sis are good and not "too" tight. A buddy of mine in the UK started his family out of 6 birds 30 odd years ago and will only line breed, his thought is that inbreeding sets traits to fast.


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## Lovebirds (Sep 6, 2002)

Motherlodelofts said:


> Thought I would touch on a tad more here as inbreeding is more complex than how I described. It's used to set the good traits that you want in your birds by useing a bird that has what you are looking for. And it's used to eliminate the faults that you don't want. Basicly it is nothing more than circling the wagons around your best birds. It can also create problems when done in excess and is where linebreeding out of another line comes in,you go out and then back in. (pretzel breeding) Inbreeding is for a "purpose" although I've also seen it done just to make a pedigree look good. By crossing inbred/linebred lines together (battle crosses) you get what is called "hybred vigor" which can give you a high percentage of of very good birds, but due to the expanded gene pool of doing such they have a tendacy not to reproduce themselfs. On the Bro/sis matings although I'll do it here and there it is not my favorite mating, back to the original question of this thread though I would'nt give it a second thought on doing it as the gene pool (I assume) isn't tight enough to make any differance. Half/bro and half/sis are good and not "too" tight. A buddy of mine in the UK started his family out of 6 birds 30 odd years ago and will only line breed, his thought is that inbreeding sets traits to fast.


ok, I'll go ahead and say it...............I'm confused  but of course it wouldn't be the first time LOL I really came back to ask you a question since you obviously know more about all this stuff than me. You had said in a previous post that "the hen would be suspect". Do you not think that the cock would be the culprit? (the son, BO). He was mated to his sister and the problems showed up. He was mated to his mother and again, problems. His sister mated to her father or another unrelated cock was ok and the Bo's mother mated to Bo's father (no relation between the two) was ok. And if this is so, can it be possible that Bo, mated to an unrelated hen could still throw "problem children" or did this happen because he was mated to close relatives? I hope this question makes sense to you.


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## Motherlodelofts (Oct 9, 2004)

First off expert on breeding theorys and genetics I'm not . No close inbreeding did not cause that it only uncovered it. You said the parents were unrelated. Those siblings were inbred but they are not inbred to any degree,it takes generations. My sheep are more inbred than those birds. All you are doing is stacking the genes, obviously you want to only stack the good ones but the bad also stacks of which you want to eliminate. There are usually some faults that tie in also that are just there as there is never perfection . With one of my lines it is webtoe, another it is poor feather. These are bred away from, but many showing these faults can be very good birds. As for what you see, It all points straight back to the hen. The Siblings carry both parents. When bred together you got major faults. When you took the son back to mom you again got major faults. When the daughter was taken to dad and another cock nothing. It all points to the hen. As for the son and whether you'll see the same. If he's on a unrelated hen you won't see it as you are masking it to some degree same as the daughter when bred away from the mothers side. but if you use these birds as a foundation then yes it will be popping up. Breed that original hen to another cock and then take a son and put it back on her and see what happens. Chances are it will be the same, maybe not to the same degree but probably it will be there. I would talk to someone in your club that you "know" has the knowledge about such things. Keep in mind this very basic breeding rule "what you put into the birds is what you will get out". And you have to ask yourself "is this a fault that I can live with" If it was in my loft everything related to that hen would be taken out of the breeding program. Just my opinion here and nothing more


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## re lee (Jan 4, 2003)

The first step to breeding pigeons. Is to put the birds together that will off set the faults they carry. Even in racing homers. Then as you find a quality that you want to build off. You go to the family line to build. Firsts steps to building a family of birds. Is linebreeding. aunts uncles cousins grandparents. start the inbreeding program. A prepotent bird carries a lot of what you need. Building around this type of bird builds a good family. In the loft you can have several famlies of birds. Prepotent birds do not come along often. They turn out to be KEY birds. And a gin this goes for racing homers to. As not very many homers are top birds the birds that are you build off them. mother son father daughter. brother sister. is a hard set to building te strong points of the bird. But they all have faults. So you have to remember not to breed toward the faults. But to breed towards the strenghs. If matings are producing more faults then good. DO NOT breed in that line. Say you put birds together. can not improve or raise birds that are at least as good as the parent birds. In 3 breeding seasons. Then the breeders do not posess the needed key to further the program. You cut them out of the breeding program. Now if they have produced better birds then there self. Then its time to move on also and cut them out of the program. As you have better birds to work with. And when a prepotent bird comes along. Build a strong house around that bird. In racing homers you have to look at the birds outward quality. then its flying record. remembering you have hard weather birds and fair weather birds. Hard weather birds are alittle slower getting home on the fast races. But are first home on the rough races. so checking speeds, weather conditions. how many birds in the race. How many places the bird scored. was it in the clock or consistent. And did its brother or sister show even though it was not at the top. But more balanced in the long that it is the better breeder. . Then the racing family is on its way to being built. All strong familes of birds are line bred and in bred. NO family of birds are built by just putting hen and cock together. Sure luck comes but not often. And a person just statrts with what they have. take the time to build. And improvement comes. Those that start better with a good set of foundation birds can build easyer. IF they whatch and put the birds together right. Those that start less but build right. Can out do the ones that started great but failed to build the birds. Any pigeon will reproduce. But building is the key. To a sucsessful loft of birds. THAT takes time and rewards are worth the wait. I raddled on perhaps to much. Hoipe I made a little sence


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## Lovebirds (Sep 6, 2002)

Ok guys, this is all very interesting to me. I'm going to move this topic to the "Racing Pigeon" forum and got a couple of questions...........


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## Lynnette (Dec 12, 2004)

*Breeding*

hello all
I am very grateful to read all the input on this subjuect. It is complex. 
I live in NZ & as a matter of interest, I'll relate the story here of the endemic NZ Black Robin. This tiny bird was on the point of extinction...only one breeding pair was left. These birds were taken to a safe place & the chicks that hatched were removed to be reared by another bird. By removing these chicks it encouraged the pair to nest again. Breeding later occurred between the brother & sister that had been removed. There are now approx 160 birds.


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## rosey_love (Mar 21, 2004)

I was thinking on doing the same mating two siblings but iunno, it would be ok do do it prob.


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