# What color?



## birdboy12 (Jul 27, 2004)

I have been trying to find this color out for awhile and no such luck.The bird is not banded and I do not know the back ground of the bird.So I hope someone on here knows what this color would be called.


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## TAWhatley (Mar 6, 2001)

Hi Erik,

I don't know the answer to your question but have asked an expert to have a look and let me know.

That's a very pretty bird!

Terry


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## alaska (Mar 17, 2005)

Hi,
I am not an expert, but in my opinion this bird looks to have the Indigo Gene, and possibly Spread. Indigo also can lighten the tailbar.
The other option may be this bird is carrying Ember, but if that is the case the bird would have looked Recessive Red in Colour (all Red) when it was a baby, and it would then continue to lose most of the 'Red' colour and finish up looking just a slight Ember colour from Wildtype.
It's hard to say without seeing the whole bird, but look up Indigo and Ember and you will see what I mean.

Regards
Alaska


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## sgnitto (Aug 15, 2005)

*looks like....*

Looks like some kind of red bird. i have two red checkers, and their wings look alot like that.


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## upcd (Mar 12, 2005)

*Red ash Recessive*

What kind of Breed? What do you like about this color?


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## alaska (Mar 17, 2005)

Hi just wanted to clarify a few things about pigeon genetics 

There are three base feather pigments that I pigeon can be:
Brown, Black (often called blue/black or wildtype), and Ash Red.

Brown pigment is recessive to wildtype(black), and AshRed is Dominant to wildtype(black)

There are four basic patterns a pigeon can be:
Barless, Bar (wildtype), Checker and T-Pattern

These are listed from left to right in order of dominance with barless being at the bottom

Recessive Red is not a color pigment gene, it is an recessive autosomal epistatic gene. What this means is that this gene is independent of the feather pigment and actually covers over the feather pigment, whatever that may be. So you can have brown, black (blue/black) and Ash Red pigmented pigeons that all have the Rec Red gene and they would all look totally Red (as in a rich browny red colour). Being a recessive gene if this is present in the pigeon in het form (only one side of the gene allele), the bird would carry it but not show it, therefore the pigeon would look like its base pigment colour, and not a mix like is present in the above pigeon.

Ember and Indigo are also autosomal and they are color modifiers, meaning that they are independent gene factors that modify the appearance (phenotype) of the bird. However they can never change the base pigment colour of the bird!
birdboy12's pigeon above is a wildtype (Black feather pigement bird) that is probably carrying either indigo or ember gene aswell, I would lean more towards the indigo gene.

So AshRed is a feather pigment gene, just like my pigeon Ash (he is an AshRed Checker):









Recessive Red looks like my pigeon Ruby (She is Rec Red, so she could be any pigment and pattern genes, only breeding her can tell by the colour and pattern of her babies):









Here is a pic of a black pigment (wildtype) bird carrying indigo:









The above indigo bird is what I assume birdboy12's pigeon looks like if viewed from further back.


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## alaska (Mar 17, 2005)

As for Ember, (as I mentioned as the other possibility), it has stages as the pigeon gets older, they start of like this:








Then as it gets older looks like this:








And then as an adult usually look like this:








So if birdboy12's bird continues to lose the 'red' colour the bird has the ember gene (which actually is an allele (an option) on the same gene position as Rec Red.

Confusing isn't it 
Regards
Alaska


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