Peafowl 101: Basic care, genetics, and answers.

[Garden Peas]

I am not sure I agree. Silver pied is a further modification of pied, white or white eye. That much we know is true. All three ingredients are required to have silver pied. Nothing is technically hidden.

You can hide the silver pied gene if one of the other ingredients are not present. But technically it is not hiding, it is just not expressed.

My thought with this whole "hiding" thing in terms of "silver pied gene" is that it goes back to a concept that some folks keep dragging up... that there is A silver pied gene, which isn't generally thought to be true. Some of the genes involved in silver pied may not be expressed, or may sometimes be masked by other genes. But if one or some of the necessary combination of genes are not present, then we aren't "hiding the silver pied gene" -- because there isn't one, as far as we know -- and the necessary parts are not all present. We aren't hiding silver pied. Whether some parts may be present and masked or not noticed is irrelevant.

 

[Dany12]

My summary ... in picture :

this peacock is a Pied peacock who are hiding 2 things : the color BLUE and the pattern BARRED.

this peacock is a Pied peacock who are hiding 2 things : the color BLUE and the pattern Black Shoulder.


this peacock is a Pied peacock who are hiding a lot of things : the color BLUE and the patterns Silver Pied .
https://www.backyardchickens.com/g/...t-virginia-fauquier-county/sort/display_order

Is there a difference between a Blue Pied peacock who are hiding Silver Pied patterns and a Blue peacock Silver Pied ?


this bird is a Blue Black Shoulder Pied peacock ...as they say :
http://www.unitedpeafowlassociation.org/BlackShoulderPied.html
I see some barred feather !
Informations coming from UPA !!!!!

 

[frenchblackcopper]

I understood black shoulder as not having any barring, not that the wing feathers has to be black. My Opal b/s does not have black feathers,nor does my purple bssp peacock.

 

[Kedreeva]

I understood black shoulder as not having any barring, not that the wing feathers has to be black. My Opal b/s does not have black feathers,nor does my purple bssp peacock.

This is correct. The term "blackshoulder" is a misnomer, originally used because it appeared first in India blue wild-type peafowl, giving them those pretty black shoulders. However, the term "solid wing" is both more accurate and appropriate, as the pattern causes the bird to lose the barring on the feathers and show a solid color instead.

Also hi *waves* Long time no see Are you gonna be selling any of those pretty opal BS eggs this year?

 

[Kedreeva]

@Dany12 my guess for the bird that you are saying is "hiding" silver pied is that the bird is either a silver pied which is "low" in showing the white (like a 'dark pied' bird) or else a pied bird that shows a lot of white ('loud pied' so to speak) which also has the white-eye genes. Since silver pied, again, is a combination/interaction between white, pied, and white-eye genes, what the bird is phenotypically showing may vary.

Also the term "hide" is really misleading when it comes to leucism. The "white" in any leucistic bird isn't a new color that is covering up an old color- it's literally the failure of any color to be deposited. It's just a lack of any pigment. So it's not like the white (or the particular white and colors displayed) in a pied bird is somehow covering up the white of a silver pied bird, that's just not how it works.

Think of leucism (which pied, white, and silver pied are a result of, in some way) less like a pattern in itself and more like a genetic condition which affects other patterns. A wild type blue pea that is white (fully leucistic) is still a blue bird, you just can't see that because the pigment never gets deposited on the feathers. Pied, white, and silver pied are all just different variations of leucism that affect the bird's colors/patterns in different ways.

 

[frenchblackcopper]

Kedreeva, I'm overrun with Opals. Aside from my original breeding quad,I also have a pair of Opal b/s that will be 3 yrs old this year. I have kept back a trio of Opals that will be 2 yrs old this spring. This trio is special because one hen is opal pied,one is regular opal and the male is barred winged. None of these are b/s but since their father is b/s,it's hidden in all 3 of them.I think I have 11 Opals to breed with this year.

 

[Garden Peas]

I understood black shoulder as not having any barring, not that the wing feathers has to be black. My Opal b/s does not have black feathers,nor does my purple bssp peacock.

This is correct. The term "blackshoulder" is a misnomer, originally used because it appeared first in India blue wild-type peafowl, giving them those pretty black shoulders. However, the term "solid wing" is both more accurate and appropriate, as the pattern causes the bird to lose the barring on the feathers and show a solid color instead.

Also hi *waves* Long time no see Are you gonna be selling any of those pretty opal BS eggs this year?

Exactly. My own wild theory (because I haven't heard anyone say this is correct yet) is that the Black Shoulder gene interferes with laying down some version of the brown pigment, leaving the feather with just the base color for that area. I think that could also explain why the BS hens are so light colored... the brown doesn't get deposited in the feathers.

 

[Kedreeva]

Kedreeva, I'm overrun with Opals. Aside from my original breeding quad,I also have a pair of Opal b/s that will be 3 yrs old this year. I have kept back a trio of Opals that will be 2 yrs old this spring. This trio is special because one hen is opal pied,one is regular opal and the male is barred winged. None of these are b/s but since their father is b/s,it's hidden in all 3 of them.I think I have 11 Opals to breed with this year.

I am in Opal WASTELAND here!! I have seen only ONE opal hen for sale here in the past 5 years (and of course I bought her ~2 years ago), and I just lost her due to some really crazy muck-ups at the vet that shouldn't have happened.

Think we could arrange some buying/shipping of eggs once yours start laying? I don't really fancy another 5 years of hunting in person!

Also PICS!! I need a few pics of that opal pied hen... that's my goal eventuall, opal BS pied birds. I haven't seen any pictures of something like that yet, but I can only imagine they'd be deathly pretty

 

[frenchblackcopper]

I have 2 Opal hens with a white throat patch. One was with Thang all summer but so were two IB and one Purple pied hen,so until I go catch and read wingbands,I'm not sure if thang did his job on the Opal pied hen.I think I have 3 straight Opal hens of varying ages,and 3 Opal b/s hens,,and I forgot,I still have a pair of 2014 opal b/s young birds thats still here.

 

[frenchblackcopper]

Kedreeva, will these work for pics? This is Opie,my Opal b/s male