# Arch angel with solid gold wing



## Henk69

Hi,

Enjoying my first young arch angel pigeons. But according to respected breeder they are not desired breeding material. The young gold female also has the wingshield colored like the body! As a chickenbreeder I find this very interesting. goldbluewing couples throw these once in a while too.

The parents are a goldbluewing male and a copperbluewing female.
Therefor the other youngster, a copper male, would get a chocolaty brown bodycolor instead of true copper.

Anyone any idea what causes these effects? 
Thanks in advance.

Henk


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## rudolph.est

(There is also a similar discussion going on in the yahoo pigeon genetics group.)

I have found similar expressions with my archangel crosses. 

Strangely I have only had pale / dilute archangel bronze females show this expression of the gold in the wing. Usually the gold in the shield is not as clean as the gold in the neck and body. Here is a picture of a copper archangel female x blue spread barb (split for dilute) hen that shows the golden shield. I have had a few birds that showed more gold in the shield.









I have similar copery colored shields in some of my crosses, where the black shield shows considerable bronzing (more bronze than most kites show).I suspect that a recessive red ancestor might be responsible for this coloration, or otherwise a different bronze might be responsible.

I don't think there has been a lot of genetics research with archangel bronze other than to figure out the genetics of the copper coloration, and even that has been done only in small measure.

There were originally 2 theories.

1. Archangel bronze is an incomplete dominant (2 copies needed for really good bronze) and requires a second gene to limit the bronze to the neck, breast and body (keeping the shield free of bronze).

2. Archangel bronze is a dominant that requries a second recessive gene to push the bronze from the breast into the head, neck and body. 

Axel Sell has puplished that he agrees with the second theory, and has provided breeding results, to support this. I am of two minds.

Looking at the gold pictured above, it is quite obvious that dilute archangel bronze does not require a second recessive gene to push the bronze all over the body (or otherwise Barbs already carry that recessive gene, which is unlikely). But it does look like a gene limiting the gold might be necessary. I have only been doing these crosses for 2 years, so I am nowhere near an answer. All I know is that the archangel bronze and gold phenotypes are not as simple as some expected.

I am not sure what you mean by 'chocolaty brown' body colour? That is a color I have not seen in my crosses. I will say though, that coppers which do not show enough shine sometimes look a little brown / red and poor coppers that show a lot of iridescence look rather more purple than copper.

Breeding for show colours means that you should never breed from these birds, but only from birds that show the perfect shade. That is the nature of breeding german colour pigeons, some lines have higher variability in colours than others, and the only way to fix the correct colour in a line, is to breed a lot and only keep and breed from the best of the offspring.


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## Henk69

I have never seen the chocolate shade myself yet... 
My goldshield youngster has a lot more yellow but a lot can change.

Never heard of that second gene needed to suppress the copper wingshield.
Must be dominant suppressor because 2 blueshields can produce a goldshield.
Or 2 copies of an extra bronzefactor are needed.

Thanks


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## Miss-Sassypants

What a gorgeous fat little bird!! Beautiful colour!!


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## rudolph.est

Miss-Sassypants said:


> What a gorgeous fat little bird!! Beautiful colour!!


Actually she does look fat in the picture! But she isn't ;-) She's quite dainty.

She is a little smaller (lighter) and longer (beak to tail) than a normal barb, just to give you an idea. She was just sulking because she doesn't like het picture taken. (I've noticed that most archangels and their hybrids are rather wild, timid anf flighty - must be the field pigeon in them)


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## Miss-Sassypants

Archangels are my favourite breed of pigeons (apart from rollers - had to say this cos my Krikky is a roller!)

Do you have more pics of this dainty sweetheart? She looks unique! And very round! Lol.. What have you been feeding them?


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## Print Tippler

Here are the american awesome angel (in development) they had this










This one only kinda has bronze. I had one more but I'm not sure anymore. It was better than the others but didn't have the shine in the wings


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## indigobob

Henk69 said:


> Hi,
> 
> Enjoying my first young arch angel pigeons. But according to respected breeder they are not desired breeding material. The young gold female also has the wingshield colored like the body! As a chickenbreeder I find this very interesting. goldbluewing couples throw these once in a while too.
> 
> The parents are a goldbluewing male and a copperbluewing female.
> Therefor the other youngster, a copper male, would get a chocolaty brown bodycolor instead of true copper.
> 
> Anyone any idea what causes these effects?
> Thanks in advance.
> 
> Henk


This is a recessive red, pale Gimpel; I don't know what colour it's parents were, but they were pure-bred Gimpels.

Rudolph, I have bred Archangel/Gimpel X Roller but have never had the good fortune to breed an F1 with as much bronzing as yours. My F1's had the typical bronze/gold lower breast/crescent.


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## Henk69

Hi Bob,

I must mention that the flights of my goldshield are black though, but I will look again...


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## Miss-Sassypants

Pretty birds!! More pics please!!


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## Henk69

Looked again. The flights and end of the tail are definitely blueish. 
The base of the tail is also gold!


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## indigobob

Henk69 said:


> Looked again. The flights and end of the tail are definitely blueish.
> The base of the tail is also gold!


Hello Henke,

Do you have any photographs of your adult archangels and their youngster?

The bird in this photograph is bred from a dilute black Roller cock and a gold (pale) white-wing Gimpel hen - pale ash-red chequer.


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## Henk69

Goldshield:
















Maybe not the parents but similar, and I also have the barless variety:


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## rudolph.est

She is very pretty. I think her shield might moult out to be a little more grey, but nowhere near as grey as mine. Other than that I have no idea why your bird would show so much bronze - especially in the tail. I haven't bred very many dilutes in yet, so I think I will focus on dilute gimpels next season.

I always try to wait untill after the first moult before I really 'decide' what is going on. But I would definitely have tried to create a strain of pale angels that had this coloring, if this had happened in my loft. I am guessing that recessive red or a second bronze might be involved here though. Recessive red added to other bronzes can cause similar phenotypes (notably the Schoorsteenveger - which is intense bronze and not a dilute gold). I have red that recessive red sometimes (though rarely) crops up in archangel lines in Germany (I think it was on Sell's website maybe).

Please send us a picture in a couple of months when she is moulting. I would be very interested to see how she changes. My archangel crosses tend to change noticeably in the shield, head and breast during the first moult.


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## rudolph.est

Print Tippler said:


> Here are the american awesome angel (in development) they had this
> 
> This one only kinda has bronze. I had one more but I'm not sure anymore. It was better than the others but didn't have the shine in the wings


Hi Logan,

I have F2 birds with similar expression to these awesome angels in intensity and color. The colour is not the difficult thing, but the body type is.

Homer x archangel hybrids often look much more like field pigeons than homers, and are only a little larger than the archangel parent. F1 x Homer still looks very much like archangels, only with sliohtly more developed cere and longer necks. From indigobob's pictures I assume he had similar experiences.

I take my hat off to the person / people working on the awesome angel project. Changing the type of archangel bred pigeons is extremely hard.


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## rudolph.est

indigobob said:


> This is a recessive red, pale Gimpel; I don't know what colour it's parents were, but they were pure-bred Gimpels.
> 
> Rudolph, I have bred Archangel/Gimpel X Roller but have never had the good fortune to breed an F1 with as much bronzing as yours. My F1's had the typical bronze/gold lower breast/crescent.


I only bred 4 archangel x homer F1s, 2 of which actually show a slight bronze cast in the head too (I call them my strong F1's). I have also bred a weak F1 to a homer which show quite a bit more bronze in the breast that the weak F1 parent, but I expect the bronze to moult out considerably, as I have found is usually the case. Archangel bronze is definitely very variable when not homozygous for all the factors.

Next season I am definitely mating towards dilute (I started with a copper gimpel, so don't have pale, but I did breed my first dilute cock from a homer breeding programme I started 3 years ago).


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## almondman

I do not understand all the genetics behind the colors, but those are very nice birds. Impressive! Thanks for sharing the photos.


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## Vova

Henk69 said:


> Goldshield:
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> 
> Maybe not the parents but similar, and I also have the barless variety:


What breed id that?


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## Henk69

arch angel. In Holland we call them "vinkduiven", in Germany "Gimpeltauben".

vink = finch and probably refers to the european bullfinch Pyrrhula pyrrhula


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## indigobob

That's a very interesting-coloured youngster, Henke. Does it have any siblings? I assume it is barless.
I've never seen a Gimpel/Archangel marked llike that. I would surmise any non-standard colours such as that, would not be tolerated by serious breeder and be quickly disposed of.


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## Henk69

From Axel Sell's website:


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## rudolph.est

Henk69 said:


> From Axel Sell's website:


Yip, I've also seen these pictures, but sadly there are not proper genetics to explain wheer they come from anywhere on sell's swebsite. He does talk about a recessive Gimpel pattern that may or may not exist and may or may not be necessary to keep the shield clear of bronze...

I am not currently getting the pigeon genetics newletter edited by Dr. Gibson. It seems that the January and February editions focussed on gimpel / archangel genetics. Maybe if you are very interested in archangel breeding, you could obtain a copy, and contact some of the contibutors directly.


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