- PIGEON PATTERNS -

There are four pigeon patterns. Barless (c), Bar (+), Checker (C), and T-pattern Checker (C^T). I have the patterns listed from left to right in order of dominance with barless being at the bottom. Click on each picture to enlarge them.

The examples above are given for blue/black color, but patterns can be seen in any of the base colors and their diluted and reduced versions. The top dominant is the T- pattern (gene symbol C^T) which is almost as black (a few light edges or triangles as "check" in the wing shield area) as spread pigeons. However, T-pattern birds have regular flights and tail with the near terminal band. By looking at the terminal tail band, we can determine if the bird is Spread or T-patern Checker, as spread birds don't have terminal tail band. Also, spread is not one of the 4 base patterns found in pigeons. Recessive to the T-pattern is another mutant allele, checker (C), showing several triangular checks of light gray or "blue" in the blacker wing shield area. These two types actually intergrade, possibly from modifying factors or more likely from intermediate alleles. Nevertheless, one can almost always distinguish them in pigeons. A third allele recessive to both T-pattern and check is the wild type bar pattern (+). Finally, the 4th allele, recessive to the other 3, is the barless (c). Barless is bluish like the wild type, but it lacks the bars. Barless is only rarely seen in pigeons.

The gene symbols in order of decreasing dominance are C^T > C > + > c

Like in color, the highest order of dominance can hide anything below it but nothing above it. This means that two barred birds cannot produce a T-check or check offspring. Unlike 3 base colors, there are 4 different traits for the pattern and each gender carry 2 allele for any of the patterns that are shown above. The pattern therefore is not sex linked because every pigeon, male or female carry two alleles for patterns. This makes both sexes homozygous or heterozygous for any of the patterns. A hen can be heterozygous bar carrying barless or homozygous T-pattern checker (both alleles for pattern is T-pattern checker). But she cannot be heterozygous bar carrying checker! During mating, each gender donate one of the alleles for the pattern that they carry and the offspring will then show the dominant pattern it received from both of its parents. If the offspring receives same allele patterns (both bar, or both checker) then the pattern would be homozygous.

It is very important to note that the pattern is located in different locus (different forms of a gene at a particular physical location on a chromosome) and therefore inherited independently of color. The pattern does not occur only on blue but in every other color except recessive red, spread black, and white. Understanding the pattern and their inheritance is very important to breeders interested in color, specially to the breeders of Toy Stencils, Oriental Frills, etc. According to Wendell Levi, in his book The Pigeon, "when breeds or varietties of different color are crossed, blue color frequently appears. This accurence, called "reversion", was one of the Darwin's chief reasons for believing that all domestic pigeons are descendent from the blue rock pigeon (C. livia)" (Levi, p. 309).

People often ask me how they can get barless birds. Barless is a mutation and a unit that you have to have in order to produce more offspring. In addition, being at the bottom of the dominance it takes couple of generations of inbreeding to get it back. At the moment I have a pair of barless rollers but I am not very happy with their performance. So, my goal is to breed them with better performers and then breed the offspring back to the barless parent to keep the barless pattern.

Here is how to breed barless from one parent:

Let's say I have a barless hen. She must be homozygous barless in order to show a barless pattern, as barless is expressed only in homozygous stage and her genetic symbol would be represented as c//c. Now, if I crossed her with a homozygous bar cock, both alleles for pattern is bar and represented as +//+. All of the offspring from that mating will be heterozygous bars carrying barless. Now, if I cross the male offspring from that mating, back to his barless mother I would get: 50% barless and 50% heterozygous bar carrying barless. The punnet square shown on the left is the demonstration of this mating. By keep inbreeding them, I can keep the barless pattern and add performance to them. Unfortunately, the color and the pattern are easier to put in to a breed than the performance, because performance in pigeons is also a recessive trait and very hard to put in and maintain. Think of performance as a talent that not every pigeon is blessed with.

Barless is a fairly rare mutant in most domestic pigeon breeds and often confused with other modifiers. I have seen a lot of people calling magpies, homozygous indigo (andalusions), recessive reds even white-selves (I actually heard that one!) as barless. I have also seen people calling a T-pattern checker as spread. It is actually very easy to separate a spread from a T-pattern by just looking at their tail band. T-pattern Checker, Checker, Bar and Barless birds will have tail bands and you can actually see a white line on the edges of end tails; unless the birs is an ash red. Ash red is a color where the tail bar is not brick red that we would see in the bars of the pigeon. Instead, we find that it has been washed out to an ashy-gray color just like the color that we found on the edges of the wing's flight feathers.

Here is how to breed bar pattern from two chequer parents:

I once received an email from someone wondering how in the world he got a bar pattern from two chequer parents. The answer is very simple. In order for two checkers to produce a bar pattern, both parents have to be heterozygous chequers carrying bars. Both parents must be carrying a bar pattern in order to produce a less dominant bar pattern from two chequer parents. From this mating there is 25% chance or 1 out of 4 babies will be a bar pattern. The punnet square on the right demonstrates how this is possible. 25% of this mating will be Homozygous Chequer (both alleles for patterns are chequers) as it is shown on top left sequare. In addition, 50% of the offspring from this mating will be Heterozygous Chequers carrying Bar just like the parents, as it is shown on top right and bottom left squares.

Other modifiers and markings:

A pigeon may not show its true pattern because other modifiers prevent it like white-self or any other spread color i.e. black, recessive red or brown. Andalusion, grizzle, almond, toy stencil, lace, magpie or white side birds will also be preventing for us the see the pattern of the bird, but understand that the pattern is there (under the modifier). Notice that other than the 4 patterns shown above, the other modifiers like spread black or white-self is NOT considered to be pattern or color but as a modifiers and they are located in a different chromosome than the pattern and the color. If a bird has a spread gene in it, it will basically cover (hide) the pattern of the pigeon and will make the pattern not visible. But, regardless of which modifier is expressed, a pigeon still carries two additional alleles for the pattern under a spread whether it is homozygous or heterozygous. In other words, every spread bird we see, still carries additional two out of four patterns (barless, bar, checker, and T-pattern checker) in them which are simply covered (modified) by the spread modifier.

The following pictures show most of the modifiers that prevent us seing the 4 base patterns. Click on each picture to enlarge them.