Peafowl Genetics for Dummies (in other words us)

[AugeredIn]

I figured I would start a thread that would get us all spooled up! I am bored.

Over time there has been a lot of discussion about genetics in the peafowl forum. There is a lot of good, correct information out there but there is also a lot of bad information and partial truths. I decided I wanted to try and address genetics from a simpler standpoint to see if we can make it more understandable and to address some conflicting information on genetics. PLEASE keep this topic friendly, congenial and collegial. If you don’t know what that means, go look it up. Discourse is a dying art in this country. We all have peafowl as a common interest. We just seek the truth.
Obviously since I am starting this thread the initial information provided is my own. I do not profess to know everything or even substantial amount of all there is to know on peafowl. I do believe the information I provide is based upon relevant experience or information shared from reliable sources. I promise to provide EVIDENCE as best I can for all of my information and I challenge each of you to do the same.

 

[AugeredIn]

Note on the Larger Peafowl Breeders:
One of the problems with this particular forum is that none of the very big peafowl breeders participate in the forum. Quite frankly I generally don’t blame them. It is not worth their time and they generally just get contradicted. We are way below their level. That’s the facts.
Inevitably there are going to be names thrown out or referenced. Please be careful regarding quotes or other information from the big breeders. These guys get burned by unknowing, good minded people on a regular basis not to mention being burned from folks that just don’t care. I personally respect and admire these folks and would not have ANY of the beautiful breeders that I have without their long, hard, expensive work. . I believe that all of the bigger breeders are really good guys (&gals) and if you are customers or establish a relationship with them you can learn a lot. You cannot expect to just pick up the phone and extract the most detailed breeding information from them.
There is some information we just have to accept that we are not going to get in a real time manner. The big breeders spend lots of time and energy on color and pattern projects and just don’t want to hand out what they learn without a return on their investment. I have absolutely no problem with that. Last time I check that Coke formula was still locked up in Atlanta.
Moving on…….

 

[AugeredIn]

To get started I am going to suggest that we get away from talking about genes, chromosomes, alleles and the such since these terms get confusing. I am going to suggest a different set of terms. I am going to suggest that the “things” that cause visual differences are “markers”.
Next I am going to stipulate that generally the markers that cause visual differences come in pairs. While this is not absolute truth in genetics it is for the discussions we will be having. I don’t think this is a stretch for anyone. Just as a simple example, we all know that a bird split to say bronze has one bronze marker of a pair and that the real bronze bird has two markers of the pair that makes bronze. I am also going to suggest that these pairs exist at “locations” in the genetic makeup of a bird and that there are many, many locations in a bird’s genetic makeup. The pairs concept is really easy to understand when you realize that we each have a mom and a dad and the simplest way to make a new person is for each of them to provide half the markers that we end up with.
I am going to suggest that we can easily show locations in a simple graphical manner like this:



For those that don’t want to create the cute box, I think we could display it as:
PIED
x/x
Where the x indicates a blank marker.
This box represents the bronze marker location. The two empty boxes represent the places where the two bronze markers would go if the bird had them. For example the location box below left would represent a bird that is split bronze and the location box below right would represent a bird that is visually bronze.


Or;
BRONZE BRONZE
B/x B/B

Everyone following so far? Anybody want to discuss a particular topic? I have one How about we just jump into pied, white and white eye?

 

[AugeredIn]

Who wants to comment on whether which one of these representations is correct for pied, white and white eye? Or do you have other suggestions?


OR


I believe one of these is right. What do you guys think? What are the implications of each? How do we see the actual visual representations of these combinations.

One last warning. I would suggest that anyone who poo poos on genetics in general or calls it not understandable will NEVER be able to figure what they have and how to make something different. It really is fairly simple.

 

[frenchblackcopper]

I have my bowl of popcorn,sitting back and observing here.

 

[zazouse]

 

[AugeredIn]

I have my bowl of popcorn,sitting back and observing here.

Come on now, you have to participate! You have enough experience to be throwing some suggestions out there.

 

[AugeredIn]

I am not going to start talking about which one I believe is correct until we get some participation! Honestly, I could be wrong anyway. I think it is open for debate.

I will go ahead and throw a bomb out there. White is not a color, it is a pattern.

Anyone want to call me out on that? My evidence is as follows: Every known color mutation of peafowl can exist as a white bird. I will also add by personal experience that the expression of white is affected by other "markers". I don't know of any color mutation that is known to do so.

 

[casportpony]

So one could have a bronze that's white or a white spalding? Sorry if this is too simple a question for this thread.

 

[3BirdGirlz]

So i think it'd be the top box ....I'm guessing, but then pied and WE is also a pattern like white? Because a white x any color can't produce pied unless they're split.