# blue check cock XX solid white hen



## eifener

I was just wondering what colors I might get. I am crossing 4 blue check vanhee jansens into my whites. Any chance of getting a white baby or will it be next generation.



Thanks

Seth


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## jeff houghton

I would say everychance a white baby as ive crossed a blue with a white several times and had 3 pure whites as a result.


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## sreeshs

Would depend on what the blue check is carrying and what is beneath the white 

If you have details on the parent birds of these two pigeons, it might help.


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## rudolph.est

Genetically, it is very unlikely that mating a blue (which has no pure whites in its ancestry) to a pure white will give you any pure whites.

The recessive white gene (z) needs to be inherited from both parents in order for the offspring to be white.

I do not disagree with Jeff, that it is possible to get pure whites on the first try, but that is only possible when the blue parent is carrying the recessive white gene. This is fairly unlikely in your case if your blue pigeon does not come from a line of white pigeons.

Kind regards,
Rudolph


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## Pigeonrh

Ive bred a couple pure whites out of a white hen and a colored cock. This pair below...A couple of there YBs are in the other pic. They also bred another bird that was all white except one colored tail feather. It surprised me since I no this cock doesn`t carry Rec.White and I breed in individual breeding pens.


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## MaryOfExeter

There's no way to determine whether a bird carries recessive white or not. It can remain hidden for a long time, and then randomly show up when paired to one who is also carrying it.


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## rudolph.est

I agree Becky, it is not possible to determine whether a bird carries recessive white, but that is what pedigrees are for!;-) If the bird has a white parent in the pedigree, at least we know it _could_ carry white.

Since I cannot help myself, here are my thoughts:

Firstly, I would assume that a blue racing homer of the Janssen strain probably does not carry white, since I cannot be sure that the Janssen brothers ever kept and bred white homers. We cannot even these days be sure that Janssens are pure Janssens. I think everyone also agrees that white homers are still quite rare, so I assume the blues in question here are not carrying recessive white.

Secondly - Homer breeders (at least the few consitently winning ones I have met and spoken to) usually use a high degree of line-breeding or rarely inbreeding of related birds in their breeding program. This makes the chances of recessive white being carried along for many generations quite unlikely, since the relatedness coefficient of the animals is fairly high.

Does anyone have any comments on my logic? 

Even after all of that, I would still recommend that Seth mate the white to the blue. If he is very lucky, he might have a blue bird that carries recessive white, and he could have white squabs in the first nest. If not, he will definitely breed some birds split for white which can be mated back to a white to produce more whites.

Kind regards,
Rudolph


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## sreeshs

I will go with Becky, the recessive gene can get carried along and pop up after generations, the parents and grand parents might be carrying the gene but not expressed.

All gene combinations are mathematically expressed based on chances of combinations and permutations, but nature need not follow that always. It also means that while majority of youngsters may fall under the category of higher chance, there will be also youngsters which fall in the category of lesser chance and we usually do not know in which category the one discussed came from  

In Pigeonrh's case it need not only be the recessive white gene but also the pie genes, may be.


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## rudolph.est

sreeshs said:


> All gene combinations are mathematically expressed based on chances of combinations and permutations, but nature need not follow that always.


I disagree. The statistical models for classical genetics are _always_ followed, even (or especially) in nature. The problem with statistics though is that for a proper sample we need a sufficiently _large_ population. When breeding one pair, it is somewhat difficult if not impossible to obtain sufficiently large numbers of offspring to fit the statistical model. This is where the Chi-squared and binomial tests come into play. To calculate the probability that a certain sample still fits into the supposed statistical model.

For instance when breeding a blue and a recessive white together, how many squabs do you need before you can say with 95% certainty that the blue parent does not carry recessive white? The answer is 5. But the you still have that 5% chance that the blue parent still has carries recessive white. To be 99.9% sure the blue parent does not carry recessive white, we need to breed 10 squabs, all blue.

Statistics is by definition a science of inexactitudes, that states we can never be 100% sure about anything, but we can get real close by increasing the sample size. 

I refer those interested in reading more about statistical tests to an article by Richard Cryberg on Ron Huntley's site.




sreeshs said:


> In Pigeonrh's case it need not only be the recessive white gene but also the pie genes, may be.


I agree that in the case of Pigeonrh's white babies, pied genes are probably involved, hence the dark tail feather on the one baby. But we cannot exclude recessive white either, unless a breding test to a known recessive white which has no other pied genes can be conducted.

Kind regards,
Rudolph


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## sreeshs

rudolph.est said:


> I disagree. The statistical models for classical genetics are _always_ followed, even (or especially) in nature. The problem with statistics though is that for a proper sample we need a sufficiently _large_ population. When breeding one pair, it is somewhat difficult if not impossible to obtain sufficiently large numbers of offspring to fit the statistical model. This is where the Chi-squared and binomial tests come into play. To calculate the probability that a certain sample still fits into the supposed statistical model.
> 
> For instance when breeding a blue and a recessive white together, how many squabs do you need before you can say with 95% certainty that the blue parent does not carry recessive white? The answer is 5. But the you still have that 5% chance that the blue parent still has carries recessive white. To be 99.9% sure the blue parent does not carry recessive white, we need to breed 10 squabs, all blue.
> 
> Statistics is by definition a science of inexactitudes, that states we can never be 100% sure about anything, but we can get real close by increasing the sample size.
> 
> I refer those interested in reading more about statistical tests to an article by Richard Cryberg on Ron Huntley's site.
> 
> Kind regards,
> Rudolph


I won't still go for that 

Especially in my own case I had two pigeons split for crest give me a crested youngster in the 11th round (but yes couple of eggs in between never hatched)

The female of this pair was mated to another pigeon owned by my uncle, we found out that the male was also split for crest, but guess what, 3 rounds, one of the baby, of each clutch come out with a crest.

So statistics is good for a guideline but there is no guarantee its going to be inline, always


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## rudolph.est

Hi Shreesh,



sreeshs said:


> I won't still go for that
> 
> Especially in my own case I had two pigeons split for crest give me a crested youngster in the 11th round (but yes couple of eggs in between never hatched)
> 
> The female of this pair was mated to another pigeon owned by my uncle, we found out that the male was also split for crest, but guess what, 3 rounds, one of the baby, of each clutch come out with a crest.
> 
> So statistics is good for a guideline but there is no guarantee its going to be inline, always


Statistically speaking (following Cryberg's method), when mating two birds both carrying a recessive gene, and raising 10 offspring, only approximately 5% of the tests will have no homozygous recessives. This means if a hundred people were to independently mate a pair of carriers, and each of them raise 10 squabs, only 95 of the 100 breeders would get at least one homozygous recessive in the 10 squabs, and 5 of the 100 breeders would not. In other words you were one of the unlucky 5% who would have to raise an 11th squab to get a recessive homozygote. More accurately we should take a larger sample, meaning that 9437 breeders out of 10000 breeders would not have been as unlucky as you when making the same cross. While 563 breeders out of 10000 would have been just as unlucky as you with that mating.

Result with your uncle's bird on the other hand, was lucky. You/he was one of the 16% of breeders who will get 3 or more squabs that are homozygous for the recessive trait when breeding 6 youngsters. Though 46% of breeders would have had at least 2 homozygotes out of the 6 squabs and 82% of breeders would have bred at least 1. 

The 95% confidence interval of this mating lies at around 11 young. Which means that 95% of breeders would have at least one homozygote after raising 11 squabs. Some unlucky one's have to raise that eleventh bird to get the expression that they were hoping for.

This is the nature of statistics, there is never a guarantee. Only a large probability or a small one. Luck still has a lot to do with it. If you could only borrow some! 

I promise I'll drop the statistics now. It's beginning to fry my brain.

Kind regards,
Rudolph


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## Pigeonrh

In my case Im sure its pied making those whites and also perhaps grizzle since the colored feather is grizzled. I have the pedigree of the cock and there is no Rec.White. I hope they raise some ybs with more color this year so I can find out whats under the hens white.


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## rudolph.est

It is probable that your white hen is grizzle too, and yes definitely pied, since breeders of whites sometimes do not, and did not in the past understand the difference between bull-eyed whites and orange/pearl eyed whites, nor the difference between recessive white and other pied genes.

This being the case they would breed pied birds with a lot of white to other white birds in the hopes of making more whites. Resulting in recessive whites that are ash-red, blue, grizzle and many pied mutations hidden under the recessive white. I have seen two whites (both bull eyed) throw blue youngsters with a lot of white pied markings, definitely not recessive white. And once mated a white garden fantail to a blue check homer (accidentally forgot to throw out the eggs), only to get black pied and black grizzle squabs.

Point in case, I am still struggling to breed out some recessive pied genes from my grizzle stock, since my aim is to breed a homozygous grizzle ash-red bar homer (white with a clear eye). The two het. grizzles (half siblings) I am working with both carry some recessive pied genes, and as a result I have bred a lot of ash-red bars and blue bars with some pied markings around the head and a few white flights. The white around the head bothers me most, since it caused a het. blue bar grizzle I also bred from this pair to have odd eyes (one bull, one clear), making her almost useless to breed back into the line, since the pied markings will probably be just be exaggerated.

I do think I have managed breeding an ash-red white grizzle this season (summer here in South Africa) and I am hoping the youngster will prove to have both eyes clear.

Kind regards,
Rudolph


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## MaryOfExeter

Once again, there is no telling how far the recessive white has been carried. Pedigrees do not always show recessive traits.
With the right combo of pied genes, you can get pure whites.

I have what I'm guessing will be a solid white baby out of a recessive white cock and saddle hen  The mother of the cockbird was a red mottle, so lots of white stuff to play with in this pair.


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## Pigeonrh

Theres no rec. white in the cock unless it was before the 1980's.. I cant wait to breed the ybs off that pair(RCxWhite) to a blue. I got a pair in the breeding pens, that should help. A blue check to a white off that pair... cant wait to see what they breed...The hen from this pair is het. rec.white.(off the pair above) but is still pure white..I cant wait to see what she is hiding!


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## sreeshs

Good luck  keep us posted please. Atleast it will help to understand what is actually under the white male


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## eifener

Tow of the blue check were nestmates and there grandmother was a white hen, can that help my chances of getting some white babies.


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## MaryOfExeter

Yes, it will  There's no telling whether they inherited it or not, until you try.


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## luckyloft

I love to hear you guys talk genetics, dont understand much but it makes for good reading.All I know is I have a Solid white cock that I have mated to a Blue Bar Hen and I will get either Red checks or Red splashes everytime.The red I am guessing is out of the white cock because I have mated him up to a solid white hen and I will get mostly white with some red specks or saddles. Jeff


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## sreeshs

luckyloft said:


> I love to hear you guys talk genetics, dont understand much but it makes for good reading.All I know is I have a Solid white cock that I have mated to a Blue Bar Hen and I will get either Red checks or Red splashes everytime.The red I am guessing is out of the white cock because I have mated him up to a solid white hen and I will get mostly white with some red specks or saddles. Jeff


You are right  Also, hens have only one color gene unlike cocks which have two color gene. So the color which is visible in the hen is the color which she carries. A male pigeon can have two colors, either same or different (brown, blue, red) and the dominant one will be visible.


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## Colin

Hi to all, very new to this ( very first question ).
Also very new to the subject of genetics as well. My question is this, when you have a bird of blue/black (wild type), does it really matter what recessive genes it carries, as they can never be displayed, because they are recessive, or would two recessive white genes over ride the blue/black.
Just trying to get my head around the workings of genetics.
Cheers
colin.


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