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

[Garden Peas]

Reverse Pied is the US version of a Pied. They're missing the White Eyed gene to make them Silver Pied.

Well.... not exactly.

"Pied" is a generic word which means the bird's base color has a pattern which involves broken white (not a solid white bird, not a solid colored bird).

Other words (dark, loud, reverse, silver) are modifiers which tell us something about the way in which that bird shows white. We'd like to think this also is indicative of the genotype, but often, we don't know enough about the bird or about the bird's genetics, or about how the genetics of some things work, to state with certainty.

Reverse pied means that instead of the bird looking like it has white (pied) patches on a colored background, it appears to have colored patches on a white background, i.e., "reversed" from a colored bird. So a reverse pied bird is more than 50% white. We don't hear that term as much in the U.S., but often we hear "loud" pied -- which is essentially the same thing.

Some folks have suggested over the years that having a white eye gene (it suppresses color in the eyes of the tail, leaving white spots in the eyes), can cause a pied bird to have more white -- increasing the "eraser" effect of blocking color. There's been discussion as to whether there is a modified version of the white eye gene that leads to silvering. There's lots of stuff on BYC on various threads that discusses various theories of how this works (or might work).

It's a somewhat complicated discussion, and not everyone agrees with everyone else on all the details

But we stay civil about it

 

[Helen in the Desert]

- What is the rate of Reverse Pied in a "normal" Pied breeding program?

- Are there more incidents of Reverse Pied when you are breeding WE Pied?

Seems to me, after reading the first two threads linked in the prior page that Silver is a separate mutation. It may be tied up in the WE due to WE being dominant, and so the Silver has not ever been isolated away from it, or it may be that you do have to have WE in there to also have Silver.

Two breeders discussed crossing SP to WE Whites which resulted in no SPs. They had to back cross to get SP. Maybe it was just because there was no Pied gene in the WE they started with?

It could be we see the patching of the silvering due the the Pied genetic.

Seems to me that the right experiment to do would cross SP (that definitely has silvering) to non-WE or Pied carrying birds (Blue or BS) (can colored birds even carry WE? I understand that it is dominant/semi dominant), then cross those chicks together to see if the Silvering can be isolated in a phenotype from WE and Pied.
The possibilities could be, if this is a separate mutation: solid Silver, non-WE Pied Silver, non-Pied Silver WE. If it is tied into the WE gene only, then non-Pied WE should come up. It may be tied to both Pied and WE, and this kind of experiment aught to bring that that to light.

 

[WestKnollAmy]

I have so much to learn but I can honestly say that I had a pair of Bronze, still have the peacock but the hen broke her neck and died last fall, that has produced what I suspect to be a white eyed daughter.
I kept 2 daughters from this cross 2 years now. The other daughter does not look WE.

I bred the peacock to 2 Opal WE hens last year and got dark pied and silver pied (now, I call silver pied a mostly white bird and a pied a colored bird with a bit of white on it).

I have posted on here once before because I was confused about these seemingly solid colored birds producing a WE daughter and also the Opal WE hen by the Bronze peacock producing a mostly white offspring. I still can't say I have my brain wrapped around this but I really thought WE or any pied gene woudl express in some way on the parent birds.





Hen that died............

 

[Dany12]

Why on the male the silver color is only on the saddle and in the female ... everywhere?
Why some Blue silver pied are darker ?
Here wing's feathers with the " silvering" effect or "silvering pied" effect ! some feathers are brown ... some are clear brown.

 

[KsKingBee]

As I said..... he is a Silver Pied fathered by a Pied male with no silvering (but probably carrying 1 White eye gene) and a mother who is Silver Pied. I have another pair just like this and they also produce Silver Pieds. This tells me that having 1 parent with silvering is enough to give silvered offspring.

Indeed. Here is a yearling Silver Pied cock who I had to stitch up last month, he tore his leg open somehow. His father is an IBBSWE and the mother is an IBWE hen. The father shows no silver at all and the mother is basically silver with a couple of white tipped feathers with a white throat patch and a few white flights like a dark pied would show white.

 

[DylansMom]

Indeed. Here is a yearling Silver Pied cock who I had to stitch up last month, he tore his leg open somehow. His father is an IBBSWE and the mother is an IBWE hen. The father shows no silver at all and the mother is basically silver with a couple of white tipped feathers with a white throat patch and a few white flights like a dark pied would show white.

Did you mean to say a mother who is basically India Blue?

 

[KsKingBee]

Did you mean to say a mother who is basically India Blue?

Yes, either the IBWE hen in the picture or her full sister. They both look the same with only a couple of white tipped feathers on the back that help us tell them apart. Thier general appearance is very silverish in general. The guy i got them from as chicks raised the parents from birds he got from Brad Legg as IBWE. Terry is not fluent in peaspeak, but he did say that the father was mostly white with white eyes, I saw the mother who looked like the hen chicks. The father had died before I picked up the chicks. My Mr. White is a full brother and he looks like a regular IB with a few white eyes in his first train. Mr. White's barred shoulder feathers appear mostly black and white instead of the usual brown and tan.

 

[Dany12]

Is it possible that this peacock ....

....is split We or this particular We with silvering ( Wesp ) ?

 

[DylansMom]

This particular peacock is the father of the SP male I pictured earlier. He has no silvering but he could be carrying 1 copy of the WE gene.

 

[Dany12]

This particular peacock is the father of the SP male I pictured earlier. He has no silvering but he could be carrying 1 copy of the WE gene.

Without showing anything!
Here, 1 copy of We and seen in the phenotype!