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Pattern (CT- C - + - c)
Recessive Red (e)
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Simple Genetics
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I have been asked on many occasion ‘what colour should be mated to what colour?’ I have therefore attempted to give an idea of what genetics are all about. I do not by any stretch of the imagination know all there is to know about genetics and these notes are only my interpretation of this very deep subject. Of course the answer to the question above is “It does not matter what colour goes with what before starting to establish the colours you want you should establish the type”, so therefore put your best to the best. Once you have the type right you can then concentrate on colour.
Genes are what gives you the colour of your hair, eyes and skin, the size of your nose, feet, etc etc. Each parent passes part of themselves to their offspring. So it is with pigeons, Each Gene comes in pairs one from each parent. Having said that, there is always the exception to the rule. This is the case with the sex-linked (genes linked to the sex chromosomes) colour gene in pigeons. To understand the sex chromosomes click HERE The cock birds have two colour genes but the hen only has one so therefore straight away we can make the statement that ‘The colour of a hen is what you see is what you get’ providing there are no colour modifiers involved. The cock bird on the other hand carries an additional gene to the one that you can see, but will always be the same as or lower than the one you can see, because if it were greater then that would be the colour of the pigeon. Nature has helped us to a certain extent in as far as there are only three colours these are Red (BA) Blue (+) and Brown (b) and there is an order of dominance. Think of a ladder, which you can go down but not go up. Study of the genetics has established that there is a dominant and recessive colour to wild type (+). Yes wild type is Blue (+) Red (BA) is dominant to wild type and Brown (b) is recessive. What this means is that two Browns can produce nothing but Browns or its dilute Khaki (if the cock is carrying Khaki). Whereas, Blues can produce not only Blues or their dilute Silver, but also Brown’s and Khaki’s but not Reds ie. Browns are down the ladder but Reds are up the ladder. On the other hand Reds can produce Reds, Blues and Browns or any of there dilutes because they are all down the ladder. There are also sex-linked dilatants on the same gene but at different loci (location), which are Dilution (d), Pale (dp) and Reduced (r) all recessive to wild type. I am not going to over complicate the issue so therefore will only deal with one of these, which is dilution (d). For the observant ones amongst you will have already noticed that the Dominate colours use Capital Letters, Wild type is the + symbol and recessive colours uses lower case letters. For the record also on the sex linked gene appears the Almond gene but not to over complicate this short paper we will ignore for now.
| Genes | GENEOTYPE | PHENEOTYPE | |||||||
| Colour | Pattern | Indigo | Spread | Pure Blue Cock Bird | Blue | ||||
| Dilute | Brown | Khaki | Hen | ||||||
| c//c | Homo for Barless | Barless Blue | +//d | +//b | +//b,d | +/- | |||
| c//c | In//+ | Homo for Barless, Hetro for Indigo | Barless Indigo | +//d | +//b | +//b,d | +/- | ||
| c//c | In//In | Homo for Barless & Indigo | Barless Ash Red 'look alike' | +//d | +//b | +//b,d | +/- | ||
| c//c | S//- | Homo for Barless with spread | Black | +//d | +//b | +//b,d | +/- | ||
| c//c | In//+ | S//- | Homo for Barless with spread, Hetro for Indigo | Andalusion | +//d | +//b | +//b,d | +/- | |
| c//c | In//In | S//- | Homo for Barless & Indigo with spread | Ash Red Shield with lacing | +//d | +//b | +//b,d | +/- | |
| +//c | Hetro for Bar & Barless | Blue Bar | +//d | +//b | +//b,d | +/- | |||
| +//c | In//+ | Hetro for Bar & Barless, Hetro for Indigo | Indigo Bar | +//d | +//b | +//b,d | +/- | ||
| +//c | In//In | Hetro for Bar & Barless, Homo for Indigo | Ash Red Bar 'look alike' | +//d | +//b | +//b,d | +/- | ||
| +//c | S//- | Hetro for Bar & Barless with spread | Black | +//d | +//b | +//b,d | +/- | ||
| +//c | In//+ | S//- | Hetro for Bar & Barless with spread, Hetro for In | Andalusion | +//d | +//b | +//b,d | +/- | |
| +//c | In//In | S//- | Hetro for Bar & Barless with spread, Homo for In | Ash Red Shield with lacing | +//d | +//b | +//b,d | +/- | |
| Homo for Bar | Blue Bar | +//d | +//b | +//b,d | +/- | ||||
| In//+ | Homo for Bar, Hetro for Indigo | Indigo Bar | +//d | +//b | +//b,d | +/- | |||
| In//In | Homo for Bar & Indigo | Ash Red Bar 'look alike' | +//d | +//b | +//b,d | +/- | |||
| S//- | Homo for Bar with spread | Black | +//d | +//b | +//b,d | +/- | |||
| In//+ | S//- | Homo for Bar with spread, Hetro for Indigo | Andalusion | +//d | +//b | +//b,d | +/- | ||
| In//In | S//- | Homo for Bar & Indigo with spread | Ash Red Shield with lacing | +//d | +//b | +//b,d | +/- | ||
| C//c | Hetro for Chq & Barless | Blue Chequer | +//d | +//b | +//b,d | +/- | |||
| C//c | In//+ | Hetro for Chq & Barless, Hetro for Indigo | Indigo Chequer | +//d | +//b | +//b,d | +/- | ||
| C//c | In//In | Hetro for Chq & Barless, Homo for Indigo | Ash Red Chequer 'look alike' | ||||||
