There is no written information about the ancient history of this Hungarian breed. The origin of this breed only can be discovered as a puzzle from stories of old breeders. Present breeders can give useful information as well.
In Kiskunfelegyhaza, the 'Pallagi brothers' had begun to cross their small-sized pigeons called 'Kisposta' (1) with a larger-sized Hungarian breed, the Hungarian Buga pigeon in the beginning of the 1920s. They hoped to get a larger body-sized, pleasing magpie breed, which besides the beautiful appearance also satisfied culinary demands. And last but not least, as there were a lot of pigeons in Kiskunfelegyhaza, the breed had to be able to capture foreign pigeons.
Here we should stop for a moment. There is a sentence in the last paragraph, which is in contradiction with professional books published, yet this breed was characterised up to now, as a breed from the crossing of wild-type pigeons and various cropper breeds. The origin of this mistake is from the old Hungarian name of the breed. Breeders of Kiskunfelegyhaza called this breed 'Pallagi' (this means wild-type in Hungarian), and this was misunderstood by the first describer (2) of the breed. Other publishers used this misinformation and nobody has admited the mistake yet.
During the Second World War, the number of pigeons strongly decreased. The breeders tried to prevent their birds from being culled until the very last moment despite the famine times. As a result, the breed remained with a relatively homogenous genetic merit. The high productivity and the similarity of the magpie coloration to the Kiskunfelegyhaza Tumbler (3) (usually craftsmen bred the breed in those times) made this breed popular among the poorer breeders.
Primary breeding goals were the culinary demands and capture of Kiskunfelegyhaza Tumblers at that time. There were stocks in almost each street of the city. The strictest demands for its conformation were the perfect Magpie coloration and the body size should be at least that of homing pigeons. The first valuable papers about the breed were published in the 1960s, and breeders had started to develop a fancy pigeon breed from their stocks. The new direction of breeding was due to the appearance of various squab pigeon breeds, which strongly decreased the culinary importance of our breed.
Read the rest of this article in the April 2010 issue of Feathered World
