Hey George on Indigo X RR

[jbangelfish]

I have a couple baby rollers from an indigo YC and a recessive yellow dominant opal hen. To my surprise, one of them is a recessive red and the other is either reduced indigo or dominant opal indigo. I'm hoping for the dominant opal. This tells me that dad is split for recessive red. I did some reading on Frank's webpage and found that it is common to breed indigo into recessive red. Apparently, it can enhance RR with it's form of bronze (which is not considered bronze) as other bronzes are known to do, including kite. I also have a kite that was found to carry RR.

The red color of the baby is very nice. Only time will tell if the indigoes from this mating will show more red or bronze. The father has quite a bit but not as much as a YH that I have. They are from the same family lines and she may carry RR as well. I'll have to test her next year.

I'll try to get some pics of these guys so you can see what I am talking about.

Bill

[bluecheck]

Hey Bill,
Since I wrote that info on indigo into recessive red, I've found from the Luden brothers, that while it does make the recessive red "redder", it also often sort of ruins the look of the tail feathers. So be careful if you do it.

[george simon]

HI BILL,It will be very intresting to see how those young feather out.I currently have a homozygous Indigo ASH RED mimick mated to dark andalusion hen their eggs hatch yesterday from the looks of the beaks I very see what looks to be light colored I can't wait to see what these youngsters will look like when they feather out. GEORGE

[george simon]

Originally Posted by bluecheck

Hey Bill,
Since I wrote that info on indigo into recessive red, I've found from the Luden brothers, that while it does make the recessive red "redder", it also often sort of ruins the look of the tail feathers. So be careful if you do it.

Hi FRANK,Can you tells us what the Luden brothers meant by the tails are sort of ruined.You see I have a recessive red that I plan to use that all ready has what most might say is a ruined tail as it is white with one blue feather. In any event he is the only breedable RR that I have to work with at this time. He is currently mated to a brown bar hen both these birds go back to a cock that is responsible for the RR and brown that is now in my loft. In any event I will play with this to see how the indigo will effect the recessive red. I hope to have 4 or 5 of my IndigoASR at the pageant next month. ...GEORGE

[jbangelfish]

Thanks for the comments. As to ruining anything, I'm not terribly worried about it, these are rollers and I do it for fun. I have recessive reds and yellows everywhere so this is mostly experimental and I'll post the findings here. My main purpose was to create dilute indigo, which with this mating will take two generations. I also figured I'd get indigo opal, which I was curious to see. I may have one now but can't be sure yet. I was surprised to find the RR in the nest.

George, with your homozygous indigo and a spread, you should be getting andalusion, unless the hen is het spread in which case you should have indigo and andalusion. Light beak could mean smoky factor. Let us know what your findings are with yours.

As for mine, I thought early on that I had two opals as they were both light colored. It didn't turn out that way and I'm not sure yet if either is opal but I think the indigo probably is. Time will tell. These are just two YB's that mated up in the YB pen and since I was going to work on the combination anyway, I decided to let them raise a round before winter. I already learned something about the YC that he is split RR and that helps me in how I mate things up next year. I love the surprises that we get in this hobby.

Bill

[jbangelfish]

How do you get a blue tail feather on a RR bird?

I've been going to ask that question anyway because I have a bird that I call recessive red but he has two black tail feathers. He's a red mottle OC fireball and I kept him because of his color and the fact that he's weird. He probably has bronze.

I had him paired to a black pied hen and got yellow mottle, black mottle and one in the nest that I can't tell yet. So I learned that he was split for dilute and that the hen is split RR. Funny, they had no RR's except dilutes.

Bill

[george simon]

Originally Posted by jbangelfish

How do you get a blue tail feather on a RR bird?

I've been going to ask that question anyway because I have a bird that I call recessive red but he has two black tail feathers. He's a red mottle OC fireball and I kept him because of his color and the fact that he's weird. He probably has bronze.

I had him paired to a black pied hen and got yellow mottle, black mottle and one in the nest that I can't tell yet. So I learned that he was split for dilute and that the hen is split RR. Funny, they had no RR's except dilutes.

Bill

Hi BILL, The recessive red that i raised in my loft comes out of two blue birds.Yes that is what I said 2 blue birds recessive masks the blue color, I must point out that I had NO red birds in the loft when this bird was hatched,so that eliminates a red bird as being the father of this bird. Recessive does a poor job of masking,also there is a cut off of the red color pigment going to the feathers thus we get white. The one blue feather did for some reason recieve the blue color pigment. I belive that this blue feather may become white in some later molt I will have to record this birds molts to see if this will happen.Later this week or early the week after I hope to have some photos of this bird to post.There some other questions that may be asked about this bird,but I will leave for now. ..GEORGE

[jbangelfish]

I've done more recessive red breeding with black for whatever reason and it works out fairly well. You can get recessive red or yellow out of just about anything as they can all carry it. My mystery red with the black feathers is just odd or unusual similar to yours with blue. I guess I don't understand how this happens. RR is known to mask blue poorly, maybe it does better with black, I don't really know. Since black is really blue anyway, I'm not certain if they are exlcuded from the statement in the first place. I've gotten them from brown, ash red, black and now indigo.

With all the bronzes out there to help with RR, it's interesting to see what we can come up with. The opals are another group that I think belong with the bronzes as many show lots of bronze. Stencil birds of good quality show no bronze but breed them to normal and they show lots of bronze. This is one of the reasons that I think a few others should be categorized as bronze.

Bill

[bluecheck]

Basically what the Ludens told me was that the tail of the indigo recessive red birds were not the solid deep recessive red that you want, but more of an indigo color, especially at the edges. For flying stock, who cares? For show stock, it might be a hassle.

===
As for catagorizing various other mutations as bronze -- it often becomes a matter of semantics. Almost any mutation that interferes with the melanin production tends to make something "bronze". Basically from what I've seen over the years, we've tended to hold the definition of "bronze" to that which pigeon fanciers have historically used it in most cases. Reason for that == to get a handle on it. We still dont' have a total understanding of the bronzes. I mean, we might even want to throw "indigo" in there because there is some "bronzing" that's created in the het look and since bronze is apparently a mix of black (melanin) and red (eumelanin) we'd be calling almost everything "Bronze". I have no doubt that at sometime in the future, we will have a better hold on all of this. Right now, keep lots of records and maybe pics and maybe we can sort it out.

Frank

[jbangelfish]

Originally Posted by bluecheck

Basically what the Ludens told me was that the tail of the indigo recessive red birds were not the solid deep recessive red that you want, but more of an indigo color, especially at the edges. For flying stock, who cares? For show stock, it might be a hassle.

===
As for catagorizing various other mutations as bronze -- it often becomes a matter of semantics. Almost any mutation that interferes with the melanin production tends to make something "bronze". Basically from what I've seen over the years, we've tended to hold the definition of "bronze" to that which pigeon fanciers have historically used it in most cases. Reason for that == to get a handle on it. We still dont' have a total understanding of the bronzes. I mean, we might even want to throw "indigo" in there because there is some "bronzing" that's created in the het look and since bronze is apparently a mix of black (melanin) and red (eumelanin) we'd be calling almost everything "Bronze". I have no doubt that at sometime in the future, we will have a better hold on all of this. Right now, keep lots of records and maybe pics and maybe we can sort it out.

Frank

I understand that when we play with genetics, not every pigeon comes out beautiful. It's even less important with rollers and homers but they have so many colors to play with, that you can do it and still have a great performing bird, even if he woudn't win the show.

As to all the different bronzes, I have wondered at times if too many were named and actually we were only seeing one or two types of bronze that appear and act differently when various genes are put together. I still don't know and apparently, neither does anyone else.

It's easier to just group all of these genes into a bronze group because of the effect that they have on the basic colors. It is possible that these bronzes are already present in all birds but only show themselves when a certain gene is present.

Why are some birds devoid of the bronze color but still in the bronze group, such as high quality toy stencils that are white bars and spangles? If you breed these birds to others, the bronze presents itself, often, just in an outcross to other white bars. I don't understand it and maybe nobody else does either. I certainly have not seen it explained anywhere.

As far as keeping records, I have been keeping accurate records for over 30 years as to my findings in breeding pigeons. Many of the old ones are packed away so that I can't even find them but they're here somewhere.

My wife is always telling me to write a book but I always tell her that I'm not ready and when I know everything, I'll write a book. It's certainly possible that I'll never quite feel like I know it all, although I get accused of thinking that I do all the time.

Bill

[bluecheck]

Bill - please write that book or at least some articles with your information or send it to the Pigeon Genetics News Views and Comments so that it can be preserved. Honestly, I've seen too much vanish into nowhere when folks died. Things just got "gone". I remember the day we were all excited when Harry Alexander brought a pigeon to the Los Angeles Genetics Club meeting that none of us had EVER seen before -- and we're talking about fanciers like Joe Frazier, Leon Stephens, me, Amos Hodson, and others with literally decades in the hobby and in genetics.

The bird was a check hen with NO bars. Actually that's not true. Harry told us that he'd been breeding for a few years toward that. The spot on each feather that forms the bar had been reduced only to a tiny spot or line so that the bird was a solid check from shoulder down to the end of the wing shield. None of us had ever ever seen a pigeon like it. It was awesome. Unfortunately, Harry took it home and when he died in his loft it was some days before anyone found him. Then the birds went to feed stores etc and that bird and its line went forever. If I hadn't actually been to the meeting that night, I'd have never believed such a bird ever could exist.

I've also seen too many files, breeding results, pictures that have vanished forever to leave us to reinvent what likely had already been found.

As for why the Toy Stencil (which Gibson claims to have broken into at least three mutations combined; Ts1, Ts2, and an unknown) is in the bronze group. when you have a bird that is either homo Ts1 or homo Ts2, you have birds that are Modena bronze or what Gibson calls Root Beer. (I'm heard from a few folks that they're not totally convinced Gibson is correct, but until I see more data, I'm going with this until something shows other info).

The result of homo Ts1 or homo Ts2 or het Ts1 & het Ts2 and the unknown apparently goes to "stencil" - which is just check or to "white bar", which is a barred bird.

[jbangelfish]

Originally Posted by bluecheck

Bill - please write that book or at least some articles with your information or send it to the Pigeon Genetics News Views and Comments so that it can be preserved. Honestly, I've seen too much vanish into nowhere when folks died. Things just got "gone". I remember the day we were all excited when Harry Alexander brought a pigeon to the Los Angeles Genetics Club meeting that none of us had EVER seen before -- and we're talking about fanciers like Joe Frazier, Leon Stephens, me, Amos Hodson, and others with literally decades in the hobby and in genetics.

The bird was a check hen with NO bars. Actually that's not true. Harry told us that he'd been breeding for a few years toward that. The spot on each feather that forms the bar had been reduced only to a tiny spot or line so that the bird was a solid check from shoulder down to the end of the wing shield. None of us had ever ever seen a pigeon like it. It was awesome. Unfortunately, Harry took it home and when he died in his loft it was some days before anyone found him. Then the birds went to feed stores etc and that bird and its line went forever. If I hadn't actually been to the meeting that night, I'd have never believed such a bird ever could exist.

I've also seen too many files, breeding results, pictures that have vanished forever to leave us to reinvent what likely had already been found.

As for why the Toy Stencil (which Gibson claims to have broken into at least three mutations combined; Ts1, Ts2, and an unknown) is in the bronze group. when you have a bird that is either homo Ts1 or homo Ts2, you have birds that are Modena bronze or what Gibson calls Root Beer. (I'm heard from a few folks that they're not totally convinced Gibson is correct, but until I see more data, I'm going with this until something shows other info).

The result of homo Ts1 or homo Ts2 or het Ts1 & het Ts2 and the unknown apparently goes to "stencil" - which is just check or to "white bar", which is a barred bird.

Thanks for the words of encouragement but I'm not ready to write a book. It seems that I'm launching my second "career" in pigeondom as I took a few years off to pursue other things, mainly cagebirds and fish. I delved into their genetics as well and learned a great deal. I really should have written a couple of books as I was breeding so many of them, all the facts were fresh in my mind, their genetics were fairly simple and I took many photos that could have illistrated some simple how to and genetic fact books. Oh well.

As for the pigeons, I'm having to refresh my memory as their genetics are more complex with so many genes to work with. There are people with alot more knowledge about them than me (you,for instance). I have the experience of raising thousands of them and paying close attention to their genetics and how they work but I'm a long way from feeling like I should write the book on them. Most of it has been written by someone else already anyway.

If I stumble onto anything new, I may feel compelled to write about it, at least in an article. I'm especially interested in the mosaics but I don't have any to work with. As I've said before, I believe that they can be produced with the right combination of genes. They might still be a longshot but quite a few people have produced at least a few of them. Too many in my opinion to be pure luck but so far, since no one seems to know what it is, the luck of what they are breeding with is making them.

The genes that I have to work with are interesting and beautiful but nothing new. They have all been around for people to work with for a long time. I still keep accurate records and observe what happens here and there but it's all been done before. I will be taking photos of youngsters and will post here as I have some interesting combinations in the rollers but still nothing new.

Bill

PS, interesting about the check bird without bars. I've never seen one, of course.