The Old German Cropper is a
breed
A breed is a specific group of breedable domestic animals having homogeneous appearance (phenotype), homogeneous behavior, and/or other characteristics that distinguish it from other organisms of the same species. In literature, there exist seve ...
of
fancy pigeon
Fancy pigeon refers to any breed of domestic pigeon, which is a domesticated form of the wild rock dove (''Columba livia''). They are bred by pigeon fanciers for various traits relating to size, shape, color, and behavior, and often exhibited at pi ...
developed over many years of
selective breeding
Selective breeding (also called artificial selection) is the process by which humans use animal breeding and plant breeding to selectively develop particular phenotypic traits (characteristics) by choosing which typically animal or plant m ...
. Old German Croppers, along with other varieties of
domesticated pigeons, are all descendants from the
rock pigeon
The rock dove (''Columba livia''), also sometimes known as "rock pigeon" or "common pigeon", is a member of the bird family Columbidae (doves and pigeons). In common usage, it is often simply referred to as the "pigeon", although the rock dov ...
(''Columba livia'').
An old breed that originated in Germany and Hungary.
Description
The Old German Cropper is the longest breed of pigeon. It has a large well-inflated globe that is oval to round in shape.
The old German stands with the front of its body raised in a semierect station and the rest of its body carried close and parallel to the ground. The wings are very long and ideally should extend beyond the tail. They should be well closed and not show a "sail like effect", that is caused by raised secondary feathers that break the smooth wing line. The legs are fairly short without showing the birds thighs that are covered by the undercarriage feathers.
Colors & Markings
The Old German comes in black, white, red, yellow, dun, cream, mealy, silver, blue in bar and check, and lark. They are self-colored, but also can be found in splash or a random mixture of white and colored feathers, tiger which should have dark flights and tail with white feathers sprinkled on the rest of the body, flights marked with a solid colored body and evenly marked white flights on both wings, and mussel head which is primarily found in black which manifests itself with a sprinkling of white feathers on the head reminiscent of the coloring of the shell mussel.
General
The overall look of the Old German is large powerful pigeon. Some of this is created by the extreme feather development. The bird does not have a heavy body. Feather development should be smooth and neat without being tight.
See also
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Pouter
*
List of pigeon breeds
This is an alphabetical list of pigeon breeds; these are exclusively breeds of the domestic pigeon (''Columba livia domestica''). Other Columbidae species (e.g., the Barbary dove, ''Streptopelia risoria'') have been domesticated and developed in ...
References
External links
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{{Domesticated-pigeon-breed-stub