Glassfeather

Yes gravity is the major cause of lunacy. Find any one of those big egos floating around full of hot air, tell them a few home truths, the hot air soon dissipates and they come down to Earth with a bump. They tend to go a bit looney.

These are probably brown pigeons then, this is a characteristic of brown. Brown and dilute blue appear very similar, but they are genetically different. Brown is a mutation at the colour locus, just as Ash red is a mutation at the colour locus. Dilute blue results from the effect of the dilute modifier in combination with normal blue. I have a solid brown pouter cock which fades in the sunlight, photos below show his plumage in the summer, then after the moult. Same pigeon:

Hi Freebird, Not much is known about the inheritance of grease quills but they appear to be inherited as a simple dominant, also found in Archangels and Gimpels. Interesting that they may provide the necessary "waterproofing".

When I handle pigeons from the south of Spain, they have a very different feather texture to UK pigeons. I've had Marcheneros, from Seville, and the feather quality is so loose, very soft, and the texture is "satin" as Jimmy described earlier. These aren't racing pigeons, but they have undergone extensive selection in a very hot climate.

Very true Jimmy, I think if you could compare the feather texture and density of winning birds from south of the equator and up into the northern hemisphere, you would find considerable variation.

Wiley, This is the thing about recessive genes, with silver in particular, you could have a loft full of blue and blue cheq cocks, and every one of them could be carrying that dilute gene, therefore having the potential to produce silvers and silver cheqs. Chances are that some will be produced, but it is equally feasible that none may be produced. Point is, as that strain progresses, the recessive is carried along with it, but the gene pool shrinks as the better performers are selected, so all the time there is more chance of the recessives surfacing.

Jimmy, Yes there are different types of feathering as you describe, and different plumage colourations are associated with one or the other.

Is it just the cocks bred from them that perform? I'm only asking because a silver hen's daughter won't inherit the dilute gene from her mother.

Seems to me that it was simply a coincidence that the dilute gene happened to be a part of a good strain. I don't think there is any real correlation, it could just as easily have been an occasional white flight, or an opal, or some other minor mutation which didn't really have any bearing on performance.

Egyptian Swift, and Lucerne Gold Collar.

How about these?

They're not mine, I don't keep them, I'm just showing you some of the breeds out there.

No they are for real.

Actually, along with the Romanian naked neck pigeon, there is also the extremely rare Tunisian one legged pigeon:

Only if it is the three legged race.

How about these, the strangest pigeons I have ever seen, Stargard shakers, the neck wobbles back and forth:

They are actually derived from a flying breed, the Budapest tumbler, tiny little birds, I don't know of anyone who flies these.

How about these?

There aren't a huge number of them here in the UK, and only a handful of people have them.

It's a race of Spanish pouter from the city of Jaén in Linares called "Jiennense".

These are the three basic colours and their corresponding dilutes: Ash red Dilute ash red (Ash Yellow) Blue Dilute blue (Silver) Brown Dilute Brown (Khaki bar)

This is a recessive yellow pigeon. It is the dilute of recessive red. Recessive red is inherited independently of the basic colours, it is an autosomal recessive gene. The pigeon in the photograph above is what some fancy pigeon breeders would consider "undeveloped" recessive yellow, in terms of colour. Recessive red and yellow have been developed in fancy breeds in order to intensify the colour, and to make it uniform throughout the plumage, without evidence of any underlying patterns or tail bar. Photographs of recessive red and yellow in some fancy breeds:

Hi Mike and welcome, There is a discussion group on Yahoo! about Horseman, and a number of breeders, including Canadian members, discuss their birds at "The Dookit". http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/HorsemanThiefPouters/ http://thedookit.googlepages.com/dookit.htm

Another grizzle variant?