Even though Switzerland itself is a rather small country, there is quite an elevated number of national Swiss pigeon breeds. If you also include the Swiss Pouter as a breed of rather recent origin, the final count amounts to 26 breeds of pigeon from this little alpine country. The zones of origin of these breeds are of course not located in the mountain areas of the country but rather in regions with an agricultural background, above all in cereals, a necessary precondition for keeping pigeons. Basically all Swiss breeds were kept in absolute liberty and flying to the fields to search for scattered grains was the most common way for the pigeons to be fed.
The majority of the Swiss pigeon breeds are part of the colour pigeon group but there are some special breeds like the Berne Half Beak, the EichbŸhler and the Poster which are without equal elsewhere. Over and over again people have said that it is the peak crest found in the Swiss breeds which mark the difference, ie the 'Swiss element' and this holds true for all of the breeds except for the Zurich Whitetail and the two 'oddballs' the EichbŸhler and the Poster. There are only a few other breeds in which you will find peak crests so close to perfection - but it has required a great deal of work to obtain the set goals.
If we limit ourselves to the characteristics of the head for the individual breeds we will quickly discover that there are basically two different groups. There is firstly the group of the breeds from Berne, Thurgau and both breeds from Aargau. Where the characteristics are concerned, the Swiss Self can also be included in this group. On the other side there are the breeds from Lucerne with their profile that cannot be mixed up with anything else.
The heads of the Berne, Thurgau and Aargau breeds
We've already mentioned that the standard requirements for the heads are identical for these breeds. Generally, we can say that, due to their origin, the head of these breeds has to be a refined version of the head of the common pigeon. But, where do these refinements manifest themselves? Since the standard calls for a steeply rising frontal, the Swiss colour breeds already have a major difference to most of the German colour pigeons breeds. In selecting the breeding stock, the breeder should not make any compromises, birds with weak or faulty frontals should not be part of the breeding programme since they do not correspond to the desired ideal. The profile line flows across the topskull in an elegant curve to reach its end in the tip of the peakcrest. It's especially in this point where a lot of work has been accomplished to reach the state we're now used to seeing.
