# New Challenge



## RodSD (Oct 24, 2008)

What do you call these birds color or patern? Is it a grizzle?










The parents are the following pictures.

Dad









Mom


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## MaryOfExeter (Sep 30, 2007)

Grizzles with bronze? I'm not sure, but they're really pretty! The babies remind me a lot of this one mosaic bird I saw a picture of once. I think it was a modena.


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## RodSD (Oct 24, 2008)

Thanks Becky! Children of my birds puzzles me. They don't come out as I expected them to be. It leaves me scratching my head and asking how did that happen.


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## TAWhatley (Mar 6, 2001)

WHOA! Gorgeous birds, Rod! I don't have a clue about the genetics of them, but they are lovely birds. 

Terry


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## RodSD (Oct 24, 2008)

Thanks Terry! Yes, they are lovely and puzzling, too. They are both males. I stopped breeding the parent because their children seem to attract this hawk that I have. Their brother that looks like the upper bird got taken by a hawk already. I think the hawk finds them lovely as well. When a hawk swoops down I know it is chasing either one of the two. In fact, I named the bird with more white on it Turbo because it accelerates fast when chased.


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## dimerro (Nov 23, 2008)

Maybe I'm wrong but for me looks like pencil.


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## george simon (Feb 28, 2006)

*HI ROD, I realy would like to see better pictures of these birds. The parents look like they show some blue the youngster the one that shows a lot of color may be an Opal but the head and neck are very differcult to see the dark color as it blends in with the background realy need pictures that show us the color up close. These birds remind me of some birds that I have bred out of a hen that I got from TERRY a year or two ago. * Rod the SAN DIEGO METRO PIGEON CLUB will be having a show DEC.6 you could stop by if you have the time I will post more info on the show later. ..GEORGE


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## jbangelfish (Mar 22, 2008)

*They are pencils*

This is the pencil gene, also found in saxon breast pigeons and hana pouters and now found in rollers. The amount of color varies alot from one bird to the next. YB's tend to have alot more color in the wings which usually moults to white. There are people working on keeping more color on the wings, me included.

The birds you showed are blue and I think they are t pattern. Pencil is yet another gene that brings out a lot of bronze. I just bought some pencils this summer and am working on recessive red and yellow. So far, I have them in blue, silver, recessive red and brown.

Pencil is a simple recessive gene and all young from one of these homozygous pencils will carry the gene, sex not a factor. Some of the young split pencils will show white in the tail, similar to what undergrizzle looks like in the wing. Others have no outward sign that they are het pencils.

I have asked a number of people how the pencil gene came to the roller breed but nobody seems to know. I wondered if it came from nuns but I'm not even positive that they have the pencil gene. They used to be tumblers and some crossbreeds that I had many years ago with a nun and another pigeon, looked very much like pencils. 

Bill


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## dimerro (Nov 23, 2008)

Nuns don't have pencil in them. They have at least two pied genes.


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## jbangelfish (Mar 22, 2008)

*Look at the top photo*

The bird with the bronze wings and black head and wingtips. I had birds that looked like this that came from a nun, over 40 years ago, even with the bronze and my birds were not bronze. I'm pretty sure it's a YB and will lose much of the wing color as most of them do.

I'm not saying that you are wrong but I've always wondered what nuns had in them to make them look like they do. There are many similarities with the markings of a saxon breast, which has pencil. Also, that top bird has alot in common with the markings of a nun.

What two types of pied do they have? 

Bill


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## dimerro (Nov 23, 2008)

First type of pied is Gazi marking (like Gazzi Modena). Another type of pied (it could be a sum of two different pied marking) is white shields.


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## RodSD (Oct 24, 2008)

Thanks for the response. The upper bird which I named Choco (in short for chocolate) looks like brown. The parent's head seems to be blue so I wondered where that chocolate color came from. The chocolate bird's wing tip ended up white now after the moult. The other bird looks still the same.

Here they are when still young.


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## jbangelfish (Mar 22, 2008)

*It's just bronze*

Bronze is a color and modifier that just shows up with many different genes. Most of them are named as bronzes, there are at least 8 of them but pencil is not one of the bronzes.

When I first saw pencil rollers, I didn't see how they could be called blue but apparently, it is what these are. I will be breeding from them to figure out what all they are and what they have to make them what they are.

Tried to show a picture of one of my blue pencil cock birds with his black mate. It showed up as a picture of my almond looking indigo baby. Unbelievable.They only had one baby this summer, I think she is quite old. Their baby is a brown check and will carry pencil. This tells me that dad is split for brown and the baby is a hen. These dark blue pencils, I'm thinking are t pattern blues or what many people call black checks. This would account for the dark color but I haven't had them long enough to be sure. The bronze shows more in the wings, especially on the young before they moult out but is also present on the heads and faces of these blue pencils. Some have more bronze than others, it is the nature of bronze.

Bill

PS, if I can figure out how to get the right photo to post, I'll show you the birds that I am talking about. They look very much like yours as most blue pencils do.


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## RodSD (Oct 24, 2008)

Bill,

If you have a photobucket, just click on the IMG code and copy (Ctrl-c), then paste (Ctrl-v or is it Ctrl-p) here. You can use the right click mouse button as well. Just click on copy and paste.


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## jbangelfish (Mar 22, 2008)

*Believe it or not, that's what I do*

And it put in an image that I had even deleted to try to avoid it. I'll try it again, as it seems to be gone.









I actually had to delete the number and put in the correct number and have to delete a set of brackets on each end along with duplicate http://. This is just crazy. If I only knew as much about computers as I do about pigeons (it ain't everything but it's alot more than I know about computers).

Anyway, after changing numbers and all, here they are.

Bill


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## RodSD (Oct 24, 2008)

I think on photobucket, there is this small empty box below the picture where you click and put a checkmark on it. That way you are not randomly saving image code. I don't remember editing mine with http. Maybe you saved the http link instead of img link. Either way you have beautiful birds! I like those birds that have colored head like that. You are saying that they are pencil? How can I breed like that?


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## jbangelfish (Mar 22, 2008)

*I think I've tried everything*

I've tried HTML or whatever it is, then URL. I just highlight it and then right click it into here or wherever. I have no idea why I get duplicate info and until I eliminate part of the info, it doesn't show up.

Anyway, about pencils. One is all you need to get going and you already seem to have a few. Put two pencils together and get 100% pencils. All the birds that you showed were homozygous pencils. You can mate them to anything and all young will carry pencil. Breed a split pencil (heterozygous) to a homozygous pencil and 50% will be homozygous or visual pencils.

Bill


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## Guest (Nov 25, 2008)

they kind of remind me of bagdad pigeons that I have seen on eggbid , do you know what breed they are ??


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## jbangelfish (Mar 22, 2008)

*Rollers, I think*

We never actually discussed the breed but I'm pretty sure they are rollers. Torts and pencils are something you'll find in rollers and they look like rollers.
My pics are of my rollers.

Bill


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## HeavyDlofts (May 23, 2012)




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