Breeding back to parent peafowl?

[Midnightman14]

That's what I ended up doing. My indigos and the bronze hens were to young to breed last year but this year I should get some out of them. The plan is to take the hens from that group and breed them to a Hazel cock. Hazels are definitely also a bronze+purple combo because when you breed Hazel to Indigo you get a 50/50 mix of Hazel and Indigo offspring (Josh Nelson told me about that one). To me that proves the two are both out of Bronze and Purple otherwise you wouldn't get either color from a pairing of the two.

 

[Rosa moschata]

A question -- are there any Hazel females?

 

[Rosa moschata]

I think I know what Hazel might be, but I need to know if Hazel hens exist -- can't seem to find any in pics or offered for sale online.

 

[Midnightman14]

I think I know what Hazel might be, but I need to know if Hazel hens exist -- can't seem to find any in pics or offered for sale online.

There is a picture of a Spalding Hazel hen on Legg's site. They look like purple hens only instead of having a Purple sheen on the back of the neck it's just brown.

 

[Rosa moschata]

How do Hazel hens differ from Indigo hens? I'm wondering if Hazel is actually Bronze split to Purple, with Indigo being Bronze Purple. Though we're "taught" that Purple shows in males only when homozygous (i.e. two copies of the mutation), I'm wondering if, in the Bronze phenotype, one copy of Purple is enough to do some alteration of the plumage. Perhaps the "normal" IB coloration doesn't allow for Purple to bleed through, but being homozygous Bronze does. This may be why Hazel looks like something between Indigo and Bronze, and would explain your breeding results. If Hazel hens and Indigo hens are the same in appearance, or, if Hazel X Hazel results in some Bronze daughters, then that could explain what's going on. It may also be why some of these combinations have "two morphs", if they also follow the same breeding pattern.

 

[Midnightman14]

Indigo hens have the purple sheen on the backs of their necks whereas hazel hens don't. As far as I know Hazel+Hazel does breed true. This is a picture of my Indigo pair last year. You can see some of the purple in the hens neck feathers.

 

[Rosa moschata]

Well, I suppose it's another mystery to solve. I can't understand how the same genotype will express as two different phenotypes, so naturally I'm thinking there's actually a difference in genotype. I know with chickens that certain recessive colors can "bleed through" in splits that are visual for some dominant colors, but not in others. I'm wondering if this is what's going on with peafowl. If you say Hazel hens exist, and you can tell them apart from both Indigo and Bronze hens, then perhaps it's the Bronze that's bleeding through in Purple split to Bronze birds. But for either case to be true, it would mean that Hazel X Hazel pairs would produce some non-Hazel and non-Indigo offspring.

P.S. Sorry I haven't been active here. As you may know, I don't actually own peafowl -- just find them interesting. I've started a project for one of my other passions, and it keeps me busy. See below.

How to start a bed at a cemetery.....in pictures



~Christopher

 

[getaclue]

People keep citing forms of inbreeding being used as a method for "creating a line" of whatever as a justification for questions like that posed by the OP.

Whoa. Inbreeding, and linebreeding are NOT the same thing. Do NOT confuse the two.

 

[ShannonR]

People keep citing forms of inbreeding being used as a method for "creating a line" of whatever as a justification for questions like that posed by the OP. What doesn't get mentioned is the other part of "creating a line" -- ruthless culling. See, when you breed relatives together, you're increasing homozygosity, which is another way of saying "bringing out the recessive traits" in offspring. There are good and bad traits that will pop up, and responsible breeders aiming to establish a line will expect to see poor offspring that would need to be culled, retaining only the best 10% or so for future breeding. Over several generations, you'll end up with breeder birds that start producing cookie-cutter offspring because the line has become fixed, but you will have to figure out how to "dispose of" all the rest before then. Is this something in your plans?

Yes, breeders will use inbreeding when trying to produce more of a rare new mutation, but the responsible ones will follow that with outcrosses to bring new blood back in. This is because there are two ways to reduce the chances of negative recessives from appearing in offspring. The first is what I mentioned above -- creating a line over several generations of breeding together relatives and ruthlessly culling anything that doesn't meet your standards. After a few generations, the negative recessives will have been mostly "flushed out" of the line, and the remaining breeder birds probably won't even carry those traits anymore. The second is to choose unrelated breeder birds who are less likely to share the same negative recessives, and thus their offspring won't show them. You might still get the odd poor-quality chick once in a while, but overall, you'll have a greater percentage of healthy and sturdy birds in every generation, even if they're more variable.

So, inbreeding in and of itself isn't bad. But if you're going to do it, realize that it's just one part of "breeding a line" -- the other being to expect inferior offspring at first, and the need to cull ruthlessly.

Thank you for this post!! You very effectively explained some of the pitfalls of linebreeding. People need to remember that when you linebreed like this, you get the good traits along with the bad. And the unwanted traits become much more difficult to breed out of that line. This is exactly why it's so important to breed only the best to the best. A single negative trait that is allowed to reproduce can become a major problem later down the line. It's much easier to add good qualities later, than it is to subtract unwanted qualities.

 

[ShannonR]

Whoa. Inbreeding, and linebreeding are NOT the same thing. Do NOT confuse the two.

It's linebreeding when it works, and inbreeding when it doesn't, lol

Guess I should edit to add that I do know there is an actual difference. For instance, breeding siblings to one another is more an example of inbreeding. Mindful and deliberate breeding back to a parent or other non-sibling relative, to produce or solidify traits that both parents share, is linebreeding. Breeding siblings together reduces the gene pool greatly and that is where the problems begin.