# Sooty, dirty, smoky? WHAT?



## NetRider

Hey all,

I have the following bird in my loft, and in order to find out what kind of hen I should mate him to in order to produce more of this color, I am trying to figure out what makes his color get as dark as it looks.

I know he is a blue bar, but I dont know what genes are modifying the color.

Attached is the pic.


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## NetRider

I believe I found the answer to my question.

http://www.angelfire.com/ga/huntleyloft/smokey.html the following article says:
"Like the other two genes, Smoky will darken the underwing coverts. However, it will also produce a lighter skin color and a light to Ivory colored beak. Sooty and Dirty will not have these lightened beaks, eye ceres nor white skins as does Smoky. In other words, while Smoky will darken the base color it also tends to lighten both the skin and beak color."

so I guess this is a smoky, now the next part of the question. How can I breed more of these?


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## jbangelfish

*It does look like smoky*

But it also looks to have at least another darkening factor, maybe sooty. The bars are somewhat widened and blurred as smoky will do but the beak is too dark for a homozygous smoky, unless it may have another darkener or two. The color is also a little darker than most that would only have smoky.

The simplest way to be sure of smoky on a blue pigeon is to look at the albescent strip. If it is white, the bird is either non smoky or only het smoky. If the strip is blue, the bird is smoky.

If you would like to make more of these, just mate it to any blue bar and mate a young bird back from that mating. This is the long road, if you have another similar bird, it will be quicker.

Bill


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## NetRider

He does not have a white albescent strip. 

I have a blue bar hen which also has a blue strip. A mating of these, should at least give me 50% like his type shouldnt it ?

Attached is one more picture.


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## MaryOfExeter

Smokey and dirty...


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## rfboyer

jbangelfish said:


> The simplest way to be sure of smoky on a blue pigeon is to look at the albescent strip. If it is white, the bird is either non smoky or only het smoky. If the strip is blue, the bird is smoky.


Newbie question... What part of the pigeon is the albescent strip?


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## george simon

rfboyer said:


> Newbie question... What part of the pigeon is the albescent strip?


*rfboyer, Look at the tail you will see that the two out side feathers have a thin white strip that is the albecent strip.*GEORGE


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## rfboyer

george simon said:


> *rfboyer, Look at the tail you will see that the two out side feathers have a thin white strip that is the albecent strip.*GEORGE


Thanks George! I'd noticed that some of those are whiter than others... but I've only been observing pigeons "up close and personal" since moulting has started, and didn't know if the whiteness of the tail edges was permanent or a passing state in the process, since they don't all seem to have it.

These critters are _complicated!_


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## jbangelfish

*You'll get smoky anyway*



NetRider said:


> He does not have a white albescent strip.
> 
> I have a blue bar hen which also has a blue strip. A mating of these, should at least give me 50% like his type shouldnt it ?
> 
> Attached is one more picture.


Two smoky birds together will make all smoky young. Some breeds like Oriental rollers and Arabian trumpeters are all smoky, keeping the desired light beaks.

The other factors, whether dirty or sooty or both will depend on what the other bird has. Bottom line, I'd say yes, you should at least get some like the father. Not knowing for sure if he is homozygous for dirty or sooty, makes it difficult to say for certain.

Purely a guess but from his appearance, I think he may be het for sooty and het for dirty. In either case, you should get at least some that are like him.

Bill


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## george simon

rfboyer said:


> Thanks George! I'd noticed that some of those are whiter than others... but I've only been observing pigeons "up close and personal" since moulting has started, and didn't know if the whiteness of the tail edges was permanent or a passing state in the process, since they don't all seem to have it.
> 
> These critters are _complicated!_


*Hi ROBIN, Now you know that the birds that do have the ALBESCENT STRIP,carry the gene for smoky.Keep asking questions we will try to give you answers. * GEORGE


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## NetRider

Thanks for the help 

Here is another bird. Would this be reduced ?


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## jbangelfish

*It might be*

Looks at least similar to reduced birds. Is this ash red base color? I've never had an ash red reduced and can only guess that they might look this way.

Some homozygous indigo birds can also be light like this. They will usually get very dark in the face. This bird looks to be young, is it? Reduced birds have a tendency to change quite a bit in the first moult, usually showing more definition of color separation after, such as black/blue etc., getting the lacing that many call blue lace in reduced blacks. 

Bill


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## NetRider

Its blue based. Grizzle, and pied I guess. In most of the other birds the grizzle turn them white, and the piebald gene turn their heads and necks black.

This is exactly the same, but all the black feathers are turned into grey/silver, so my guess was reduced.

See my other thread:
http://www.pigeons.biz/forums/f41/understanding-colors-38484.html

Oh and, its not my bird so I am unsure about its age. I know a fancier who has these birds, but he pretty much knows nothing about genetics, so no use in asking him what modifiers give them their looks.

It does kinda resemble the bird on the following page:
http://www.angelfire.com/ga/huntleyloft/reducedblu.html


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## Pigeon lower

For the first bird couldnt u call it a slate ..?


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## MaryOfExeter

Pigeon lower said:


> For the first bird couldnt u call it a slate ..?


Yes, a blue slate - sums it up pretty well. Slate (smokey) is one thing you can clearly see on the bird. We were just trying to disect its color to see what all actually makes it up


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## MaryOfExeter

Question, how does the piebald gene have anything to do with the neck turning black?


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## MaryOfExeter

Does look a lot like reduced, and I agree with the grizzle part from what I can see  Do you know what the parents looked like?


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## NetRider

No Idea. 

I just know that most of my birds start out as stork marked, and then they moult into those white birds with real dark heads.


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## MaryOfExeter

Hmm. I don't think pied has anything to do with the heads being all black. But it might help in making the rest of the bird all white. I've seen some birds who have been bred to have colored heads like that, perhaps these birds have some gene combos making that happen.


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## NetRider

Pakistani high fliers.

I posted some pictures in this thread earlier:
http://www.pigeons.biz/forums/f41/understanding-colors-38484.html


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## Guest

NetRider said:


> No Idea.
> 
> I just know that most of my birds start out as stork marked, and then they moult into those white birds with real dark heads.


netrider what breed of pigeon is this ?


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## Guest

NetRider said:


> Pakistani high fliers


ok that answers alot because I have tipplers and some start out completely white and every year they get darker around the neck .. love the high flyers I do


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## Pigeon lower

MaryOfExeter said:


> Yes, a blue slate - sums it up pretty well. Slate (smokey) is one thing you can clearly see on the bird. We were just trying to disect its color to see what all actually makes it up


Why make things so difficult for me SHEESH  I use to have two slate brothers on my dads old race team when i was like 10. Then when he got out he sold them to other fanciers so i have no clue where they went :S


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## jbangelfish

*Hi NetRider*



NetRider said:


> No Idea.
> 
> I just know that most of my birds start out as stork marked, and then they moult into those white birds with real dark heads.


I thought they were homozygous grizzles, which looked exactly the way my old flying tipplers looked. They also were stork marks and many moulted out the same way as your Pakistanis, with only dark heads or dark heads and tails. I raised them over 30 years ago and can't remember exactly how it worked with all of them but the look is nearly identical. None of my tipplers ever stayed dark nor did any of them not appear to be grizzled, if that makes sense.

I also had Russian highfliers back then which were similar as well but they went about things a completely different way. They were not grizzles but were colored in the head and tail, I believe they also were ice factor, making them very light blue. Their marking seemed to be just a type of pied but was very uniform in appearance. 

Bill


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## NetRider

I have been doing some reading on the pied factor, and I believe you are right. My birds are homozygous grizzles, because I also have some which are heterozygous grizzles, and often when I mate two of those I end up with normal blue bars.... or well almost. I believe all of my birds carry the smoky, and some also the sooty/dirty gene. So in the cases when I get a non grizzled bird, its usually a dark blue bar. 

I recently made a cross between a recessive red tippler, (the blue based one which we discussed in my other thread), and a homozygous grizzle pakistani cock, who only have a few black feathers around his neck, and show no other dark spots on his body. The babies have just started to get their feathers, and so far they seem to be white as well. I will know if they show any dark colors in a few days time. But they have light skin, one has a very light beak, the other one has a darker one.
Werent these supposed to be stork marked? Or rather heterozygous grizzles showing bars, as I doubt the recessive red hen carry grizzle, when the only white I see on her is a single white feather in the tail.


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## jbangelfish

*There are many pieds*



NetRider said:


> I have been doing some reading on the pied factor, and I believe you are right. My birds are homozygous grizzles, because I also have some which are heterozygous grizzles, and often when I mate two of those I end up with normal blue bars.... or well almost. I believe all of my birds carry the smoky, and some also the sooty/dirty gene. So in the cases when I get a non grizzled bird, its usually a dark blue bar.
> 
> I recently made a cross between a recessive red tippler, (the blue based one which we discussed in my other thread), and a homozygous grizzle pakistani cock, who only have a few black feathers around his neck, and show no other dark spots on his body. The babies have just started to get their feathers, and so far they seem to be white as well. I will know if they show any dark colors in a few days time. But they have light skin, one has a very light beak, the other one has a darker one.
> Werent these supposed to be stork marked? Or rather heterozygous grizzles showing bars, as I doubt the recessive red hen carry grizzle, when the only white I see on her is a single white feather in the tail.


In looking through your photos, I did see what appeared to be both homozygous and heterozygous grizzles. Like you say, mate two het grizzles together and get some hets, some homozygous and some non grizzles.

Pied factors come in many different types. There are both recessive pieds and dominant pieds. A bird that has one white feather, likely has some kind of pied factor. Pieds and grizzles tend to build upon each other, combine a couple of them and much more white tends to show up.

It will be interesting to see just how much white your youngster has when feathered out. It should at least be het grizzle and probably some kind of pied as well. These kind of combinations can be highly variable.

Bill


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## NetRider

Hey again Bill,

the youngsters seemed to have gotten some more feathers now. So far it looks like they will be all white, with some dark spots on their flights, and in their tails. In a few days the first feathers should be fully grown and I will get a better idea of what color they might get. One of them also seem to have one dark feather on its back, while all other feathers on the wings, and back seem to be white so far.

So there are dominant pieds hmm. Could it be that my recessive red is pied due to that one white feather in the tail, but the cock seem to have other dominant pied genes which is turning the babies white too?

What happens if you have grizzle and recessive red together, you should get so called mottles right? So in that case there is no chance of my recessive red carrying grizzle. 

One more thing. The cock has dark beak, while the hen has completely light beak. 

Here is a picture of the cock, note the light darkening on its tail, that is the light darkening I see in the babies too, so the whole feather aint black in the babies either.


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## NetRider

I took a few pictures of the babies today:


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## jbangelfish

*not what you'd expect*

They look very much like the father. Funny thing is, he probably did not look that way as a baby but showed alot more color, if he is a typical homozygous grizzle.

The only thing that I can think of is that this is what is happening between a type of pied and grizzle together. As I said earlier, these things tend to build on each other and bring more white than would be expected. It's about all I can come up with.

Bill


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## NetRider

No actually their father was just as light as them as a young bird. He was not a typical grizzle with dark flights which molted to more whites. His story is different, as he started out as a 99% pure white bird, and then later on got the dark spots on his neck. The darker feather he has in his tail he got after his second molt, before that his tail was pure white.

btw notice how one of the babies, the one with the light beak seem to have light grey feathers on his body near the tail. So I believe their mother is a blue based recessive red, but is not carrying the spread factor.

I couldnt find much info on the pied genes online, would be interesting to learn more and see how they work.


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## jbangelfish

*Hmmmm*



NetRider said:


> No actually their father was just as light as them as a young bird. He was not a typical grizzle with dark flights which molted to more whites. His story is different, as he started out as a 99% pure white bird, and then later on got the dark spots on his neck. The darker feather he has in his tail he got after his second molt, before that his tail was pure white.
> 
> btw notice how one of the babies, the one with the light beak seem to have light grey feathers on his body near the tail. So I believe their mother is a blue based recessive red, but is not carrying the spread factor.
> 
> I couldnt find much info on the pied genes online, would be interesting to learn more and see how they work.


Hey NetRider

Let me see if I can find anything out about this.

I have also had pieds and grizzles that don't act as normal. Some of these have come from birds that looked nothing like the young and showed no pied or grizzle, yet they have young that look to have one or the other or both.

I've had near white birds from various sources, some of them have been pure white and moulted in color later. One was a spread ash red that began as white, another is a dominant opal, almond, he also began as pure white.

Most, if not all of the homozygous grizzles that I have raised, have began as almost self colored and moulted to stork mark or near white in their first moults, sometimes getting whiter yet in consecutive moults.

Bill


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## NetRider

Hey all,

another question about smoky.

How can you tell if a recessive red, or a spread blue pigeon is carrying smoky? I believe the albescent strip will never be visible on these ?

Also will the albescent strip be missing on pigeons who carry smoky, but do not show it?


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## jbangelfish

*Most non smokys are easy*

Even reds or blacks that are not smoky will have white albescent strips. Het smokys usually show a strip that is not quite full length or not quite full white if that makes any sense. Homozygous smoky birds are also light beaked, never black but can be stained if there is dirty and or sooty.

Ash red and indigo can be difficult to tell.

Bill


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## NetRider

I have a black tippler cock, he does not show the albescent strip. Also his beak is dark, and I can tell he is a blue bar beneath as the bars are kinda visible through the dark color.

I figured out that he is heterozygous for spread, because when mated to a blue bar hen, both youngsters were blue bars. Also both the youngsters show the albescent strip, and so does their mother.

I have a recessive red hen, also on her the albescent strip is missing, but her beak is all light. Of course I havent found any pictures of recessive red birds with dark beaks online, so light beaks might show up in recessive reds? I will check my RR today and look for the strip.

Another thing I noticed is that the bird in the first post of this thread is missing the albescent strip, but the nest sister has it. I know their father was missing the strip too, but not sure about their mother. But since this bird looks homozygous for smokey, I believe the mother was smokey too.


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## jbangelfish

*This is about all we can do*



NetRider said:


> I have a black tippler cock, he does not show the albescent strip. Also his beak is dark, and I can tell he is a blue bar beneath as the bars are kinda visible through the dark color.
> 
> I figured out that he is heterozygous for spread, because when mated to a blue bar hen, both youngsters were blue bars. Also both the youngsters show the albescent strip, and so does their mother.
> 
> I have a recessive red hen, also on her the albescent strip is missing, but her beak is all light. Of course I havent found any pictures of recessive red birds with dark beaks online, so light beaks might show up in recessive reds? I will check my RR today and look for the strip.
> 
> Another thing I noticed is that the bird in the first post of this thread is missing the albescent strip, but the nest sister has it. I know their father was missing the strip too, but not sure about their mother. But since this bird looks homozygous for smokey, I believe the mother was smokey too.


The young birds provide the answers to the questions of what the parents carry.

Light beaks are normal in recessive reds, I'm not sure what could make a dark beaked one. If there is no albescent strip, it is homozygous smoky.

In a pair of birds that I bred, both parents were heterozygous smoky. 3 out of 4 young so far have been homozygous smoky. I had thought the mother was homozygous smoky but I think I misread her and she has what I would describe as a partial albescent strip. Some of them can be difficult to distinguish.

Bill


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## NetRider

I checked them again. The recessive red shows a clear strip, but the spread cock does not show one, or maybe I am not able to read it correctly.
His beak is dark though, so yeah maybe some other modifier darkening it, as a missing strip should make him smokey. But on the other hand his both young are non smokey, would a heterozygous smokey also hide the strip ? Or could these two youngsters be heterozygous smokeys even when they show the strips but their color is normal blue bar...

So in order to create more of this smokey bird, I need to either mate it to a homozygous smokey which would give me 100% smokey offspring, or a heterozygous smokey which should give me about 50% right. Else I need to mate it to a non smokey, and then mate it with its youngsters which I believe would be heterozygous smokey... ?


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## NetRider

Hey again guys.. 

Just re-opening this thread again.. The bird in the first post turned out to be a hen.. But now I have a new question.. I have a het. spread blue bar cock (He looks jet black, but mated to blue hen resulted in some blue youngsters so I know he is heterozygous for spread) and then I have a blue bar hen.. These two mated together gave me a youngster who looked all black. I say looked all black as now it seems to be more and more like the bird in my first post here. So my question is.. could it be that this youngster actually was not carrying the spread gene, but instead some darkening modifier.. I believe we figured out the hen in the first post here was carrying smokey and possibly some darkening factor like dirty... I will tomorrow check if this new cock lacks the albescent strip or if he has it.. The blue babies from this pair have the strip, and so does the blue bar mother..










I found this picture on the net.. Is this a dun? A dilute blue bar spread.. or could this be a similar bird to the one I have in my first post.. It looks pretty much similar to the young cock I have, but in my case nor the father or the mother are dilute.


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## MaryOfExeter

That isn't a dun, but it looks like a coarse spread.


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## NetRider

I checked the young cock this morning, and he has the albescent strip, the hen from the first post does not have it.

Here is a picture of the young cock, and as you see he does not have the light beak:










Here is a picture of them both together:










The hen on the right, and the young cock on the left.. Pretty much the same color.


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