The Black Pigeon Project – My Journey to Build a Family of Black Racing Pigeons

[king]

Its funny that this thread has come about!

I recently posted on here about breeding colour projects, and I mentioned its not something done too much in the UK.

Having said that, the root of my initial thread, was also to gain some sort of information, but your own thread has been far more successful in prompting the discussions, so I would like to thank you for that!

The other bit I found funny, was that the project I am looking into myself also starts with black pigeons! I currently only have one in my loft acquired a couple of years back from LPW, so unfortunatley I am not able to offer any practical help in that sense, I also can not contribute in the whole coloured winning birds aspect either!

But none the less i will follow this thread closely!

The reason breeding colour projects are not practiced by racing fanciers is they DON'T improve racing performances. Colour has ZERO influence on performance. A true statement I read many years ago is a Winning pigeon cannot be a bad colour. Colour is genetic, you can only breed a colour if your birds have that colour in their genes. That's why uncommon colours are not often seen in racing pigeons.
ALL pigeons base colour must be of one of 3 colours. Red, Blue or Brown.
This thread started with Black, which is not a colour but a colour pattern. Black pigeons are in fact Blue, with a "spread" factor. That's why in some black pigeons you can still see the bars of blue under the spread.

Some of my blacks. First pic blacks & and black showing bars. The hen in first pic was Dam of 4th sec H, 141st Open NFC Saintes 451m couple of weeks ago

[Devo1956]

Its funny that this thread has come about!

I recently posted on here about breeding colour projects, and I mentioned its not something done too much in the UK.

Having said that, the root of my initial thread, was also to gain some sort of information, but your own thread has been far more successful in prompting the discussions, so I would like to thank you for that!

The other bit I found funny, was that the project I am looking into myself also starts with black pigeons! I currently only have one in my loft acquired a couple of years back from LPW, so unfortunatley I am not able to offer any practical help in that sense, I also can not contribute in the whole coloured winning birds aspect either!

But none the less i will follow this thread closely!

The reason breeding colour projects are not practiced by racing fanciers is they DON'T improve racing performances. Colour has ZERO influence on performance. A true statement I read many years ago is a Winning pigeon cannot be a bad colour. Colour is genetic, you can only breed a colour if your birds have that colour in their genes. That's why uncommon colours are not often seen in racing pigeons.
ALL pigeons base colour must be of one of 3 colours. Red, Blue or Brown.
This thread started with Black, which is not a colour but a colour pattern. Black pigeons are in fact Blue, with a "spread" factor. That's why in some black pigeons you can still see the bars of blue under the spread.

Some of my blacks. First pic blacks & and black showing bars. The hen in first pic was Dam of 4th sec H, 141st Open NFC Saintes 451m couple of weeks ago

Some very nice birds there King, very nice indeed.

[Diamond Dave]

I havr a few young birds the same as the 2nd pic and I call them "black bars."
The bird in the 1st pic is obviously a cracker but the one in the 2nd pic would be my choice.
Cracking pigeons King.

[Diamond Dave]

When I was a lad, in the short time I had thr birds someone gave me a pair of "Smith's Grizzles" ( stunning birds as I remember)
When I got back into the birds maybe 40years later
I tried to find some of the bloodlines but couldn't but did get hold of one of his sales catalogues.
Anyone remember them birds.?
Incidently my blacks have come through a black grizzle hen if it means anything.

[king]

I havr a few young birds the same as the 2nd pic and I call them "black bars."
The bird in the 1st pic is obviously a cracker but the one in the 2nd pic would be my choice.
Cracking pigeons King.

The bird in the 2nd pic Dave is Son of a Black hen that was 5th section, 19th Open BICC Barcelona 727 miles, her full sister also a Black was 7th section, 23rd Open BICC Barcelona 727 miles the year after..

[Diamond Dave]

Awesome birds King. The irony of that is I don't usually feel as though I know what I am looking at. So I am chuffed that I recognised the quality in that bird.
Still got it massively wrong though - cos I thought it was a hen lol.

[Andy]

Lovely looking birds King with performances to match, can’t be bad. In the 50+ years I’ve had pigeons I think I’ve only had a handful of blacks. I did have some blood reds which is the red version in the reds that the blacks are of the blues.

[king]

Lovely looking birds King with performances to match, can’t be bad. In the 50+ years I’ve had pigeons I think I’ve only had a handful of blacks. I did have some blood reds which is the red version in the reds that the blacks are of the blues.

Andy I used to love blood red birds, only had a few over the years. The last I had was in 2007 when one was my single entry from Bourges 501 miles 13hr 20min on the day, dropped without a feather out of place but too late for a card though

[Diamond Dave]

Back to the genetics thing - where does the black splashes come from in the reds? I have a heavily black splashed red cock at stock -so much so that some of his flights and tail feathers are completely black. Does this come from the black/blue gene in its ancestors?

[Andy]

Back to the genetics thing - where does the black splashes come from in the reds? I have a heavily black splashed red cock at stock -so much so that some of his flights and tail feathers are completely black. Does this come from the black/blue gene in its ancestors?

Yes Dave. A red cock can carry both the red gene and the blue/black gene. The red is the dominant colour so the cock shows predominantly the red but has splashes of black showing he is carrying that gene. The colour gene is linked to the sex gene through the x & Y chromosome. Hence the male carries 2 colour genes and the female only carries one colour. So a hen that carries the red gene has to be red.
The hen doesn’t pass a colour gene to her daughter’s as the colour gene for the hen only comes from the cock. So all her daughters will be the colour of the cock. Her sons will all be reds, but her mate is a blue they will carry the black splashes.
You can get red cocks without the black splashes if from a red hen and a red cock who passes on his red gene along with the hen. In this instance all his offspring will be reds regardless of what colour he is paired too.

Cock who carries red & blue gene paired to hen who carries red gene.
Will produce red sons (with or without black splashes) and red or blue daughters.
Cock who just carries the blue gene x2 paired to a red hen.
Will produce red sons with black splashes and blue daughters.

Hope this makes sense Dave.