Mary Allen
Some elements of show pigeon breeding are so consistent that fanciers almost take them for granted. They also have their pitfalls, as the half-beak shows in all its subtleties.
If one speaks of a halfbeak in show pigeons, then it is not a question of a pigeon that only has half a beak. Of course, there is no such thing. Rather, it means pigeon breeds in which the lower beak has a different color than the upper beak.
The pigeon’s beak has various sensors that lie under a horny sheath. Nevertheless, the pigeon can feel very finely, in a certain way also touch and feel. Beaking, i.e. when two pigeons caress each other with their beaks, makes this clear. The pigeon can use its beak very delicately, but also very hard. For example, when she has to assert herself in an argument with fellow dogs. The beak is so strong that it can even lead to bleeding injuries.
It doesn’t matter whether the beak is long, medium-long, almost short, short, thin, or narrow, and as strong as a nutcracker. The structure of the beak and its function is always the same. The color of the beak can be all the more different. The reason for the color of the beak is actually always the color impact and thus the genetic background.
As a rule, black pigeons or pigeons with blackhead plumage also have black beaks. But if, for example, a so-called smoky factor is added to the black color impact, this causes the beak to be lighter anyway; fingernail colors may be. However, since this hereditary factor is only anchored in a few pigeon breeds – for example in oriental rollers, riser croppers, or adjuster croppers – it should not be considered further in these explanations.
Half-beaking usually does not happen by chance but is caused by a head pattern or spotting. The smallest drawing on the head is the snip. It sits just above the beak warts and widens towards the top of the head. With colored plumage, the snip is white, with white plumage it is colored, usually in the four basic colors black, red, yellow, blue, and sometimes blue-fawn.
Only in the Second Year Light
The classic representatives with a white snap are the German white-tailed breeds. Actually, the white snap causes a light color on the upper beak, in all color varieties. However, since white-tailed tails have a colored wedge plumage and therefore only a small snip, the light upper beak can almost only be realized in the nest plumage. With age, the upper beak usually darkens completely. As a result, the standard was adjusted accordingly and the colored to black upper beak was made the standard target.
An exception is the Württemberger Mohrenkopf it Schnipper, which is still an absolute rarity today. But this breed is also affected by the phenomenon. Upper beaks, which are almost light in color in the nest, change color so that the lateral beak ridges and the area around the nostrils are almost always heavily pigmented. In order to avoid this, or at least to keep only the nostrils pigmented, the snipe is bred to be significantly larger and, above all, wider after warts. You have the greatest success when the snipe hits the ground, as they say. This is the case when no other color is left between the angle of the beak and the base of the snip.
It’s a little different with colored snaps. They are actually always larger since the wedge is usually the same color in these breeds. This increase in the size of the snipe also has the effect that the color of the upper beak is already strongly colored in the nest, at least on the upper beak ridge. Here, too, residual pigmentation of the lateral beak regions occurs with increasing age.