Peafowl Genetics for Dummies (in other words us)

[AugeredIn]

I figured I would start a thread that would get us all spooled up! I am bored.

Over time there has been a lot of discussion about genetics in the peafowl forum. There is a lot of good, correct information out there but there is also a lot of bad information and partial truths. I decided I wanted to try and address genetics from a simpler standpoint to see if we can make it more understandable and to address some conflicting information on genetics. PLEASE keep this topic friendly, congenial and collegial. If you don’t know what that means, go look it up. Discourse is a dying art in this country. We all have peafowl as a common interest. We just seek the truth.
Obviously since I am starting this thread the initial information provided is my own. I do not profess to know everything or even substantial amount of all there is to know on peafowl. I do believe the information I provide is based upon relevant experience or information shared from reliable sources. I promise to provide EVIDENCE as best I can for all of my information and I challenge each of you to do the same.

 

[AugeredIn]

Note on the Larger Peafowl Breeders:
One of the problems with this particular forum is that none of the very big peafowl breeders participate in the forum. Quite frankly I generally don’t blame them. It is not worth their time and they generally just get contradicted. We are way below their level. That’s the facts.
Inevitably there are going to be names thrown out or referenced. Please be careful regarding quotes or other information from the big breeders. These guys get burned by unknowing, good minded people on a regular basis not to mention being burned from folks that just don’t care. I personally respect and admire these folks and would not have ANY of the beautiful breeders that I have without their long, hard, expensive work. . I believe that all of the bigger breeders are really good guys (&gals) and if you are customers or establish a relationship with them you can learn a lot. You cannot expect to just pick up the phone and extract the most detailed breeding information from them.
There is some information we just have to accept that we are not going to get in a real time manner. The big breeders spend lots of time and energy on color and pattern projects and just don’t want to hand out what they learn without a return on their investment. I have absolutely no problem with that. Last time I check that Coke formula was still locked up in Atlanta.
Moving on…….

 

[DylansMom]

Hi there, I am by no means a genetics expert, but it sounds to me like your boy is probably an India Blue split white. I am not sure what he would produce when paired with silver pied hens, but I'm thinking you would get some whites, and some dark pieds/split whites/split pieds. I don't think you would get any silver pied if he is not pied. I'm sure there will be some others answering this for you and if I'm mistaken in my thinking on this they will let you know. As I said, no expert here!

 

[pedda munnangi]

Darkpied means a peafowl carrying two copies of the pied gene. When you breed two pied peafowl, 25 % of chicks get just two copies of pied gene. may carry white flights and a small white throat patch, 25% will be white and 50% will be pied. A pied pea carry one white gene and one pied gene contrary to dark pied. This dark pied when bred with a white, all chicks will be pied. A silver pied carrys a Whte, a Pied, and two copies of white eye gene.

 

[casportpony]

About 1/2 mine are the same as yours and I've been calling them IB split to white, but don't know if that's correct

. All of mine are out of hens with white flights (one also has a patch) by male(s) without white.

-Kathy

 

[Arbor]

So if I understand it then since his dad looked IB he could not have a pied gene and so Schmindrick wouldn't be dark pied? Can a white female carry the pied gene?

His dad could have carried a pied gene, but 50% of his his fathers offspring would have been pied if bred to a white hen. No white bird can be split to pied. The bird would be either white (2 white genes) or pied (1 white, 1 pied).

 

[Arbor]

Ahh okay, thank you . So if he is with my silver pieds there could be white chicks since the silver pied has a white gene? Would it be 50% W and 50% IB/W?

All offspring of him with silverpied hens would carry 1 copy of the white-eyed gene. Of all these offspring, you would get pieds, whites, split to pied, and split to whites (all single copy white-eyed of course). 25% chance of any.

 

[Rosa moschata]

The White Eye mutation is incompletely dominant. When a peacock has one copy of the gene, roughly half of the ocelli in his train will be white, the other half "normal." When a peacock has two copies of the gene, all ocelli in his train are white. Because "split to" is usually referring to recessive mutations which "can't be seen" in heterozygous animals (i.e. having only one copy of the mutation), often the term factor is used for incompletely dominant mutations. Thus peas with one copy of White Eye would be referred to as Single Factor White Eye, and peas with two copies as Double Factor White Eye.

 

[Rosa moschata]

he is a pied and his parents looked like regular IB's but produced mostly pieds like him.
These are some of his pictures when he was younger.

I'm guessing, based on the pattern of white, that your bird is Dark Pied -- in other words, he has two copies of the Pied mutation. This means his parents are each split to Pied, and would probably look like "normal" IB peas, with perhaps a tiny white throat patch, and one or two white feathers in each wing. The Dark Pied birds I've seen in pics tend to have symmetrical white spotting -- wings and throat mostly. It somewhat resembles the "Duclair" mutation in Muscovy ducks, or the "Magpie" mutation in Mallard-derived ducks. Both duck species also have an incompletely dominant White mutation, but unlike with peafowl, it is NOT an allele of the Duclair or Magpie mutations -- so birds CAN be homozygous for Duclair or Magpie, AND ALSO be split to White.

But anyway...the Duclair and Magpie mutations in homozygous form (i.e. not being "split" to the mutations) results in a regular symmetrical pattern of white spotting. Ducks split to White have more haphazard white spotting. Since people usually call any animal "pied" when it has patches without melanin (i.e. "patches of white" in birds with only one type of pigment), regardless of pattern, it can be confusing when one person's "pied" looks so different (and breeds so differently) than another person's "pied".

SO...that being said, if you let one of your Dark Pied birds breed with a White bird, all the resulting offspring would be "traditional" Pied peas -- genetically, they'd have one copy of Pied and one copy of White.

 

[Rosa moschata]

Well thie peacock i posted above is now has his adult train and has a pied and 2 white in his harem so far, i might have to hatch some eggs after all this year.

Hatch just from the White hens -- if they're all "traditional" Pied, then you will have confirmation that your male is Dark Pied.