PigeonVaultHow to read a pigeon pedigree
A pedigree tells you where a pigeon comes from and what its family has achieved. Once you can read one quickly, you see in seconds whether a bird is worth breeding from or buying. This is how it works.
How a pedigree is laid out
You read a pigeon pedigree from left to right. On the far left is the pigeon itself. One column further are its parents, then the grandparents, and so on. Every generation doubles: 2 parents, 4 grandparents, 8 great-grandparents and 16 great-great-grandparents.
The fixed rule: the sire is on top, the dam below. That holds for every bird in the tree. The top half is the sire's line, the bottom half the dam's. Among the grandparents, the sire's sire is at the very top and the dam's dam at the very bottom.
What is written with each pigeon?
- Ring number: the pigeon's identity. It is made of a country code, the year and a serial number, for example BE 23-6012345 for a bird from 2023. The same number is sometimes written differently, such as 6012345/23.
- Name: optional, but good pigeons often get one. A name without a ring number tells you little.
- Colour and sex: for example blue, blue bar, chequer, dark chequer or red, and cock or hen.
- Breeder or loft: who bred the bird. For bought-in pigeons the original breeder is often added.
- Performance and notes: results, titles and family links such as "brother of" or "grandson of".
Reading results: what does "1st Bourges 4,120 birds" mean?
A result on a pedigree is nearly always written short: the position, the race point and the number of birds that competed. 1st Bourges 4,120 birds means first place in the race from Bourges, against 4,120 pigeons. The level is often added, such as "Fed", "Combine", "Open", "Nat" for national or "Int" for international.
The number of birds makes all the difference. 3rd against 200 birds is good, 3rd against 20,000 is exceptional. That is why fanciers in Belgium and the Netherlands often use a coefficient: the position divided by the number of birds, times 100. 3rd against 200 birds gives 1.5, against 20,000 birds 0.015. The lower, the better. Not every club or organisation calculates it in exactly the same way, so only compare coefficients when you know how they were worked out.
Abbreviations you will often see
- S and D: sire and dam; GS and GD: grandsire and granddam
- Nat, Int: national, international; Fed, Combine, Open: the competition the result was in
- Ace pigeon: the best bird of a championship over several races
- Nestmate, nest brother or nest sister: from the same nest, so the same parents and the same round
- Half brother or half sister: one parent in common
What to look for
- Look at the pigeon itself and its parents first. Its own results and those of its sire and dam say more than a famous name four generations back.
- Check whether a bird appears more than once. If the same pigeon shows up several times in the tree, that line is inbred. That can be deliberate, but it is good to know.
- Be careful with results without the number of birds. "Prize Bourges" with no position or entry count tells you little.
- Check the ring number. Compare the number on the pedigree with the ring on the leg and with the papers that come with the bird.
- Know who made the pedigree. A pedigree is only as reliable as the person who wrote it. When in doubt, ask for the official result lists.
Keeping and sharing a pedigree
Paper pedigrees wear out, get lost or end up spread over folders. With PigeonVault's pedigree scanner you photograph a pedigree and it is read for you: names, ring numbers, colours and results become digital, searchable and ready to share as a neat PDF. Every PDF carries the name of whoever made it and a reference number, so nobody can pass it off as their own. Also read how to digitise paper pedigrees.