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Oh too bad, was just thinking of asking you about my experiences with crossing silver pied. It has been a frustrating one to understand.
OK, this is what I THINK a "silver pied" bird is genetically:
Heterozygous for White
Homozygous for Pied
Homozygous for White-Eyed
From what I remember reading on breeders' sites and forums, when breeding Silver Pied X Silver Pied, you will get some whites out of them (some places said half, which would fit my model above...but like I said, the information varies from place to place...and sometimes I see "Pied White-Eyed" which makes me think the bird is the same as Silver Pied, only it's heterozygous for Pied instead of homozygous, or maybe lacks a copy of the White gene...another reason I don't like coming up with new names for something that's really the result of more than one mutation).
In any case, it's an interaction of three genes that delete pigment -- and I prefer seeing the colors of the peafowl, rather than a white bird with random spots of color. So...I never really read further into any of the "white" genes (White, Pied, White-Eyed). And I may not have gotten it right about how it is put together genetically. All I know is that when I am ready for my own peafowl, I don't want any birds with white feathers (well....except for Black Shouldered Hens). But that's just my personal preference.
SP x SP= 1/4 white 1/2 SP 1/4 "dark pied"(homozygous pied/silver pied) is the usual answer. Same as for the 'regular pied'-no white eyes, the originals before silver pied came on the scene.
It's been said & implied for very long time that white and pied are alleles. Are you aware if this is true or false? Your genotype list above makes me wonder.
At the very least, everybody seems to agree: Pied x Pied, whether they be regular or silver pied gives the 1:4:1 results(phenotype at least..), also agrees on white x pied= 1:1 chick ratio, etc. Those seem to support them being alleles but does not rule it out either..? (but would seem incredible if agreement is so universal. surely not all of those whites were hom for pied.. even het would skew the ratio?)
Way back when I was shopping around for SP, talked to several breeders trying to figure out the possible genotype for silver pied(pied plus white eye was the basic answer I got) plus if they thought I would get silver pieds out of a SP male bred with my white eyed hens heterozygous and homozygous for white(several thought SP chicks would show up). So with that, decided to just get a SP male instead of getting a pair/trio as I had quite a lot of white eyed hens heterozygous and homozygous for white. Two seasons failed to give any SP chicks. Results were same for a new, unrelated SP male over hens with same genotypes. (eventually got a few silver pieds out of F1 hens from first cross bred with the second SP male)
There are some who suggest Whites from SP matings are genetically different from other Whites (ignoring color mutations for this discussion) as implied by sales adverts with prices for whites out of SP being different from 'regular whites' and also when I relayed my experience of two SP bred with my hens failing to produce any SP chicks- some responses I got were 'have to use white hens from SP matings'- never got an answer to *what* exactly the difference is, though... Other responses were that I did not get any because the chicks were not pure for white eye, but that's the problem- they have to be, if SP are pied, white eye and het white, then breeding a SP with my hens= all homozygous white eyes.. It would really explain so much if white and pied(silver pied?) are not alleles after all, but that's a bit troublesome if 'everybody' agrees on them being alleles and on pied breeding chick ratios. So I end up not being sure what to think, ha!
