March/April 2025

18 – Purebred PIGEON Regarding the colors obtained, they all seemed to fit among those described on page 82 of Levi’s Encyclopedia. The color of the iris of the eyes was also adequate because the red iris factor dominated the pearl of the French Bagdads; all the F1 obtained expressed it except for the logical exception of the brown dilute (Khaki) female, and with the broken eye in the black male pied. The type, texture of the nasal and eye ceres, and the length of the beak were also adequate. Only the color of the ceres of the eye was logically not red because the male of Spanish frilled Bagdette had only a slightly reddish color despite its advanced age, and that the Homer female had it of normal color, the red color of the ceres of the eye being a recessive factor as cited by Sell A. which was published by Layne Gardner in 2003 regarding his observations with Old Dutch Capuchine. The next step of crossing those F1 between them would cause, according to Mendel’s 2nd Law, the segregation of recessive factors for the pigmentation of the iris and the ceres of the eye, obtaining in theory F2 with 25% pearly eyes, 25% homozygous red eyes and 50% heterozygous red eyes for the pearly factor, that is, split. The same would happen with the red pigmentation factor of the eye’s ceres. This forced me to carry out a massive breeding program with many discards of specimens, so I decided to cross those F1 with specimens of similar breeds that had the red pigmen- tation factor in the iris and in the ceres of the eye, and thus obtain an adequate number of R1 with at least half of the offspring with the red factor of ceres of the eye. To do this, I acquired a pair of Spaniers, since that breed combined these requirements. I also searched among my friends’ occasion- al homers with red ceres, which appear in certain lines and blood families. With the Spanish frilled Bagdette I developed a breed- ing program in parallel using the two males in the following winter in a cross with Antwerp Smerle. The males had a poor frill so I thought of fixing that poly- genic and cumulative character according to my experiences crossing with the Smerle, and the result was optimal with respect to that aspect. Seven out of eight F1s showed a suitable frill and a nice type with a clear dominance of the head profile of the Ant- werp Smerle that made me think about continuing to cross those F1´s between them and fix that characteristic as a poten- tial new breed of Spanish frilled Beauty Homer. As the Spaniers I acquired did not reproduce since the female only laid one egg in her life and the male had eye problems, I tried to reproduce a pair of F1 and the French