Within my flock of white fantails, I have two birds from one breeding group, and 6 from another. The 6 that came from another breeders coop include Nibbles, Layla, their babies, and Lad. Layla is the only adult hen, and she is pure white. Nibbles and lad, and Nibbles's son Harry, ALL have a black spot on the base of thier tails. So did another son of Nibbles, who died after eating rat poisin. When we purchaced Nibbles, Layla and Lad, as far as we could tell all the other pairs also included a Pure white and a spotted bird. I so far don't know the sex or colour of Jingles and his/her sibling.
Dose anybody think its possible that this is a sex linked colour pattern? It's driving me crazy!
P.S. All my birds have black eyes, and the two I bred myself are Black eyed white cross blue bar= Blue bar pied/ Bald headed blue bar, Then crossed back to a black eyed white.

Gee, Hannah, I don't know anything about this stuff. Sorry. I think George might be able to help you out and a couple other members who are knowledgeable about genetics. Hopefully, they'll be along soon.

Linda

George and Becky are the genetic experts.
Hopefully one of them will chime in shortly.

Hannah wrote:Within my flock of white fantails, I have two birds from one breeding group, and 6 from another. The 6 that came from another breeders coop include Nibbles, Layla, their babies, and Lad. Layla is the only adult hen, and she is pure white. Nibbles and lad, and Nibbles's son Harry, ALL have a black spot on the base of thier tails. So did another son of Nibbles, who died after eating rat poisin. When we purchaced Nibbles, Layla and Lad, as far as we could tell all the other pairs also included a Pure white and a spotted bird. I so far don't know the sex or colour of Jingles and his/her sibling.
Dose anybody think its possible that this is a sex linked colour pattern? It's driving me crazy!
P.S. All my birds have black eyes, and the two I bred myself are Black eyed white cross blue bar= Blue bar pied/ Bald headed blue bar, Then crossed back to a black eyed white.

Hello Hannah,
The whites with back tips are called homozygous grizzles. The grizzle pattern in pigeons can go either way… they can either get lighter or get darker as they get older. Your white birds have been created by mating grizzles to each other in order to make them white eventually. If that’s the case however, your white birds would not have black eyes (In genetics, they are referred as bull eyes as they resemble the eyes of the cattle) but they would have orange, yellow, red, or pearl eyes. The Bull eyes are normally seen on pie ball markings or in white self birds.
I am not 100% sure if grizzle is sex linked pattern. But understand that your spread white birds with bull eyes are carrying some other color under their white feathers which you can’t see until you breed them. White is not a color in pigeons, it is a masking color.
For more information visit my website, and read the Genetics about Pattern and Eye Color.
http://mumtazticloft.com/PigeonGenetics.asp

I don't think her whites were created with grizzles. I think they are just splashes to the extreme. From the pictures I've seen, there's only one bird I think may be grizzled.


Besides, if she mated a homozygous grizzle to a blue bar, she'd get all grizzle offspring.