My Utility Pigeons

I keep three breeds of Utility Pigeons here at the house for meat, Utility Kings, Texas Pioneers and also the Duchesse. The latter is now a very rare breed, which fell out of favor as a utility breed around 1900 due to its muffed legs.

Unlike many breeders, I have never had any interest in showing these breeds, hence they are bred strictly for meat purposes.

Texas Pioneer cock in my loft

Texas Pioneers

The Texas Pioneer pigeon is a utility breed that was developed by Delwin V. James of Houston, Texas starting in 1953. It was the first breed of pigeon that was specifically bred for Auto-Sexing purposes, which is to say that the pigeons could be easily sexed by sight just because of their color. This is due to the Faded gene, which produces light colored cocks (which are short downed when they are hatched) and darker colored hens (which have long down when hatched). The breed received official recognition by the National Pigeon Association in 1961 and its first organized specialty breed club was established in 1963.


Texas Pioneer hen on nest

To produce the breed, Mr. James crossed together Utility Kings with the Auto-Sex factor (Faded) to French Mondaines. The final product was approximately 3/8ths Utility King and 5/8ths French Mondain. In addition to the auto-sexing factor, which had long been known to be of value by early squab breeders because they could select future breeding right from the nest and know the sex instantly by color, Mr. James also sought to create a breed that was fast producing and yielded plump breasted squabs with an exceptionally high dress out weight compared to live weight. In this effort, he sought a pigeon that had a very plump breast, but a small head, legs and wings.

Faded Blue Bar Cock - King X Pioneer cross
This cock is heterozygous for the Faded gene, hence is dark colored

Adult Texas Pioneers weigh between 28 to 32 ounces when in good condition, while the average 30 day old squab weighs 24 ounces (live weight).

I have Texas Pioneers in Ash Red and Rec. Red.

In addition to pure Pioneers, I also keep a few King X Pioneer crosses which produce some really nice squabs. You can see one of the crossbred cocks, one I happen to really like, at the left.

While I happen to like the King X Pioneer crosses, I have to admit that I have been a bit less than satisfied with the Pioneers in comparison to my Utility Kings and also my Duchesse, both of which I have kept for years. While the Pioneers produce some pretty good sized squabs and they tend to be uniform, they have in no way kept up with the production of my Utility Kings. Not only do they not breed as rapidly, but fertility has been an issue. These appear to be common complaints from people who have tried the Pioneer.

Time will tell if the Texas Pioneers have much of a future, but for the moment, they are not exactly earning their keep.

White Utility King cock

Utility Kings

Some of the first pigeons I ever kept were Utility Kings. My great grandmother was a long time poultry breeder, mainly for eggs and meat, and always kept a few pigeons around. My great grandmother pretty much came of age during the Great Depression and even well into her advanced years believed in being as self reliant as possible. Every fall, in addition to putting up about 500 quarts of fruit and vegetables in her canning room which was really just a long, narrow walk-in closet with 10 foot high shelves attached to a big storage shed, she also filled several large chest freezers inside the shed up with fresh meat. This pretty much supplied her, as well as the entire family with plenty of food each year. Each fall, I helped her butcher and dress out about 100 fryer chickens, along with the occasional bunch of Ringneck Pheasants, Quail, Ducks, Geese, Turkeys and Rabbits. Behind the chickens in sheer numbers, we also usually dressed out about 75 pigeons each fall. This was back in the 1970's. As you can imagine, this was quite a lot of work and generally took a few weeks to accomplish (and probably made much more difficult when you add a seven year old who interrupted her every two minutes with some question, to the mix!), but I would not change the experience for all the money in the world.

Silver King hen (Technically a Brown Bar)

She raised all kinds of pigeons and always had a menagerie of them, including Racing Homers, Rollers, Indian Fantails and even some stray ferals that decided to move in, as well as crosses of all of the above, that were given completely liberty 100% of their life through an open door style loft.  These, of course, crossbred like mad and every fall most of these crosses, quite regardless of what they were, went to the freezer. In hindsight, the mortality rate among these from predators, was quite high due to them being allowed total freedom. She also had purebred Utility Kings in White and Silver (technically Brown Bars, as are all "Silver" Kings) and also Duchesse, but these were always kept locked up and the best few breeding pairs of each were kept in individual breeding coops. Each fall she would go through the Kings and the Duchesse; picking the best for breeders and butchering or selling off most of the rest. By the term "best", I refer to those which raised the most large squabs. As a cardinal rule, she always bred white to white and silver to silver, never crossing the two types of Kings as she knew that originally, these had been developed independently of each other. It was never 100% clear to me where exactly she had gotten the Kings and the Duchesse, but she had been breeding them longer than anyone in the family could remember. These were the forerunners of the Kings and Duchesse that I still have in my lofts today. By best estimates, they have been in the family for about 75 years now.

White King hen on nest

As the years went by, one thing that I did do that differed from my great grandmother, is that even though I kept the Whites and Silver Kings both moving in their own independent directions, I did on occasion, breed Whites to Silvers. What I promptly discovered was that the Whites were actually covering quite a number of color factors, in that the first generation outcrosses immediately yielded Ash Red Bars, Blue Bars and also some true Blacks. Breeding these F1 outcrosses together, some of the resulting F2 generation birds also yielded some dilutes. This ultimately allowed me to create several new bloodlines of Kings in Ash Red Barred and Cream, Blue Bar and true Silver, as well as Blacks and Duns. This ultimately meant that underneath the white, the White Utility Kings were actually Ash-Red and Blue pigmented birds that carried not only Spread, but also Dilute. All of these factors could be found in Utility Kings back during the 1920's, but gradually fell out of favor among squab producers and became almost non-existent after the 1940's.

 

A pair of Black Utility King Squabs. 3 weeks old

While it is mostly unclear why Blue, true Silver, Ash-Red and also Cream, and even Recessive Yellow birds slipped into obscurity, the Black Selfs were actually culled out by early squab breeders because of their dark skin, which was considered to be unattractive to those who purchased killed squabs. Ultimately, both the large volume squab buyers, as well as the housewife preferred squabs with a light skin and regarded them as more appetizing in appearance. To some extent, this was also true of

Ash Red Barred Utility King

the Duns and Blues, which had horn colored beaks and toenails. (In those days, killed squabs were sold and shipped with head and feet still attached). Strangely enough, Cream Bars and Yellows also died out, even although these two colors actually produced some of the most attractive dressed squabs due to having a somewhat golden skin color.

 

The Utility King, as a pigeon breed, actually has a very diverse origin. White Kings and Silver Kings actually arose independently in the lofts of at least two different breeders around the turn of the 19th century. It is generally accepted that the White King was the first to come into existence and arose by crossing the Racing Homer, the Maltese, the Giant Runt and also the Duchesse. For a good many years, almost any large white pigeon used for squabbing purposes was regarded as a White King, quite regardless of its actual origin.

 

White Kings bred in 1920.
These were bred by Wilson Pigeon Farms of Kansas.

That being said, most authorities on this breed recognize Mr. Harry Baker of Vineland, New Jersey as the originator of the White King starting about 1890. Mr. Baker wanted a large pigeon that produced uniform squabs in large numbers. As he wanted light skinned squabs, he used only white birds and crossed together White Racing Homers for their vitality and rapid breeding ability, White Maltese for their body type and a White Mondain (likely the Duchesse) for size. By 1892, Mr. Baker had seen enough progress that he chose the name "King" for his new breed. However, by 1895, Mr. Baker was out of pigeons and had sold his birds to two men named McMahon and Troth of Ifillville, New Jersey. These two breeders later sold birds to the Giroux Brothers of Vineland, New Jersey who soon developed one of the largest squab companies in the United States, which they called the White King Squab Company. Through their advertisements, they made the White King one of the most sought after pigeon breeds in the world.

 

Silver Kings from 1920.These are very early examples of the
breed, which was started only eleven years earlier.

Silver Kings, by contrast, were known to have originated in the loft of Mr. C.R. King of Hayward, California and date back to about 1909. At the time, as he told the story in 1921, Mr. King had purchased a loft of 60 "Silver" Mondaines, most of which had been imported from Europe. He found that they were exceptionally good breeders and yielded squabs weighing at least a pound. Prior to this he had been working with crossing Homers, Runts and Maltese. At the time, squabbing birds were all the rage and it struck Mr. King that what he ought to do was to create his own breed that produced not only large squabs, but yielded a light colored skin. Mr. King mated the Silver Mondaines with Racing Homers and he mated Maltese with Silver Runts. When he crossed the youngsters of these two crosses, he created the Silver King.

My Kings, regardless of which color, are very rapid producers of plump squabs that are ideal for use on the family table. They average 12 squabs a year per pair, which are ready for processing at 28 to 30 days after hatching. 

Duchesse

A good example of a Duchesse from around 1900

The Duchesse is a very old breed of Utility Pigeon and is believed to be a member of the Mondaine family. It is an ancestor of not only the Utility King, but also the Swiss Mondaine. The breed is believed to have been introduced to the United States during the 1870's from Holland and Germany and because of this were sometimes known in the 19th century as "Dutchies" and also as "Dutchesse". The Duchesse is probably closely related to the Romagnol, an ancient Italian house pigeon bred for table use. They are very large pigeons, always white in color with bull eyes and usually heavily muffed. Some old literature suggests that some birds also came crested.

Though once very popular for squabbing purposes, not only as purebreds, but also crossbreds, the breed fell out of favor among commercial squab producers due to their muffed legs which created more work during processing due to the extra picking involved and the unsightly blemishes left on the feet of the squabs.

In fact, the breed so fell out of favor among commercial squab producers, that today, the Duchesse is practically an extinct breed. I would not know of another loft of these birds anywhere. My great grandmother kept this strain for decades and although she mainly had them for their beauty, they are good reliable producers of big squabs, but tend to be a little slower breeders than my Utility Kings.





Please note: This page is for educational purposes only. I am not in the business of selling pigeons and as a general rule, I very rarely sell, let alone ship pigeons.