Genetics question.

[ChicksnMore]

I have a wonderful neighbor thats been kind enough to share some of her pea babies with me, and I had a couple of questions. She's given me a lovely pair of babies that are from bs/sp crossings. Both are marked like paler versions of the ib chicks I've seen and both also have white wing feathers, plus one white spot on the top of their heads.

I'm very new to peafowl genetics and I'm wondering what I'd get it I bred these two.
I've been looking over this webpage and trying to figure out the genes of these chicks.
http://www.birdfarm.bravepages.com/moregenex.html

I thought that the white spots on the tops of their heads meant that they're each carrying a pied gene. Do their markings tell us if they're split to pied or split to white? From the webpage info...both chicks would be split to white as it shows the split to pieds as not showing the pied gene?

I also have a one year old hen that also has white flight feathers and the tiniest little white throat latch. The breeder that her egg came from has a wide range of peas and I'm uncertain of her background. The only thing I know for certain with her is that my daughter thinks she's a piece of perfection!

Is there any way to tell if shes split to white or split to pied?

I'm so excited that I might get some bs chicks from the first 2 someday...but I'm also dearly hoping that I might get some pieds or sp somehow between these 3 birds. It'd be absolutely perfect if the first two are both split to white and the older hen was split to pied. If I'm reading things right (and if I were so lucky!)...that'd mean I could get bs, white, and pied between the three birds? How does the silver pied tie into all this?

 

[Peafowlssssssss]

If the parents of these birds are both BS/sp then it seems all your chicks are dark pied chicks. Mating dark pied chicks together will give you 100% dark pied chicks, no pied chicks. Do you have some pics for them? If they were dark pied chicks you can mate them with a any white peafowl and you will get 100% pied w/e offspring.
This is some black shoulder chicks:

 

[casportpony]

@ChicksnMore , Welcome to BYC and

-Kathy

 

[ChicksnMore]

Dark pieds eh? I thought the dark pieds carry 2 pied genes and so they only happen if both parents are pied. Wouldn't these only carry one pied gene?

I found a couple references to dark pieds as carrying two genes for it. Sadly I couldn't find much information about birds being split to pied and the site I linked earlier was the only one that stated what a split to pied looks like.

But from it, I think the 2 younger birds would be ib split to bs and split to white, and the older hen could be split to white or a dark pied.

But...(so many buts!) the only thing I read about non-pied birds showing tiny white spots that are not on the throat latch or the wings were related to dark pieds.....so do the tiny white spots on the chicks heads mean that their bs parent was split to pied and so they're dark pied rather then split to white?

Sooo much information and yet not enough! Maybe I should just wait 2 years and see what happens...lol.

Or maybe I should just get a white female also to make sure I have a chance at producing some pieds or silver pieds.

 

[ChicksnMore]

I'll try to take some decent pics and figure out how to post them today too =).

 

[new 2 pfowl]

If the parents of these birds are both BS/sp then it seems all your chicks are dark pied chicks. Mating dark pied chicks together will give you 100% dark pied chicks, no pied chicks.

q8's response is based on the belief that the parents are both BSSPs.
Perhaps you were saying that one parent is BS, and one parent is SP?

If so, not sure why you would think your babies might be split to white?
(maybe I am misunderstanding your question).
(*or perhaps I should more correctly say, maybe I am misunderstanding pea genetics!)

And...

 

[Peafowlssssssss]

Some people says the white spot on the chick head means its split to pied but i'm not sure about this, i think not all the split pied chicks will have this white spot.

Black shoulder x india blue silver pied:

1- All the chicks will be india blue looking.
2- All the chicks will be split to Black shoulder.
3- All the chicks will carry one copy of white eye gene.
4- Some chicks will be split to pied, some will be split to white.

Normally the split to pied chicks will not show white flight feathers(if they weren't w/e), but if they were carrying w/e gene(like yours) they could have some white flight feathers, so i'm not sure how to tell if the chick out of this mating is split to pied or white, i hope someone with more experience can help you here.

 

[ChicksnMore]

O so sorry! I did mean that the parents are black shoulder x india blue silver pied.

Thank you so much q8peafowl....your information makes sense. It sounds like I should add the w/e gene to my reading list too....and like maybe I'll just have to wait those two years to learn what they are!

Ah well...they're sweethearts at any rate so I'll just cross my fingers and hope that at least one is split to white and one split to pied or dark pied.

Heres the two bs/sp birds. The hen is the one on left and the cock is on the right. Its hard to see either the white spots or the sex in these pics, but the cocks white spot shows in the first pic and is right at the base of his crest...and just off centered to the right. The hens white spot is centered just before her crest and shows in the second pic. I wish I had pictures from when they were younger...the spots showed so clearly then! Hopefully they'll show well again once their color comes in more. The cock is Indiana and the hen is Saran (Wrap) as she likes to cling to you. Shes just launching herself in the second picture...she was happily perched on my chest by the time I finished clicking the camera button...lol.




And heres our older hen, Faux. Her name came from everyone thinking she was a boy until her barring loss became undeniable. My oldest daughter hatched her in an incubator she built herself from scratch. We're still using that incubator and this year we actually got a 100% hatch rate! Faux's white is very minimal. The tiniest little throat latch spot and just a couple white flights on each side.

 

[Peafowlssssssss]

I think the white spot will disappear when they grow up, i found this thread https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/670417/india-blue-cock-bred-to-silver-pied-hen it has some good informations, if both of your chicks are split to pied it seems you will need a white hen to get some pied chicks, but if your older hen is split to white then you will get some pied chicks.

 

[ChicksnMore]

Thats too bad about the white spot...I'd love it if those stayed. I might see if I can learn any more about the older hens background.

With horses, you can mail off a sample and a lab will analyze it and send you a genetic breakdown of the horses color/pattern genes. I'm curious if any place runs a similar service for birds. Anyone ever hear of such a thing?