Hierarchy of mutations?

[Arbor]

"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.

As in my previous post, the father is the culprit. He may be purple, but only he can carry a cameo gene. There is no dominance in breeding these two colours together. If you breed purple male to cameo hen, you get Indian blue split purple and split cameo males. These males look identical visually to an Indian blue. Females would all be purple.
If you breed cameo male to purple hen, you get The same males as above cross, but cameo hens instead. The males from the above cross can then father both cameo hens and purple hens. There is no crossing over during cell division. If it does happen (which has happened in the past), the result is then peach.

 

[Pavomuticus]

Perhaps the chicks are in fact peach not cameo as they are only a few weeks old. This may go some way to proving that peach is cameo and purple. As if you are correct a peach father on to purple hen would produce peach hens and purple cocks. With the purple cocks phenotype been purple as they have two copies of the purple gene but one chromosome will also carry a hidden cameo gene. When crossed back to a purple hen half the female chicks will express as peach as they will have the peach and cameo expressed together.....

 

[Arbor]

It is still a possibility that the hens are cameo though, and would not rule that out either. It is possible to have a purple male split to cameo, though it takes a few gens to achieve.