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

[Joey]

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

First of all, thanks for inviting me onto the forum to share this project.

My name is Joe Kelly, and I race as Kelly Bros from Armagh in Northern Ireland. I have kept and raced pigeons for many years, but recently I started on a project that is a little different from anything I have done before.

The idea is simple enough: I want to build a family of beautiful black pigeons that can also race.

I have always had a particular liking for black pigeons. Over the years, though, I have found that genuinely good black racing pigeons are not always easy to find. I didn’t want to breed pigeons purely for colour. The racing ability has to be there as well.

So rather than simply crossing modern racing pigeons together and selecting for black colour, I started looking backwards into some of the old-established racing families where black pigeons were a genuine part of the family.

That search has taken me much further than I originally expected.

The Black Leus

One of the families that really caught my attention was the old Black Leus pigeons.

The more I researched them, the more interested I became. These were not pigeons created recently because somebody wanted a fashionable colour. They were an old-established racing family with their own history and identity.

My search eventually led me to the old Descheemaecker lines in Belgium, where the Leus family has been preserved.

I made contact and asked quite a few questions about the pigeons. I was told that the Leus have been kept very close to the old family and are now highly inbred. I was also advised that, of the old families they maintain, the Leus would be particularly suited to sprint racing.

Some of the old names behind the family include pigeons such as De Zwarte Baron, Japanner, Vale Mazout and Verstekeling, with the history of the family going back through the old Belgian bloodlines associated with Domien Steppe.

That was when the project began to become much more serious in my mind.

The Marcelis Connection

During my research I also became very interested in the old Marcelis pigeons.

I was told something that particularly interested me: while the Leus were considered excellent sprint pigeons, the Marcelis family had maintained a broader genetic base and was regarded as a particularly strong breeding family.

The advice I received was that Leus × Marcelis could be a very interesting cross.

That fitted perfectly with what I was trying to achieve.

Rather than depending on one very inbred family, I could preserve the Leus as a family in their own right, preserve the Marcelis separately, and eventually test carefully selected crosses between them.

The old Marcelis family also has some great historical names behind it, including Geeloog, Sprint, Donkere 12 and Wringer.

Then Came the Jules Severi Blacks

Another family I have been trying to find is the old Jules Severi black pigeons.

These have proven more difficult to obtain.

Recently, I tried to buy a pair of Severi pigeons when they became available, but they sold almost immediately. I tried again when more became available, and once again they were gone almost instantly.

Whether my talking about these old black families on Facebook has helped create a little more interest in them, I don’t know—but it certainly seems that I am not the only person looking for them now!

The search continues.

This is only the beginning. I don’t know exactly where the project will lead or how many years it will take, but that is really the reason I have decided to document it from the start. Hopefully, a few years from now, we can look back through this thread and see how the family developed—from the first research and foundation pigeons right through to the race basket.

[Buster121]

Hi Joe and welcome to the site, enjoyed that read and wish you well in your quest, I have some blacks but never did anything with them

[Diamond Dave]

A very ambitious project Joey. I too like the blacks but can't say that I have ever bred to maintain that colour.
Do you know anything about the genetics - do you know where the bronze tint comes from which I have in some of my blacks....?

[Buster121]

A very ambitious project Joey. I too like the blacks but can't say that I have ever bred to maintain that colour.
Do you know anything about the genetics - do you know where the bronze tint comes from which I have in some of my blacks....?

I have bronze in some of mine as well

[king]

Good luck with your quest. But be warned it's very easy to breed a loft full of blacks, LPW have done that, but it's another thing to have a loft full of racers. Black pigeons are blue based, so your going to breed blues & cheqs and w/fs as well. Even pairing black to black will produce a lot of blues & cheqs
My own family of Marley Westrops are mainly blacks, grizzles & cheqs. Half the birds in my loft are blacks, but I rarely pair black to black.

[Devo1956]

Great write-up, i would say you may be better staying with the Natural breeding station. Another site you could try is https://pigeon-auction.de/ I hope you find some nice birds. You can translate to English on the site.

https://www.pigeoncenter.be/en/

[Andy]

Welcome to the site Joey.
Look forward to seeing your progress.

[Spieker-Loft]

I also got a black couple in my loft.
Welcome to the site and for someone like me who likes alot of colors in their loft this is a great idea of yours and i love it

[chrisroscoe]

Fantastic read read mate and i really cant wait too see how this turns out

[Diamond Dave]

So Joey, can I ask if you have acquired any of these old bloodlines already or do you have your own blacks to work with.
Can you let us know what you are starting the project with.....