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From: Dave Walters
Security: yellow
Date: 09 Jun 2008
Time: 16:27:04 +0100
Remote Name: 88.106.9.160
That’s it Dave I couldn’t wait any longer – I stayed quite hoping someone else would respond to your question but as they haven’t I decided to put pen to paper – Sorry to say but it is all to do with genetics – I could go into the full prose like telling you how Orange is the wild type (+) and Dominant and Pearl (Tr) is recessive and the birds needs two Pearl eye genes to have pearl eyes and a bull eyed pigeon is one that pigment on the innermost layer of the iris and therefore the dark appearance results. There is a very good web site by Ron Huntley http://www.angelfire.com/ga/huntleyloft/eye.html which goes into the above in a lot of detail, but knowing your question resolves around the West of England Tumbler offspring I will give you my interpretation of the question you are asking.
All genes effect each other one way or another some very little and some quite severe. All squabs are dark eyed at birth with the pigmentation of the adult coming within about 2/3 months. The major exception is the Brown squab (both intense (Brown) and Dilute (Khaki)) in this case the eyes are pink and pigmentation takes several weeks longer. The effect of the Ash Red (BA) gene is to slow down this change even more and that is why Ash Red and it’s Dilute Ash Yellow take longer to clear sometimes only showing their full potential when the birds are yearlings. The effect of Recessive Red gives the bird an even whiter eye. I have kept this answer as short as I could Dave and I hope it answers your query. Regards Dave