One of the most common requests I’ve received over the last few months is for a video on
how to breed black tiger grizzle pigeons.
So, here it is!
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miss another video, and feel free to let me know which colour you’d like to see next
in the comments.
I’m happy to be able to start this video by saying that compared to the other colours
I’ve made “how to breed” videos on, like barless and almond, black tiger grizzle
breeding is easy.
Most of the birds I’m using as examples in this video are racing pigeons, but the
information here will apply to every breed of domestic pigeons.
And before we get into it, I’d just like to say a big thank you to my friend Nigel
for allowing me to borrow some of his birds for the tiger grizzle videos.
If you’ve seen my Pigeon Genetics video on Colours, Patterns, and Modifiers, you’ll
know that we can usually make a neat and easy to understand list of the genes required for
all the colours we’re hoping to produce.
So what do we need for tiger grizzles?
The base colour is fairly obvious - we need the blue/black colour.
It is also possible to breed brown and ash red tigers, but these will be for another
video on another day.
The pigeon’s pattern actually doesn’t matter, you can produce tigers on any of the
patterns, including barless and bar.
This is because the “spread” modifier gene covers over all the patterns.
Some breeders find that using the darker patterns, check or T-check, produce better looking birds,
but you can breed nice looking tigers with any of the patterns.
And finally, that brings us to the modifiers.
The black tiger grizzle phenotype is produced by the combination of two modifier genes:
spread as we just mentioned, and tiger grizzle.
People are often surprised to learn that there isn’t actually a single black tiger gene,
and that blue tiger grizzles exist, these birds with the tiger grizzle gene, but without
the spread gene.
The easy part is that both of these modifiers are dominant genes, so pigeons only need one
copy of the alleles to express them.
You don’t have to worry about any carriers of recessive genes or complex combinations
to produce black tigers, you just need a bird with one copy of the tiger grizzle gene, and
at least one copy of spread.
It doesn’t matter if your bird has just one or two copies of spread - but you only
want one copy of the tiger grizzle gene.
If your pigeon has two copies, you’ll often produce birds that are a lot whiter than you
might be expecting or hoping for.
So that is our formula - we need a pigeon on the blue/black base with the dominant spread
and tiger grizzle modifiers.
Like I said, we are working with dominant genes here, so this means that it is actually
possible to breed black tigers into your birds simply by crossing a black tiger grizzle into
your own blue bars or checker pigeons.
Compared to many other popular colours, this one is dead easy!
Remember though, because we are working with dominant genes, a pigeon who is not expressing
the gene cannot pass it onto his offspring, even if he is from tiger grizzle parents.
So now that we’ve gone through that, let’s just talk about tigers for a moment.
I’ll take a more indepth look at tiger grizzles in another video in the future, but for now
it is worth noting that the tiger grizzle gene typically doesn’t affect the pigeon’s
primary flight feathers or tail, especially in younger birds.
So if your Tiger has white flights or tail feathers, it is likely also carrying a pied
gene.
This isn’t always a problem, and many people actually prefer their birds to have white
in the wings, but breeders should be careful to not allow the pied expression to take over,
otherwise you can end up with birds that are primarily white rather then the classic mottled
black and white tiger colouration.
Black tiger grizzles also change considerably during their first moult.
In the nest they will often be almost pure black with just a few signs of white in their
feathering, but will then moult into the classic tiger that you know and love.
I’ll make a video on this stunning transformation in the future.
That is about it for a basic explanation of how to breed tigers grizzles.
This is a very popular colour, and a few people have also asked for an explanation on how
to bring the colour into a new breed of pigeon, so let me know if you’d like to see that
video too.
Please make sure you’re subscribed to this channel so you don’t miss any future updates,
and feel free to leave any questions in the comments!