Intensive Inbreeding “A Practical Discussion”
Otherwise known as the cornerstone of selective breeding, line-breeding in racing pigeons essentially involves breeding around usually a single pigeon, but sometimes an original pair, in an effort to cultivate and increase the potential of reproducing the favourable traits associated with the original genetics you are line-breeding around.
When we discuss breeding, we are not discussing simply how to put two birds together and get offspring.We are discussing how to breed to a higher standard to get the most potential out of our stock.When we start discussing genes and how they work and strategies things get complicated and it’s pretty easy to get lost in the discussion and the research and loose touch with the nuts and bolts of how things work.This is an attempt to bring that discussion to the kitchen table.
The rules of the game are the rules of inheritance, you learn genetics just by playing the game! The traits in Pigeonetics are all based on those found in actual pigeons. Beautiful graphics and music, along with the gentle coos of endearing pigeons, guide you through 26 puzzles of increasing difficulty. Breeding healthy pigeons is not a simple process. If you want to breed a healthy pigeon then there are many important steps that must be followed. The antibiotics that you use can effect on any breeding that you do. The local temperatures and food supply are a fact for pigeons to breed all year round. A pigeon reaches sexual maturity in about. Pigeon Genetics 101. To some, it might seem that purpose-breeding pigeons is going a bit far for one whose primary goal is simply homing and/or surplus birds for dog training. But if you are going to spend the time setting up breeding facilities, might you also want to get the most effective return for your money and effort? I have been breeding Koi, game fowls and canine but I consider my breeding program in racing pigeon as more advanced than my other “breeding” hobbies as I have fully developed my own strain through selective line and inbreeding. I started line breeding my Crack 52 line way back in 1983 and my “Flying Machine” line in 1985. WILD TYPE: The phrase 'wild type', when used in genetics, simply means the total gene package of an individual which has no mutations. It is a reference point from which geneticists work. In the case of the pigeon, it represents a blue bar bird of normal size, with clean legs, no crest or frill, orange eyes, etc. Pigeon breeding applies equally to the breeding of hogs, rabbits, flies, and even bacteria. The advantage that bacteria offer in studying genetics is their extremely short life cycle.
For simplicity sake, let’s assume you have a great performing pigeon and we’ll use an old term of “sport”.He or she may not have been bred out of birds that themselves were the most outstanding pigeons.Reality is that your new sport is only going to perform for you for 5 or 6 years at the most.You look at him or her and you think, “I would love to have 12 of him or her in my loft and I would be on top of the world!”Any fancier in their right mind would have the same thought.
So you put your sport together with a hen that is proven and you don’t produce anything close to your treasured sport.Now what do you do?At this point, fanciers then start to for the first time to consider things like inbreeding and line breeding in hopes that this may be the way to get a copy of their sport.Now we are starting to walk down the right road.We have a true goal in mind.We are stepping beyond the idea of mating the best to the best, regardless of pedigree for a goal of producing a specific type of pigeon.This is where the strategies of line breeding and inbreeding begin.
It’s easy to get confused when all of a sudden diagrams are in front of us showing the specific matings and rematings of birds required for line breeding and inbreeding.Then you throw into the mix ways of labeling or recording these matings and before you know it, confusion starts to set in the and the basic principal is lost.That is not the intent of the material.That is why I have decided to write this discussion.
Let’s start with our treasured sport.When we look at him, we are looking at the physical manifestation of everything his genetics determined he would become.We already know that there are physical traits that we can see and measure.These are the things in our comfort zone.We also accept that there are qualities about him that we can’t see but have been tested by the basket in training and the races that he has competed.This is also in our comfort zone.Now we have to accept that there are genetics he possesses that were not physically manifested.There are genes that may be superior to what he has become and genes that are negative and undesirable.Both of these types of genes can be passed on to his offspring.The same statement also applies to any mate that you choose for your sport.
Now we have accepted a very important truth.Our sport, regardless of how phenomenal he may be, could genetically posses traits that are undesirable but not physically manifested.Only after we have accepted this truth can we begin our journey towards producing another sport.We have also accepted that there are traits that he has manifested that we can not see and he possesses traits that not only are not manifested, but can be passed down to his off spring.
Now the journey can begin.We talk about gene pools.Mostly we discuss them in the larger scheme.You can consider all the genetics possibilities in your breeding loft as one large gene pool.If you have 12 breeders, every bit of genetic material in their chromosomes is part of your gene pool.But, for inbreeding we have to narrow down this thought to truly get our minds around it.Our gene pool is the genetic material possessed by our one sport.
Every time he is mated 50% of this genetic material is passed own to his offspring (1st generation).If his off spring is mated to an unrelated pigeon, our 2nd generation now only receives 25% of our sports genetic material.The math is easy, within a few generations we are not looking genetically to anything close to our sport.
This is where inbreeding then becomes the tool of choice.By inbreeding we are attempting to increase the amount of genetic material possessed by the offspring from the foundation birds.I use the plural form because our sport can not produce off spring without a mate, so we will always have two foundation birds.In the chapters on inbreeding and line breeding the diagrams always start with a #1 cock and a #2a hen, our foundation pair.
The reason that my strategies involve working with the descendents to start the inbreeding program starts with the two foundation birds and not the ancestors is because most people do not have all the ancestors.We are living in an age when so many birds are purchased from pigeon brokers for a great deal of money.Often, birds in the pedigrees are not flown, they are “bred for stock”.In other words, they may be physically appealing, but they were not tested by the basket or the races.They were kept and maintained to produce offspring for sale.We do not want “bred for stock” in our program.We want tested pigeons.The only place you are going to find tested pigeons, in the conditions you are competing, is in your own race loft.
If you have the ancestors of your sport, and they have been tested, you are a step ahead on the theory.Consider that your sport is 50% of his sire and 50% of his dam.Somewhere in that mix, he received the right combination to become a sport.In that mathematical equation, that scientific dance of the chromosomes, he got “the right” combination.In theory, his siblings can be very much genetically the same as he, or genetically, almost unrelated.Let’s assume that a sibling is also 50% of the sire and 50% of the dam, but they were the opposite 50%.Genetically, they would be very much different than our sport.This is why once we have a sport; we want to start our breeding program descending downwards, instead of fighting upwards.
If you mate your sport to his daughter, she is 50% of him.Their offspring will be receiving 25% of him from the daughter, 50% of him from the sport and 25% of the genetic material from the daughter’s dam.That’s a 75% to 25% ratio.You can not be guaranteed to get that much concentration even when you start to mate back up the pedigree from your sport.Granted your chances are greater than mating to unrelated pigeons, but why bother going up when you can go downwards and control what you are producing?
We accepted the truth that our sport and all birds have manifested physical traits (genetic material) that we can see and feel.They have manifested traits (genetic material) that can be tested by the basket and the races.They have traits that were not physically manifested that can not be seen nor can be tested, but surely, can be passed to the offspring.
This is our task then towards producing our sport.We have to use the tools of inbreeding to sift out, those undesirable traits when they are manifested.We want to concentrate the genetic material that produced our original sport.We want to create offspring that are as close as possible to our original sport.If this is what you want to do, then follow the intensive breeding program.
Pigeon Genetics Game
When our brother fanciers in the colored fancy pigeons want to know what genetics are behind a pigeon, they inbreed downwards and isolate the various genetic alleles.They let them reveal themselves and then they know what combination of genetics is responsible.They also know what genetic traits were possessed but where recessive and not expressed.This is EXACTLY what we are trying to do with racing pigeons.We are trying to reproduce the expressed genetics of our original sport.We though are handicapped because of all the genetic traits that we can not see or feel.
Pigeon Breeding Genetics
That is why the intensive inbreeding program was written this way.To save you time mating back up into the pedigree.To go “intense” and quickly shake out the genetic material that is undesirable.It is designed to quickly isolate, and “double up” or create homozygous material that is desirable.It is designed so that the results of your hard work can be reproduced.You must accept that there is no magic pill or magic formula.You must accept that you will produce inferior birds. Early, the ratio of desirable birds may become as great as 1:10 or even greater.You must accept that some lines will dead end, and you must go back and breed downward again.Trudge onward with faith in the theory and it will pay off.