Peafowl 201: Further Genetics- Colors, Patterns, and More

[Peafowlssssssss]

No more catching for my green birds, they get all their treats in the water.

 

[DylansMom]

Yeah, I unfortunately didn't have the luxury at the time, since I was at a swap meet, so it was pretty much buy right then or the guy next to me eyeing the bird I was holding was going to!

have you ever considered doing blood sexing? I decided to test the DNASexing.com site to see if 1) they could do peafowl) and 2) how long a test would take (they're $19.50 per bird, 5+ for 17.50/per). From the day I mailed the blood sample to them (only took 1 drop on their card), it took ~2-3 weeks to process, but I also didn't send payment with the kit, I asked them to send me an invoice, so I suspect it took longer for me. But, they could do peafowl, and I think for a bird anyone's considering keeping, it's probably worth it to know if it's a boy or a girl. Could be ESPECIALLY useful when it comes to white birds, since it takes so much longer to tell for them.

HealthGene in Toronto is where I send mine. Same thing.... a drop of blood on a card or feathers and they will email you the results. They charge $12.00 per bird, so a little less expensive.

 

[FunnyFarmGal]

Hi gang! I'm pretty new to peafowl. We just got our first breeding pen set up last year and we have been hatching their eggs this year. We have a 3 y.o. India Blue male in w/ a 4 y.o. IB Silver Pied hen, 3 y.o. IB split white hen and a 2 y.o. Spalding hen. So far we've hatched mostly whites, one IB, one IB Pied and a silver pied, so it seems that our Silver Pied hen is the one doing most of the laying of fertile eggs. We have 6 more eggs in the 'bator and she has started sitting on a clutch of about 8 eggs as well.

Anyway, we wanted to get into a couple more colors so we got a couple Opal White Eye chicks and a few Bronze White Eye chicks. I really like the pied bronze white eyed birds and was wondering what I need to do to get the pied pattern in my bronze pen? Would I use a silver pied or a white to start creating this and how many generations does it take to get pied to show up? Somewhere I thought I read that it takes 3 generations to create a pied bird from using a color bred to a white, then ya take the offspring and keep breeding them to white and after the 3rd generation you should actually get a nice pied pattern on any colored pea. Is that true?

 

[DylansMom]

Hi gang! I'm pretty new to peafowl. We just got our first breeding pen set up last year and we have been hatching their eggs this year. We have a 3 y.o. India Blue male in w/ a 4 y.o. IB Silver Pied hen, 3 y.o. IB split white hen and a 2 y.o. Spalding hen. So far we've hatched mostly whites, one IB, one IB Pied and a silver pied, so it seems that our Silver Pied hen is the one doing most of the laying of fertile eggs. We have 6 more eggs in the 'bator and she has started sitting on a clutch of about 8 eggs as well.

Anyway, we wanted to get into a couple more colors so we got a couple Opal White Eye chicks and a few Bronze White Eye chicks. I really like the pied bronze white eyed birds and was wondering what I need to do to get the pied pattern in my bronze pen? Would I use a silver pied or a white to start creating this and how many generations does it take to get pied to show up? Somewhere I thought I read that it takes 3 generations to create a pied bird from using a color bred to a white, then ya take the offspring and keep breeding them to white and after the 3rd generation you should actually get a nice pied pattern on any colored pea. Is that true?

Welcome aboard! Hmmmm, don't know where you read it, but you cannot ever get pied from breeding a pure colored bird to a pure white bird. All you will get are colored, white, or split to white, no matter how many generations go by. A true Pied bird carries 1 copy of white and 1 copy of pied. You will need to use your pied hens to introduce the pied gene into the opal and bronze pens. Also if your IB male is producing whites with those hens then he must be carryiny a hidden white gene(he is split white), you need one from each parent to get an all white offspring.

 

[KsKingBee]

I was told recently that to get a silver pied your cock must carry silver pied. Can we see pictures of the chicks?

 

[Peafowlssssssss]

Hi gang! I'm pretty new to peafowl. We just got our first breeding pen set up last year and we have been hatching their eggs this year. We have a 3 y.o. India Blue male in w/ a 4 y.o. IB Silver Pied hen, 3 y.o. IB split white hen and a 2 y.o. Spalding hen. So far we've hatched mostly whites, one IB, one IB Pied and a silver pied, so it seems that our Silver Pied hen is the one doing most of the laying of fertile eggs. We have 6 more eggs in the 'bator and she has started sitting on a clutch of about 8 eggs as well.

Anyway, we wanted to get into a couple more colors so we got a couple Opal White Eye chicks and a few Bronze White Eye chicks. I really like the pied bronze white eyed birds and was wondering what I need to do to get the pied pattern in my bronze pen? Would I use a silver pied or a white to start creating this and how many generations does it take to get pied to show up? Somewhere I thought I read that it takes 3 generations to create a pied bird from using a color bred to a white, then ya take the offspring and keep breeding them to white and after the 3rd generation you should actually get a nice pied pattern on any colored pea. Is that true?

If you want a pied you will need to start with a pied, your best plan is to pair the silver pied hen with your bronze white eye male, but this means you will have india blue chicks split for bronze, some of them will be split for white and some will be split pied, and this will take a long time because you will work with birds not only split pied and white, but also split for bronze, and thats what will reduce the chances to get a bronze pied bird. The best plan will be getting a bronze pied peahen or a bronze silver pied peahen, this way, lets say you got the bronze pied peahen, pair her with your bronze w/e male and you will get bronze chicks half of them will be split white and half of them split pied. Pairing this chicks together should give you a bronze pied chicks, and this way it will not take a long time.

Did you know if your bronze male is split white or not? Many white eye birds are split white.

And if you decided to use your silver pied hen here how it will works:
bronze w/e x silver pied hen= all india blue chicks split bronze, some split white and some split bronze, you may also get silver pied chicks from this mating, its and your luck.

Now wait 2 years until they reach breeding age and pair a male split white with hens split pied, or do the opposite, i would say the birds with more flight feathers will be split white.

Here is the results of this mating:
India blue split white and bronze x india blue hen split bronze and pied= first the patterns results= 25% split white, 25% split pied, 25% pied, 25% india blue. Now only 25% of these chicks will be bronze, and with my birds 25% usually means just one or two chicks from one hen. Now this one or two bronze chicks could be split white or pied or just a bronze and could be bronze pied.

And its you and your luck, some people will need to breed them for some years to get what they want, and you could also get a bronze pied from the first year

 

[WestKnollAmy]

One of these days I will actually figure out what the heck I am breeding! LOL
This year I crossed my Buford Bronze peacock with 2 Opal hens, supposedly WE and they do have white throat latches.
Gosh, I got some interesting offspring!

I got a silver pied! I think it is a girl. She is 3 months and I am pretty sure it is a girl by legs, head and body form but without pattern I can't tell much more.
The other 6 I am going by their feather patterns and think I have 2 girls and 4 boys. I plan on keeping one of the boys and taking him back to his mother(s) since I no longer own an Opal male.

I also bred my Cameo to some different girls in Bronze, IB and Peach. Only one of the chicks survived and I have no idea who the mama is but I thought it was the IB. The chicks are tagged by who the dads were so that is the only way to keep them separate.

I have got to sell some to make room for ones I am keeping but gosh, it is hard to know what to keep.

Another fun thing to note is I have a purple male and bred him to an IB hen. Last year I had several purple daughters but they died (the only ones I lost!). This year I only have one daughter and one boy out of that cross. The girl looks like a purple pea chick should but the boy looks like a full purple son and I did not expect that. They are 3 months old and are doing well so far.

Yes, I know. Photos right?
I don't have any helpers so it is hard to get non blurry photos of pea chicks with an antique camera.

I try to research but so far no luck on the internet on pea chicks and colors from crosses like I am making.

 

[uzisuzuki]

It's a ways off for my trio to start mating, but thank you for all this work! I feel like I might have what my possible peachicks will look like by the time they're ready to start breeding (I've got a brain injury so reading and retaining info isn't my strong suit anymore).

I had no idea that peafowl were so varied!

 

[Dany12]

" In white-eye mutations, the eye of the train feathers on the male (not the eyeballs of the bird) can sport white spots or be entirely white (although it's possible for a bird to be white-eye but not display any white in the eyes)."

1 gene white eyes = a part of the train with white eyes.
2 genes white eyes = all the eyes are white .
It's impossible to be split white eyes without displaying white eyes on his train?

I am wrong ?

 

[WestKnollAmy]

As I posted above my Bronze pair of peafowl haven't any white on them what so ever. The first year I hatched from them I saw no white on any of the offspring, though now the 2 1/2 year old daughter has white feathers on her back. And I possibly have a silver pied from her and the silver pied mate I had her in with this year, though the other hen in the pen was also silver pied.

This year I crossed my Bronze peacock with 2 Opal white eye hens. They both have a white throat latch. I got a silver pied and some IBs but the IBs are showing white feathers on their back already. AND I got a silver pied from this cross. I am slightly confused.

This is one of the 6 month old boys from the BronzeXOpal white eye.



And the silver pied from the BronzeXOpal white eye pen.



Here are the parents.



But I can't figure out how I got a silver pied out of the Bronze male and he nor the Bronze female have ever shown white feathers anywhere on them.

I keep asking if they can hide the genes but no one seems to know the answer on all the forums and FB pages I am on.