What Color is this?

[trailbound]

For all you color genius's, what do I call the following 2 birds as far as what color are they? I took the photo's this am, pardon the mess, I clean the lofts in pm, when it is light out....I also have a white bird with red flecks at the end of nearly every feather, is there a name for that type of ticking?
Kelley

[jbangelfish]

These are grizzled birds. The first is blue grizzle. The one with red may be pied, nearly saddle marked, hard to say from the pic.

Most (not all) white pigeons are in fact homozygous ash red grizzles. Many of them will have some ash red feathers when young and continue to get whiter. When bred for this you can eliminate the red altogether.

Mate a white pigeon to blue (or just about any color) and you can test it to see what is behind the white. Most will produce ash red young as ash red is dominant to everything.

Bill

[george simon]

HI KELLEY, The bird in the first two pictures is a grizzle while everyone calls it a color it is technicality it is a factor that effects color. The bird in the last picture looks like it is red check splash. If one keeps mating grizzle to grizzle they become lighter in color and get to a point where they look white and many people belive that it is a pure white bird,but it is realy a grizzle. Often one will mate two white looking birds and get a youngster that has colored feathers if this happens one or both the whites are not true whites but infact grizzle.Now if you have white birds check out their eyes if they have a yellow /orange type eye you infact have a white grizzle, if the eye is what is called a bulleye you infact have a true white bird. I best stop here I hope that I have not confused you pigeon genetics is a very intresting subject. ...GEORGE

[trailbound]

George,
I have a "dove" release business, and all my breeding stock (about 30 pr) are bulleyed, with the exception of one of the CBS birds I bought last year, who has brilliant orange eyes. I would say they all produce about 80% pure white (at least to the naked eye). I have a red saddled type cock that seems to produce babies (bird #2) 70% of the time with red feathers of some type somewhere (he produced the red saddled baby in photo#3, and also the red ticked bird I mentioned. ) The other colored babies that are produced almost always have blue bar type marking on thier wings, with white bodies. I also get colored babies that have a gray tail feather here and there, but only that red saddled cock ever produces red feathers on babies. I am just starting to learn about the basics behind the genetics of color, and very much appreciate your response to my questions...The birds produced that are not pure white I keep and race in my local club, hence the reason I bought my pure whites from competitive racing lofts, money well spent.
Kelley