Pigeon color mutations

08-27-2007, 07:50 AM

There are Many Color Mutations within the Pigeon world.

Ash Red

The term red as applied to pigeon color is a can of worms. It's used for colors which, while somewhat similar in appearance, are very different genetically. There's no blame attached to anyone for this. After all, breeders described the birds long before genetics was even thought of. However, because fancier names can be somewhat confusing when we talk about reds, I'm going to use the genetic terminology and explain as I go.
First off, we know that the reds we're discussing include shades like brick-red, copper, chestnut, and bronze. Domestic pigeons don't produce scarlet, crimson or carmine. That's not to say all pigeons can't. Many wild fruit doves are colored as flamboyantly as any parrot. Other wild pigeons such as the Bleeding Heart Dove show splotches of brilliant red color. Unfortunately, the pigeons which produce these flaming red colors are only distantly related to our birds, and cannot be crossed to form fertile hybrids with them. So, until we either find an analagous mutation in our own birds, or some gene splicing scientist is able to snip out the infomation we need from a wild species and bring it across into ours, we're going to have to be satisfied with the reds we do have. Of course, some of those are quite attractive, especially when combined with other modifiers, for example, gimpel bronze, pale. and maybe the whitewing mutation Paul Gibson has found in ash-red gimpels. To see what I mean, take a look at the Arad Pigeon photo that I got from a penpal in Norway.
So, what is red in our pigeons? Let's start with the red of the racing homer, the ordinary red of most pigeons. The red you can find in almost any city park. Let's look at it in a barred bird. What do we see? First: the pattern is similar to that of the wild-type blue bar pigeon. The wing bars show on a clear silvery-ashy shield, the tail bar is visible. However, neither wing bars nor tail bar is the same color as it is on a wild blue bar. The wing bar is not black, but rather a brick-red color. The tail bar is also not black, but neither is it brick red. Instead, we find that it has been washed out to an ashy-gray color. We also find the same ashy-gray color on the edges of the wing's flight feathers. Note the flights and tails on the photos above.

It was this duality of action, the reddening of the bars and feather color and the ashy-lightening of the tail bar and flights that led W.F. Hollander to choose the name Ash-red for the mutation which produces this condition. Ash-red is extremely common and found in many breeds, either alone or in combination with other mutations. Its genetic shorthand symbol is BA but I won't go into the reasons for that designation in this article.

But what is Ash-red? In a wild-type blue bar pigeon, the material that colors the feathers is called melanin. To be more specific, it's actually called eumelanin. This material is laid down in the feathers and is shaped like a rod. The mutation for Ash-red goofs up the instructions in the bird's genetic structure which causes the body to lay down those rod-shaped eumelanin granules. Instead, the body lays down irregularly ball-shaped piles of pigment. You can imagine it as if thin, metal rods were suddenly trampled by a hippopotamus. The long, thin rods are now irregular globs of metal.

While there's actually a chemical change from one melanin type to the other, for our purposes we can just figure the basic coloring material is about the same. In its ball-shaped arrangement, we call the coloring material phaeomelanin. Depending on how phaeomelanin is arranged in the bird's feathers and on its concentration in those feathers, it appears to us either brownish or reddish.

As breeders, we happen to find the color effects pleasing so we keep the mutation around and try to raise more birds carrying it. Since this particular mutation is a sex-linked dominant, that's very easy to do. All we need do to get more Ash-red birds is to pair an Ash-red with any blue/black or brown bird. If one pairs an Ash-red hen with such a cock, all Ash-red youngsters in the nest will be cocks and all non-Ash-red birds will be hens. If one pairs an Ash-red cock with a blue/black or brown hen, one gets Ash-red youngsters of both sexes, as well as other colored young of both sexes if the Ash-red cock happens to be carrying any other color factor (i.e., if it's heterozygous, rather than homozygous, for Ash-red.)

Please note, and this is important, with Ash-red, the bird's pattern is still visible. We can look at an Ash-red bird and see if it's a bar less, bar or checker. Unfortunately, we again meet one of those worms caused by the difference between genetic jargon and fancier jargon. What many racing homer breeders call "bar less mealy" is almost certainly not a bar less pigeon. Rather, it's usually an Ash-red bird, barred or checkered, which happens to also carry a second mutation called Spread.

Spread is a mutation which can basically be considered to take the tail bar color and "spread" it over the entire bird, like an overcoat. Thus, a spread blue pigeon is a black, and a spread brown is self-brown. Because the Ash-red bird has an ashy-tail bar, the Spread mutation reproduces this color over the entire bird. Voila, a "bar less" mealy. I say "bar less" because the Spread factor usually prevents you from seeing the bars, though they are there, just as you normally don't see the bars in a black, though they, too, are genetically there. True bar less birds do exist; by the way, some are even racing pigeons. I have friends who've flown them to all distances.

Other reds known in domestic pigeons are recessive red and the various bronzes. Those, however, are the subject of another article.

Ash-Red Color in Domestic Pigeons (Columba livia)

Arty

Pairof Morning Doves

08-27-2007, 07:58 AM

Spread
While Spread is an extremely common mutation among domestic pigeons, it’s almost unknown under its genetic designation. Instead, pigeon fanciers call the effects this mutation produces self brown, black or “barless” mealy. (Some show pigeon fanciers call Ash-red Spread-- Strawberry -- especially if sooty is also included in the phenotype) Yet, no matter the fancier's name for it, each of these colors is merely an example of Spread on a different base pigment, brown, blue and Ash-red. Almost sixty years ago, W.F. Hollander noted that the pigment which provides the coloring matter in our birds’ plumage, came in two different arrangements. In the bars, pigment was spread out. In the rest of the feather it was clumped.
You can imagine this pigment as a batch of spaghetti. In the area of the bars, the spaghetti is laid out regularly and spaced into individual strands. In the rest of the feather, it’s gathered together into small bundles. Each bundle is then laid in a regular arrangement. The color we see in any individual feather is a result of light hitting that feather and bouncing back to our retina. Where the pigment is spread out (the bars) almost all the light is absorbed and very little of it bounces back to our eye. We see black. Where the pigment is clumped, more light is bounced back to us and we see a blue-gray color. This pigment arrangement is the normal situation in the wild-type (blue bar) pigeon. Spread, however, is a mutation which upsets this normal arrangement. Somehow, it opens up the clumped pigment bundles and places the individual strands of pigment throughout the whole feather. What was once the normal situation only in the bars is now the situation throughout all the feathers. In fact, you can think of Spread as being a mutation which takes the tail bar color and paints it over the whole pigeon. Want to know what color bird you’re likely to get if you add Spread to it? It’s easy to imagine.

Look at a pigeon. Birds in the blue series, i.e., blue barless, blue bar or blue check, all have a black tail bar. Adding Spread to any such pigeon takes that tail bar color and paints it all over the bird. You get a black. In like manner, a brown with Spread becomes a self-brown. The dark brown color of the tail bar is spread all over the bird. Ash-red birds are a bit trickier. Not because the mutation does anything different with Ash-red, but because in Ash-reds, the tail bar is lighter instead of darker than the rest of the feather. When Spread is added to Ash-red, this lighter, ashy color is spread over the whole bird. Instead of a dark-red bird, which we might intuitively expect, we get an ashy-gray one. We get what many racing pigeon fanciers call a “barless” mealy. The bird is usually not actually barless. Barless is a totally different mutation found in the pattern series. In these so-called barless mealies, the bars are simply not seen under the Spread ‘overcoat’. It’s similar to what we see with blacks. We normally can’t see the bars under the Spread on those birds either.
Have a loft full of blues and blue checks and want some blacks? It's easy to add Spread to your stud? Just get a black pigeon. Mate it to any bird you’d like - one of the opposite sex usually works best. Since Spread is inherited as a simple dominant mutation and is not sex-linked, some of the youngsters in the nest will be Spread (blacks). If the bird you started with is heterozygous for Spread -- is carrying only one gene for Spread -- about half of your youngsters, in both sexes, will be spreads. If your original bird was homozygous for Spread -- carrying two genes for it -- all your youngsters of either sex will be Spreads. Spread inherits independently of the patterns (barless, bar, check), so each Spread bird also has one of those patterns underneath the Spread.
Therefore, any particular black pigeon is either a barless, barred or checked pigeon. If the black is a “good” black, shiny and dark, only breeding tests (or knowing the parents) will allow us to determine which pattern is hidden by the Spread "overcoat. If you happen to have brown bars or ash-red bars and want spread birds in those pigments, it'd be easiest if you could find a spread bird in those pigments, i.e., a self brown or a spread ash-red (under any of its fancier names). By getting a bird already in the pigment series you're working with, you don't have to worry about the sex-linkage of the pigment series. Of course, you can use any spread bird to introduce the mutation to your stud, though you might have to wait for the segregation of the genotype and phenotype you're looking for. But then, that's often part of the fun of breeding.

Pigeon Genetics: Spread