turkish tumbler colours.

[pigeon8oi]

hi im a pigeon breeder and flyer, i keep turkish takla and iraqi tumblers i was wondering how to get a gold or honey chest on the Miskis or Sabuni colours i have a few colours but i dont know what to mix together
and what colours are best mixed together to get better flying birds.
and i also would like to know if its ok to mix a pure black and a pure white together and what should i expect?.

[Kurt Gürsu]

Hi,

i was wondering how to get a gold or honey chest on the Miskis or Sabuni colours i have a few colours but i dont know what to mix together

I would say the best bet is to get a breeding pair of Miski or Sabuni from a fancier who is known to keep these color birds for performance.
These colors are already out there.
Are you trying to accomplish something else then owning birds in these colors?
Maybe I am not understanding the question well.

what colours are best mixed together to get better flying birds.

Color of the birds do not corelate to the performance of the birds.
Rule is "Get the performance right then wory about the colors. In the mean time don't mess the existing colors up in your stock".
What kind of performance are you getting right now, what type of birds do you have in your coop and what kind of work went into their performance that needs to be improved?
I think if we start with these questions it would be more helpfull.

i also would like to know if its ok to mix a pure black and a pure white together and what should i expect?.

You can pair any color bird with any color bird.
However, the #1 purpose of this breed is the performance.
So, I would say the most important thing is to establish some basic breeding pairs that give you young birds with respectable level of performance, so you can take it from there and be competitive.
Yes, some fanciers do not pair the white and black because they are afraid the young will come out pied and will look not so appealing.
To me this is a marketing decision, and it happens to be based on lock of knowledge in basic genetic rules and the family tree of their stock birds.
If you are looking to breed so you can sell birds, I can tell you don't waste your time.
People who purchase Takla tend to want superior performing birds.
To get that they look for fanciers who are strictly focused in performance.
Show rooms are full of color and shape.

Again, I might be misundersting you and way off in my answers.
If so let me know.

[zafer dal]

Hİ EVERBODY,

KURT IS ABSOLUTELY RİGHT. PERFORMANCE AND COLORATİON ARE COMPLETELY DİFFERENT STORY. PERFORMANCE BREEDERS İN TURKEY DO NOT CARE ANY THİNG ABOUT THE COLOR, FOR PERFORMANCE COLOR MEANS NOTHİNG. IT IS ALL ABOUT BLOODLİNE.
BREEDERS LİKE ME FOCUSING ON SHOW, WE DO NOT CARE ABOUT THE PERFORMANCE, WE FOCUS ON COLOR AND MANY STUCTURAL THINGS. THIS IS THE WAY IT GOES IN ORDER TO RİCH MAX WHAT YOU ARE LOOKİNG FOR BUT SOME OF THE IRAQI BREEDES YOU CAN CATCH BOTH IN SAME LEVEL THAT ATRACT THE NEW GENERATİON BREEDERS İN TURKEY. OTHER THAN THAT DO NOT EVEN SPEND YOUR TİME TO PUT BOTH PERFORMANCE AND COLOR İN SAME PACKAGE...

[pigeon8oi]

firstly i would like to thank you guys for your help.
I do have good performance birds but i also have different blood lines like mardin, sivas,ankara and iraqi blue bars and checkers but, what my aim is to try to get pure birds and like you guys said its ok to mix them based on there performance thats where i need help.

how do i breed out birds form becoming floor tumblers?

for e.g iraqi birds take much longer to start tumbling sometimes up to 6 months unlike the turkish so i am trying to hurry up the proces by mixing them with turkish birds is that ok?

and with the black and white ones that is what i am trying to get pied birds but what i am scared of is they will come out pore performance birds? having said that the white female is a top, top flyer form a pure white blood line but the black im not to sure about because i got him just as a breeder and he has never been flown.

also i like the gold chest miskis but most of the ones here in australia are for show and i have not come across a good performance breeder, i have herd people say you can mix different colours to get the gold chest is that a fact or not?

if you guys have any answers it will be much appreciated.

[Kurt Gürsu]

I do have good performance birds but i also have different blood lines like mardin, sivas,ankara and iraqi blue bars and checkers but, what my aim is to try to get pure birds and like you guys said its ok to mix them based on there performance thats where i need help.

I'll try to answer your questions in parts so they are not misunderstood:
If you are looking to get pure birds the basic system you can use is to pair them based on type.
What I mean is pair the Ankara with Ankara, Sivas with Sivas.
If you have enough birds to make this happen you can go into a bit of a detail by sperating the bloodlines more.
Let's say you have multiple Ankaras.
I would pair them by matching body type first.
So, the smallest female goes with the smallest male.
To go in deaper you can pair the colors together.
Blue female with bulue male and the black female with black male type of a deal.
Regardless of the bloodline the young birds will come out in slightly different body structures and it is a good idea to exploit this to find out which shape gives you the strongest performer in each bloodline.
After a while you will notice there is also a performance differences in these young birds you get from these pairings you make based on body shape with in the same bloodline.
At that point you can make a decision on which line to pursue.
First comes seperating by type (Ankara, Sivas etc) then the body shape and as a final seperation the color.
Color part is not as significant but very usefull in future years when you have developed your own blodline and want to cross birds between the stock birds you have to prevent issues in relation to inbreeding.

Now while doing these one rule to remember is never to mix Takla with Iraqi or Syrian blodlines unless you are going stricly for color.
You will have a significant performance loss if these breeds are mixed.
I don't know the birds you have but unfortunately a lot of the birds I have seen described as Turkish Tumblers in in Australia have Iraqi or Syrian in their blood.
This is usually very evident in their body shape and most significantly the shape of their beaks.
If you are still getting stock birds from outside, I would stay away from these types of birds.

[Kurt Gürsu]

how do i breed out birds form becoming floor tumblers?

I am not sure what you mean by becoming floor tumblers.
If at one point in their training the young bird becomes unable to fly because of constant tumbling I would check couple of things:
Feed: Is the bird too heavy? Adjusting the feed ratio could prevent this problem.
Training: Is the bird getting enough air time. Increasing the flight time will get rid of the problem.
Stuck: Is the bird completely unable to fly because of constant tumbling? I would fix the previous concerns then try to fly this bird in very windy days to force flight.
If that is not working force him to fly by putting him on top of a 4-5 feet of a structure facing the coop and the other birds on the floor and let him work out how to come down.
Once he does this then start throwing him in the air each day while the other birds are about to land and are flying right above the coop. If this works and he is able to fly a few rounds then the following day throw him in to the air at a further location. The following day a little further etc.
If nothing is working out using an office tape tie his tail feathers together and throw him up (preferably on a windy day).
If not successful by pull the middle 4-5 feathers of his tail out then throw him up.
If you see something of a hesitance of tumbling but the problem is still there remove the tail feathers completely and toss him up.

If you still have the same issue you can stop flying him at all for 8 to 12 months and try again.

[Kurt Gürsu]

for e.g iraqi birds take much longer to start tumbling sometimes up to 6 months unlike the turkish so i am trying to hurry up the proces by mixing them with turkish birds is that ok?

Not a god idea.
Besides there is nothing wrong with a 6 months training if at the end you are getting a good solid performance.
The time it takes each bird to start performing is not because one is Iraqi and the other one is Turkish.
There are many Turkish bloodlines that will require that kind of training also.
Some a year or two.
What is important to remember is the performance of Turkish and Iraqi birds are different and unless you know exactly what you are doing they should never be mixed.

[Kurt Gürsu]

and with the black and white ones that is what i am trying to get pied birds but what i am scared of is they will come out pore performance birds? having said that the white female is a top, top flyer form a pure white blood line but the black im not to sure about because i got him just as a breeder and he has never been flown.

I like pied birds also.

Here is the deal: First completely understand the capabilities of each one of your stock birds.
What I mean by this is not like the white female being the top performer and the black male is not flown.
If the black male was flown and did not perform as well as the white female it might still be a better stock bird.
Birds showing good performance levels are a good place to start when selecting your stock birds but once you have made that selection the more significant concern is how each one of those birds transfer those performance genes to their young.
It is very difficult to come up with a good stock pair.
That is why I suggested the type, shape and colour separations in your original pairs in my earlier message.

I’ll give you an example; people who are into performance like me tend to follow all the competitions that take place around the globe.
These types of pigeon keepers know exactly which bird was the champion of which competition.
This is not only to see how well our own competition is doing but also to see what type of possible stock birds we can include in to our own coops.

Now, I have seen fanciers that go spend big bucks and purchase the champion birds to put together their breeding pairs and come up with nothing at the end.
So, it is not necessarily the secret formula to pair the best performing female with the best performing male to come up with the champion birds.

I hope I make sense here.

[Kurt Gürsu]

also i like the gold chest miskis but most of the ones here in australia are for show and i have not come across a good performance breeder, i have herd people say you can mix different colours to get the gold chest is that a fact or not?

Gold chest miski and the gold heads are some of the most beautiful colours out there.
However, first decide if you are going for colour or performance.
If it is colour then I won't be able to help you but there are other friends who will.
If you say performance then I would say follow the rules listed above with strict training program and get top performing birds.
Until then every other quality you focus on will get you away from your main goal.
In the mean time I guarantee to you the better performing birds you have the better performance breeders you will meet.
You won't have to look for them.
That bird flying above your coop and tearing the sky apart will be the beacon for the type of fanciers you are unable to find now.

In the mean time if you can't find a good performing bird in a very pretty colour then get one pair from a show breeder and keep them as a good luck charm in your coop.

In my experience the uglier the bird gets, better the performance is.
Then again ugly to one's eye tends to be a beauty to mine.

[Birdman79]

I agree with kurt especially on performance over color part.I have some tumblers that if you try to judge them by their markings they won't be worth that much to you,but come judge them in the air,and you're looking at a different scenario.

[pigeon8oi]

THANK YOU VERY MUCH , YOU HAVE HELPED ME A LOT AND I UNDERSTAND WHERE TO START BREEDING AND SEPARATING THEM.

I HAVE 1 LAST QUESTION : WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY IN BREEDING ? CAN I MIX BROTHERS AND SISTERS OR WHAT IS THE SYSTEM FOR THAT?

BY THE WAY I WILL TRY TO UPLOAD PICTURES OF MY BIRDS WHEN I HAVE THE CHANCE.

ONCE AGAIN THANK YOU.

[Kurt Gürsu]

You are very welcome.
I am using the terminology in-breeding very loosely here.

Since the system I described is based on separating the birds with in the bloodline based on physical qualities to come up with a better understanding of what that bloodline has to offer to the breeder, you would pair brothers and sisters.
You might even pair son to mother or daughter to father.
These are very much OK to reach your goal.
In fact, this is exactly how the champion bloodlines come about.

If you continue on this path for a long time you might ran into health and performance issues in the babies. However, this is not something you will face right away because you are inbreeding, because you are really not following a strict inbreeding program but having to inbreed randomly to reach your goals.

Having separated the same bloodline into colors also will give you an insurance against these kinds of problems.

For example, let’s say you have several Ankara birds from the same bloodline.
You have decided to pair the smallest black male and the smallest black female to follow their gene path. In the mean time you have selected the smallest blue male and smallest blue female to pair to use as your second breeding pair. After this point, I would treat these pairs and their offspring as if they are completely different bloodlines and never mix them. Now, besides the black and blue pairs if you also have another black pair who is larger in make up then at times the babies they give who fits the physical qualities of the smaller black line you are following it is very much OK to transfer that bird in to the small team. If this happens with the blues however, I would not bring the blue bird into the blacks just because of the body size but start another blue line based on that body shape. Try to keep blues and blacks or whites or yellows whatever separate from each other as long as you can.

As time goes from the original black pair you get a male youngster which has a better physical make up then its father. I would bring this male back to the mother and start using them as your stock birds in this line. While you keep going like this with blacks you do the same thing with the blues or the other group of blacks. You are keeping the original pair of each color and in the mean time and coming up with additional pairs from their babies matched by their shape.

Now, the most important thing to remember here is I am talking of a basic breeding pattern and not suggesting you should select your breeders 100% based on their physical qualities. You must fly every single young bird you get from the original pair and select the best performers with in them. Only out of these birds you can select the breeder because of its body shape.


Any way, you are doing the same with both colors and as time passes you are able to increase the performance. A few generations later you might get a young bird with split feathers, which is usually the first sign of bloodline needing a fresh gene pool. This is when you utilize a bird from the other color of the bloodline to bring into this bloodline. This is important because if you don’t have this option or only option is to bring a bird from outside and that single bird will bring many unknowns with it to your prized bloodline. It will be almost like starting from scratch again.

Another thing that can happen is all of a sudden the young birds you are getting from the previous years young birds are performing so hard that it is impossible to fly them. This is telling you somewhere in your program a mistake was made with pairings and the muscle make up, wing span and the body mass ratios are a bit off. No need to bring in another bird in to the program but go back to previous years young birds’ parents and do a few switching to figure out if you can get out of this situation. I think, by that time you will be intimately familiar with your stock birds and it will be easy to figure out what to do for you.

[Kurt Gürsu]

BY THE WAY I WILL TRY TO UPLOAD PICTURES OF MY BIRDS WHEN I HAVE THE CHANCE.

That will be most welcome.

[hasseian_313]

see in Iraq we tend to breed preformence and color and shape in all one bird i mean a bird can fly 3 days and tumble its feathers of but if it doesnt look good none will even feed it and a bird can be 10 out of 10 in looks and it doesn preform good it thrown out tooo i think it wrong to put too much traits in a bird but that is how it is in iraq my birds are prefomence sence we dont have judges in my area who understand the traits my birds came from iraq and hears my site for you to see http://iraqipigeons.webs.com/

[Kurt Gürsu]

Hi Hussein,
Thank you for becoming a member and sharing your excitement about the breed you keep.
However, before making critical statements you must comprehend the concept.

When I say not to worry about color I am talking about a certain type of performance.
Type of performance that is required for competitions.
Now, my personal taste is not for the prettiest bird in some people's eye but the beauty I look for is not for everyone to comprehend.

see in Iraq we tend to breed performance and color and shape in all one bird

Making this statement you are in a misunderstanding.
There are many Turkish Tumblers which perform very well and as far as looks will blow you away.
Just do a search on line and take a look at the photos.
Where you are failing to understand is what the word performance is referring to.
There is performance and then there is performance.
On the breeder section I just saw your post where you are mentioning 11 hrs of flight and great performance.
To be honest looking at the birds it is hard for me to believe the 11 hrs flight but let's say it is true.
But, as a person who has seen many Iraqi birds in the past and who is somewhat knowledgeable of tumbler breeds, I can tell you if that 11 number is true then the great performance is not.
Or I should say what you call great performance does not fit our description.
A great performing bird can do this for about 2 hrs.
More then that performance simply erodes away.
If not, that bird my friend drops dead after the 4th hour from the sky.

i mean a bird can fly 3 days and tumble its feathers of

This website has been around for many years to provide accurate information to the fanciers who are new to these breeds.
So, it is important for me to not to have statements like this on it.
It is because this statement for Iraqi Tumbler or any other is simply not true!

i think it wrong to put too much traits in a bird but that is how it is in iraq my birds are prefomence sence we dont have judges in my area who understand the traits

Now, I have heard many fanciers Iraqi or Syrian saying they have great performing birds and they are but for an Iraqi Tumbler.
However, these fanciers simply assume this type of performance is seeked after in Turkish Tumblers also.
This is basically comparing apples to oranges.
I have gone and watched many of these fanciers' birds.
Yes, there are pretty birds just like in Turkey but not one had what we call a true performing bird.
This doesn't mean they were bad birds, they were excellent Iraqi tumblers but not what we look for in our birds.
The Iraqi birds are very much sought after in Turkey also for şebap type Takla breeders, who keep birds for predominantly for their looks.
In the mean time most of these birds are also very good performers in the eyes of their keepers.
Again those birds are a different class.

Then again, for someone just starting to this breed, focusing on performance is at most importance.
After that, when you have a complate understanding of the breed you can balance the performance and the looks.
Color is the easiest thing to deal with.
Hell, all the colors exist out there any way, just go buy a pair.
The second bird in the TAKLA article is what we call Altınbaş, in English Golden-Head.
Half of the Iraqi pigeon keepers in US tried to buy that bird for many years, it is a pretty good performer also:)

So, please be careful sharing information online.
I realize how proud you must be to have your own cultures birds but making irresponsible statements does not make that breed look better.
It just provides the wrong information to the next guy who spends his pocket money for promises not to be realized.