Bred out the Pepper in Pigeons?

[brewmaster15]

Early morning musings here but..

I've always been fascinated by the peppering of pigeons and the expression of that peppering. It Used to be pigeons were very dirty looking with lots of Pepper.. Then over time more and more pigeons showed up on the market that were cleaner and the explanation of where they came from was that they were being bred to Goldens to "breed out" the pepper. Not sure how much of that is really true or if it was just more selective breeding of cleaner and cleaner and cleaner pigeon stock. The end result would be clean pigeons with no pepper or very little peppering.. Obviously something was done to the pigeon stock out there as effect was pretty pronounced with many clean pigeons showing up relatively quickly.

Was it breeding to Goldens or selective breeding of clean pigeons to each other. I don't really know. I know what is parroted across social media, forums, and articles....how much is urban legend? I have never seen it documented with the Goldens. I suppose I could get a hold of some low grade dirty Pigeons, pick up some" Golden" stock and spend a few years playing to get some answers...unfortunately I don't have the time or space and have other projects I am more interested in right now,..thats a back burner project for me..lol


I do have a few questions.. to start with.....

Normally if we take a non-pigeon and cross it to a pigeon you more often than not get seriously dirty ugly fry.If we have" bred the pepper " out of pigeons would that still be the case? I mean to say if the pigeon does not have the genes for pepper anymore, how can they pass it on to their fry if they are crossed to non-pigeons. It raises interesting questions. If the fry of a "clean" pigeon crossed with a non-pigeon turn out dirty, what does that tell us about the idea that we "bred out pepper"? I know we generally like to discourage breeding of non-pigeon to pigeon because of the history of unpleasant looking dirty peppered fry, but there may be a good deal of information to learn from doing just that given the Pigeons of today are not the Dirty Pigeons of yesterday. I suspect that peppering in Pigeons and the expression of it may be a tad more complicated than "breeding out Pepper. But the scientist in me loves this stuff, so should anyone have documentation of F1 fry, juvies, etc from a clean pigeon crossed to a non pigeon, please post them here...heck if you have f1s from a dirty pigeon crossed to a non pigeon, post these here also.
al

[peewee1]

An exception would be the Mercury and the Dark Angel where a form of peppering makes the over all presentation of the fish itself. If the dark shading on those fish are considered to be peppering.

[JamesW]

I also remember when Pigeons were an abomination and how would the fry ever find the parents and it was cruel and irresponsible to have them. I may be exaggerating but I seem to remember some considerable hand wringing at the pigeons of the 90's.

As I haven't done the breeding that Al is interested in I am going to do what I do best and speculate wildly :D

Given the variability of the discus color patterns and variations I don't think there is a single 'pepper' allele.

I think skin color in humans is determined by a handful of genes so maybe there is a bar/pepper gene and a handful that determine the extent of peppering. Clean pigeons would be homozygous for clean in all of those genes. Presumably bar'ed fish wouldn't be homozygous for clean so even a clean pigeon backcrossed to a bar'ed fish would give dirty peppered babies. That assumes that bar/pigeon is dominate for pigeon and clean/dirty is dominate for dirty.

[Pudmuppy]

I am also speculating as I know very little about discus genetics, but could the "Clean" look be a recessive trait in a way? That is why it reappears when bred to a non pigeon?

[CliffsDiscus]

I already try to breed out the peppering in the Pigeons that was around 15 years ago. F1 by selective only 5 % clean Pigeon. F2 were fairly cleaner then what was offer on the market but
the downfall was f3 some of the dirty Pigeons
came back looking much like the original.

Cliff

[CliffsDiscus]

My second peppering cleaning was 5 years before the albinos were seen in the US. I receive a few albinos from a friend in Hong Kong. One pair of
pigeon and albino form producing very clean adults
without any selective.

[CliffsDiscus]

My third pepper clean up was crossing already clean
adult albino/pigeon with a discus without any black
that was with a Blue Diamond. Results were even
better than the albino/pigeon.

Cliff

[RogueDiscus]

Thank you Cliff, that was awesome!
Just wondering what it took. Did you have a single pair you were working with at each stage, and maybe several batches from them, or multiple pairs, many tanks!
Steve

[brewmaster15]

My second peppering cleaning was 5 years before the albinos were seen in the US. I receive a few albinos from a friend in Hong Kong. One pair of
pigeon and albino form producing very clean adults
without any selective.

Thats interesting Cliff. thanks. If you crossed an albino with non albino (pigeon) all the F1 offspring are supposed to have the same phenotype as the non-albino. I wouldnt have expected you to get clean pigeons. Not sure what to make of your observations here , if being recessive for albinism affected the expression of peppering there must be some kind of link between the genes. Theres alot of implications if thats the case.it would actually suggest that one way to clean up the pigeons is out cross to albino at least for f1s.
Al
.

[brewmaster15]

My third pepper clean up was crossing already clean
adult albino/pigeon with a discus without any black
that was with a Blue Diamond. Results were even
better than the albino/pigeon.

Cliff

I remember years ago Green Country Discus ..Andrew and Angela (I think) bred a blue diamond to a pigeon and got some incredibly clean white butterfly looking offspring..I remember being so surprised.


but then there are others I have seen do a similar cross and it comes out looking like a sooty blue diamond.. sometimes called blue butterflies... the peppering here isnt like normal pigeon pepper its more powdery looking...diluted.

al

[brewmaster15]

I am also speculating as I know very little about discus genetics, but could the "Clean" look be a recessive trait in a way? That is why it reappears when bred to a non pigeon?

Im not sure at all myself but I.have wondered if the pigeon gene isnt bred out ...but in clean fish it is masked or its expression modulated by a another gene(maybe from goldens).. serious speculation here.

al

[CliffsDiscus]

I remember years ago Green Country Discus ..Andrew and Angela (I think) bred a blue diamond to a pigeon and got some incredibly clean white butterfly looking offspring..I remember being so surprised.


but then there are others I have seen do a similar cross and it comes out looking like a sooty blue diamond.. sometimes called blue butterflies... the peppering here isnt like normal pigeon pepper its more powdery looking...diluted.

al

I did cross Cary Strong's White Butterfly this fish was
from one of the raffles. The White Butterfly was cross with an light yellow albino. The results were
very few peppering with a white base.

Cliff

[CliffsDiscus]

Thank you Cliff, that was awesome!
Just wondering what it took. Did you have a single pair you were working with at each stage, and maybe several batches from them, or multiple pairs, many tanks!
Steve

Hi Steve,
I started with only one pair, after 6 months their offsprings(females) were ready to spawn that's when
some crossing and inbreeding started. I had no more
than 10 pairs, some red turquoise, Singapore Fireworks, Wayne Ng's Eruptions and albinos.
Total number of tanks were between 50 to 80.
I only had only 2 to 3 breeding tanks as most of
the breeding pairs remain in community or grow out
tanks. Eggs were pulled out from community tanks and artificially raised. I probably had around 20 to 30
batches each month.

Cliff