Hierarchy of mutations?

[Pavomuticus]

Does anyone know the order of preference of the various color mutations. I ask because I'm producing a few cameo chicks from a pair of purple's.

The chicks are likely hens as cameo and purple are sex-linked and would indicate my purple male is split cameo.

However the female chicks should have a genotype carrying purple and cameo, however the phenotype is cameo It just got me wondering which colors are phenotypically dominant, when a bird has more than one set of mutations. ...... or are my cameo/purple hens going to look significantly different from either color as they grow?

 

[AugeredIn]

The simple answer to your question is that in the majority of cases we don't know. There might a a few people that have enough experience with combining colors to give you an idea but hobbyist have just begun to scratch the surface on color combinations. One case where there is somewhat of a dominance is when crossing green into IB mutations. The IB mutation seems to always shine through regardless of the % green. There might be a point of no return but I have not yet seen that case. Sid Drenth at Texas Peafowl has bred bronze peafowl to have high percentage green blood and they are still obviously bronze under the increasing green influence.

I agree with your second paragraph but you lost me a little bit on the third paragraph. A hen cannot be split to a sex linked color. She could theoretically be both cameo and purple. Maybe I am misunderstanding what you are saying. We do know that purple and cameo do some weird things when mixed together.

 

[Arbor]

There is no known hierarchy of the mutations. The normal wild type is dominant, other than that, the only dominant (or partially dominant) mutation would be the white eyed mutation (it will show with only one copy of the gene). Purple, cameo, peach and violette are sex-linked, but not dominant. I've been doing some experimental breeding this year with birds that are split to more than one colour (both parents carry both colours), and have yet to see any kind if dominance (though my hatches have been crap, so I have few to go by at this point). Your cameo hens will only carry cameo (unless there are hidden other copies of one or more other colour mutations from previous unknown ancestral roots.

 

[Pavomuticus]

"I agree with your second paragraph but you lost me a little bit on the third paragraph. A hen cannot be split to a sex linked color. She could theoretically be both cameo and purple. Maybe I am misunderstanding what you are saying. We do know that purple and cameo do some weird things when mixed together."

What I'm referring to is that the chicks are from two visual purple parents and therefore you would expect purple chicks, however some are born looking cameo and so far (early days yet, so if anyone knows if they will be different? ) are developing as cameo chicks,(conclusion father spilt to cameo). Now I also know the chicks must carry the purple gene by parentage. So if a bird (even a hen) carries two genes in its genotype (purple + cameo ) but one appears dominant (cameo) and its phenotype is cameo, how else do you describe the purple gene except to say the chick is split to purple? I can't I go round saying that's a cameo purple hen and people look and see a nice cameo, it can be hard enough describing the colors to people sometimes......

"Your cameo hens will only carry cameo (unless there are hidden other copies of one or more other color mutations from previous unknown ancestral roots."

My main point was the specific cameo chicks I was talking about are from phenotype purple parents, so they must also have a purple gene from their known parentage.

 

[Trefoil]

Am I misunderstanding something? If both parents were split to cameo, the offspring may or may not be split to purple. If one of the parents is split to cameo and the other homozygous purple, then cameo would have to be dominant to purple to get a cameo chick. ?

 

[DylansMom]

Am I misunderstanding something? If both parents were split to cameo, the offspring may or may not be split to purple. If one of the parents is split to cameo and the other homozygous purple, then cameo would have to be dominant to purple to get a cameo chick. ?

I am quite confused as well, I thought since cameo and purple were sex-linked colors, hens could NOT be split to them???

 

[Pavomuticus]

"Am I misunderstanding something? If both parents were split to cameo, the offspring may or may not be split to purple. If one of the parents is split to cameo and the other homozygous purple, then cameo would have to be dominant to purple to get a cameo chick."

Both parents are homozygous for purple, all I can think is that a some point a cameo and purple bird has had some crossing over occur during cell division and I have a bird with a Z chromosome with purple and cameo mutations present on the same chromosome.

Presumably that means when both genes are present on the Z chromosome as in a hen then cameo is the dominant color but if a second chromosome is present ( ZZ as in the father) then the more commonly expressed gene takes preference???

This may require test matings with these hens in a couple of years.

 

[zazouse]

I am quite confused as well, I thought since cameo and purple were sex-linked colors, hens could NOT be split to them???

This is what i was told also.

 

[new 2 pfowl]

Perhaps of interest on this topic...
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/461096/combining-colors

 

[Arbor]

"Your cameo hens will only carry cameo (unless there are hidden other copies of one or more other color mutations from previous unknown ancestral roots."[/B]

My main point was the specific cameo chicks I was talking about are from phenotype purple parents, so they must also have a purple gene from their known parentage.

Cameo hens (or other sex linked colours like purple) cannot be split to another sex linked colour. Therefore, if you have cameo hens from a pair of purples, they will not be split to purple. Only their father is purple split to cameo, not their mother.