Cameo or Peach?

[Garden Peas]

If it was opal cameo, and i paired her with opal male will all the offspring be opal or just half of them? Is there a difference if they are opal cameo or cameo opal?

The interesting thing to me when I look at those hens is that the top is grayish (a lighter shade of gray) and the bottom is tan. So I didn't think they were opal because of the tan/light brown and perhaps slightly orangey brown underneath, plus the shade of gray didn't seem quite right. But they don't look peach, because they have more of a grayish color on top, and only that tannish color on the bottom. They almost look like two different birds, put together with a seam

But if an opal out of a cameo bird ends up with a different shade of gray, and the cameo color ends up altered as well, then that would make sense. Those colors have been around longer, so may be more likely to be in pens of breeders in Kuwait, perhaps?

So let's think about what the offspring would be. Opal is a "regular" color, cameo is sex-linked. To show opal, both the hen and the male must each have two opal genes. So all the chicks would end up with two opal genes. The hen would have one cameo gene and the male would have none. So all the chicks would get one cameo gene from mom, and none from dad. So perhaps the hen chicks would look like the mother, and the male chicks would look opal like dad, but carry the cameo split in their genetic makeup.

I think it would be lovely if you tried mating them with your opal black shoulder silver pied. At least one of the hens shows many white feathers, but I'm not sure if that is coming from white/pied or WE genes. I don't know if there is anything you can see in person which would give you more of a clue, such as mottling on the back, or silvering. If you bred to the silver pied, you would find out if your hens are opal as one of their base colors, and you might find out why the hen has those white feathers as well. And I would think the chicks might be striking...

Edited to add, Arbor & AugeredIn... I didn't see your posts go up while I was pecking away at the keyboard and working this out... you guys know a lot more about this than I do.

 

[AugeredIn]

Since these are hens and Cameo is sex linked, they cannot give the female offspring a Cameo gene. They must pass the female chromosome. They do pass both Opal and Cameo to the male offspring.

 

[Garden Peas]

Since these are hens and Cameo is sex linked, they cannot give the female offspring a Cameo gene. They must pass the female chromosome. They do pass both Opal and Cameo to the male offspring.

Duh, of course you are right, what was I thinking?

I give up, I'm obviously not thinking clearly today.

 

[Peafowlssssssss]

Since these are hens and Cameo is sex linked, they cannot give the female offspring a Cameo gene. They must pass the female chromosome. They do pass both Opal and Cameo to the male offspring.

I have been thinking, if they can't give their daughters a cameo gene, so how they got their cameo gene in the first place?

Sorry if looked so stupid with this question

 

[Peafowlssssssss]

If they were opal cameo, an opal male with them would only produce opal hens, and opal males split to cameo Chances are, you're right about them not being opal and they are just cameos in poor lighting. When I look at them again, and again, I still doubt taupe due to the dark head. If you look at the photo below from texaspeafowl, the colour of the body is less grey than the hens you have. I know it's a male and not a hen, but the general body colouring is the same.

Yeah, his body is lighter, i think it would be better to mate them with my cameo male if they were cameo.

 

[Peafowlssssssss]

Send a pic to Brad and see what he thinks. They could be cameos in weird lighting but they are awfully silver looking. The back of the necks are pretty dark for taupe.

I just sent email to Brad.

 

[Garden Peas]

I have been thinking, if they can't give their daughters a cameo gene, so how they got their cameo gene in the first place?

Sorry if looked so stupid with this question 

It is not a stupid question at all. Sex link genetics confuse a lot of people. And even though I generally get how it works, I wrote something wrong last night from not thinking clearly. Later this morning, I will have time to write a better explanation. It is a little counter-intuitive, so easy to get confused, pictures help a lot

 

[DylansMom]

I have been thinking, if they can't give their daughters a cameo gene, so how they got their cameo gene in the first place?

Sorry if looked so stupid with this question

It is a sex-linked color, they got it from their father. Any chicks they produce will get their color from their father as hens cannot pass the sex-linked colors to their daughters.

 

[AugeredIn]

It is a sex-linked color, they got it from their father. Any chicks they produce will get their color from their father as hens cannot pass the sex-linked colors to their daughters.

Bingo. The bad news is that sex linked genes for hens must be passed only from dad so you have to get them there first. The good news is that you don't need to worry about mom. That helps.

 

[AugeredIn]

I just sent email to Brad.

I am sure Brad knock us all back to earth and confirm it is Cameo. Wouldn't be the first time.