? about torts

[BirdDust]

The three main colors in tort birds are black, white and red. Now, I have bred from torts different hues of tort all the way down to pure black and pure white, but have not been successful in hatching birds that carry more the reddish color. Somewhere that color gets lost completely, so I was wondering how do you bring out that red factor from tort that will give me another color to work with. Basically, is it possible?

[bluecheck]

Good question. I've no idea of the absolute answer. However, the "red" seems to be a bronze, so I'd assume a good way of increasing that "red" in the tort would be to cross in a deep bronzed bird. I've seen some rollers that were very very bronze, almost Modena or Ts1 bronze. It's a "guesstimate" of what would work.

[BirdDust]

Thanks bluecheck, "bronze" was the word I was looking for. Very beautiful rich color. So basically I would have to find a good candidate of another breed, with the color I want and keep crossing birds until I end up with a pure strain in my bloodline. How many generations (or years) will it take to accomplish this?

[bluecheck]

Well, there might be no need to cross. Just pick the most bronze birds you have in your family and continue to breed them together. Why get into the whole crossing thing if you don't need too? If you do want to cross for whatever reason, then try to get a bird as similar in type to what you have. I've seen crosses that couldn't be distinguished from the original breed in about three backcrosses and I've seen some that still showed evidence of the cross some fifteen years later (a cross of homer X oriental frill).

With most and some heavy selection, you should be back to what you want in about four or five backcrosses in most cases.

[jbangelfish]

I have tort Rollers that have lots of bronze in them and it shows as a rich red in the shield. The most reddish ones that I have also are split for recessive red and some are also split for brown. I don't know how much these last two play into it but they are the reddest torts that I have. One hen is actually a brown but has bronze mixed in. I used to think that she was dilute but she turned out to be brown. More stuff that I'll try to post some pics of.

Bill

[bigislerollers]

I have noticed the same thing as Bill regarding recessive red in the family of rollers that I am working with. The torts that carry recessive red express a lot of rich bronzing. I don't know if there's a connection or not, but that is what I have seen in my family.

[jbangelfish]

I forgot to mention that the brown hen is also split to RR. She also shows alot of bronzing in the shield. I'm pretty certain that there is a connection to this. Recessive red and bronze work together in perfect harmony as each can enhance the other. The richest recessive reds seem to be the ones with bronze in them. I have Rollers such as this and I also used to have Rchev Startails which have bronze and are a very rich red or yellow. This apparently has been known for some time and was bred into many breeds for intensely red pigeons, such as Startails, Carneau and probably many others.

I have a bronze colored grizzled OC that I always thought was just bronze until further study revealed that this doesn't really exist. He is a rich chestnut color and has a ribbon tail. I finally figured out that he is an ash red, split for blue, loaded with flecks and a heavy dose of bronze. He is also split for RR and dilute, making him very useful. Here again, the fact that he is a RR carrier probably intensifies his great color.

How all of this relates to colorful torts is probably less understood but is an interesting observation and we see it in our own birds. While a normal bird that carries RR can appear as perfectly normal, there seem to be certain genes that can bring it out to a degree and make them more colorful or more red. I believe that torts are T pattern blue grizzles but there may be more factors that make them look more tort than others. It's hard to find someone who can tell you all that is in there but I don't think either red or bronze are required, they just make it more enjoyable or more colorful.

Bill