Purebred Pigeon May/June 2020

Old German Owls – Page 42 – Purebred PIGEON

reed of

the

ssue

- O

erman

Ash Red

Old German Owls

By Leonard Kuzminski

Ash Red is number one in dominance in color of the three base colors in pigeons.

It can be a soft lavender color to a brilliant deep blood red. I really love this color in

pigeons but you have to be careful because it will overrun your loft because of its domi-

nance. It can be controlled if careful breeding techniques are used. In Europe where

the Old German Owls originated, German breeders are masters at their craft breeding

great colors and birds.

A lot of German breeders will keep birds that complement one another. For exam-

ple with red bar, they will keep red bar, red check, yellow bar and yellow check. All four

of these complement one another and can be crossed to one another without any ill

affects. Or they might go with just one color. Red T- pattern saturated in color is also

ash red. German breeders usually don’t have the space or property to have huge lofts.

Space is very limited so they must keep a limited amount of birds, and the quality of

the birds there are usually very good in color and quality because they keep the best of

the best.

I have a weakness for breeding Old German Owls. I like all the colors but I’m going

to narrow down to the ash red color. In my loft right now I have T- pattern ash reds, red

check, red bar, yellow check and spread ash red. I usually keep my ash red birds bred

to the ash red, but occasionally I will cross a blue bar or a blue check to my red birds.

I’ve put blue bar on dilute ash red color yellow check and get yellow bar, yellow check,

silver check, silver bar, blue bar and blue check babies. You can see how many different

combinations you can get just out of those two birds.

One other thing that I’d like to mention: Ash red is sex-linked which means ash

red hens that are mated to any blue factored birds, or brown factor birds will produce

all ash red color cock birds. Whatever color the cock bird was in the mating will pro-

duce that color in hens. For example: if I mate a blue bar cock and a red bar hen, I will

get blue bar hens and red bar cock bird youngsters that ares produced in this mating.

Now if you do the opposite and put a red bar cock mated with a blue bar hen, you

should get all red bars from this mating. The cocks that are produced from this mating

can carry blue. There’s other things that come into play with this, for example: if the

cock bird carries dilute. That’s another whole thing that comes with breeding birds.

The cock bird carries two color genes. The color he is and also a color that is hidden

which could be dilute.

Red Bar cock - Bred by Len Kuzminski

Yellow Bar Dilute Cock - Bred by Kelly Baumgarter

Red T-Pattern Cock - Bred By Len Kuzminski

Yellow T-Pattern Dilute Hen - Bred By

Len Kuzminski

These are just a few things that ash red can

do in your loft. I have to remind you I am not a

geneticist or a Genetics expert. Just a guy that

likes to raise pigeons and show them for enjoy-

ment. I would just like to mention there’s quite

a few people working with the ash red color in

Old German owls.

Some very good deep colored birds are

coming from lofts here in the OGO Club. I

personally have imported birds from Germany

and a red shield marked from John Redman

of Canada who originally imported birds from

Germany. I also have red birds that came from

Chet Edmunds. I know that Jay Turner, Jeff

Wozniak, Bob Perkins among others who have

imported reds in shield, bar and in check from

Germany. On the West Coast Chet Edmunds is

working very hard to get a very deep colored

red birds introduced into the Old German Owls.

I noticed in Louisville at the 2019 NYBS, the

red class was very competitive. There were very

good colored red shields. The class was won by