Peafowl Genetics for Dummies (in other words us)

[AugeredIn]

I like the posts just fine (the basic genetics are dead on) but would not it be wonderful if he had 100 birds and 10 years of real experience to go with the genetics background? That is what we are sorely lacking here.

I would not downplay yours or anyone else's ability to add knowledge here. We are 23 pages into this thread and we still do not have an answer for the silver pied vs pied white eye question. Kathy, I am not even sure the majority of people posting here even understand what the question is. The answers that come in this forum are not going to come as absolutes but from people gaining experience or noticing small things. I would say you are pretty good along those lines.

 

[Rosa moschata]

I would also note that to the best of my knowledge Brad Legg has never posted here thus cannot have been wrong about anything.

True, but he calls Peach a color mutation on his website. That's what I meant by being incorrect.

 

[Rosa moschata]

I like the posts just fine (the basic genetics are dead on) but would not it be wonderful if he had 100 birds and 10 years of real experience to go with the genetics background? That is what we are sorely lacking here.

I would not downplay yours or anyone else's ability to add knowledge here. We are 23 pages into this thread and we still do not have an answer for the silver pied vs pied white eye question. Kathy, I am not even sure the majority of people posting here even understand what the question is. The answers that come in this forum are not going to come as absolutes but from people gaining experience or noticing small things. I would say you are pretty good along those lines.

My intended purpose is to try and untangle stuff based on what I know (I enjoy solving problems). I never claim to have experience with peas, but basic genetics applies across species lines. I try to see patterns on what people post, pictures on the net, and filter that through what I understand about how things are inherited. If a peafowl breeder has 10 years experience raising birds but says something that is genetically incorrect, I don't need to have raised one pea to spot the error. Whenever I find something about which I'm not yet certain but require more information, I post it here as a hypothesis, with ways to test if it's correct or incorrect. I'm just trying to help you all, and in return, I get to see pretty peafowl pictures -- and hopefully can encourage further investigation into peafowl genetics so that when I'm ready for some of my own there will be even more variety available for purchase.

 

[DylansMom]

I was fairly certain Aqua and Rosa were one and the same. Not too many people are that fluent in "genetics speak", they sounded like the same person.

Very good to have such a knowledgeable person on board. Anyone have an answer to my earlier White / White Eye question? Don't mean to be pushy, just really curious. Thank you all.

 

[casportpony]

Not about peafowl, hope you guys and gals don't mind...

@Rosa moschata , maybe you could help me understand a Muscovy duck color question... My Muscovy flock started with a pair of black and white ducks and their first batch produce more of the same and a couple of chocolate females. For five years all of the chocolates were always females, but last spring I started to see a few chocolate males. Why is that?

-Kathy

 

[mustangkid]

Okay, I have read some of the Silver Pied debate and I am still fairly certain that the offspring I mentioned would qualify as Silver Pied not Pied White Eye, but how do you know for sure? Is the silvering of the colored plumage good enough, or are there other factors. I should have said that the pairing with the silver hen has produced many silver offspring(at least I thought them silver, but most were sold early, so I never saw adult plumage on them) the 2 that I kept back are 5 years now. Here are pics of the male from last spring (he has white mixed in with the barring on all those wing feathers and the gold feathers on his back also have a lot of white streaking on them)



, unfortunately the only decent pic I have of his sister is from about 4 months of age, but you can still see her silvered back compared to her dark pied sister(they are the 2 at the bottom of pic 3). Looking at these can you tell if they are indeed silver pied or might they still be pied WE?


Also, If you have a white gene do you also automatically have the gene for WE, I thought I had read somewhere that all whites also carry the WE? Is this true? Or can you have a white that will not pass on a gene for WE? If a white is crossed with say a pied bird that is not carrying any copies of WE, can you get offspring who also have no copies of WE or will all of them automatically get a single copy from the white parent?

Dylansmom,

You do not automatically get the We gene with the white gene. Whites bred to whites you get all whites, now white can be hiding other colors and patterns. If your birds are just white then you get white. What you are thinking of, and this comes from Deerman, is that when you breed Silver pied to Silver pied you get some of those chicks that are white. The white chicks from SP X SP get one white gene from each parent and one We from each parent. This is why you need to have good records. Some people think a white out of SP is better than a plain white. It just depends on what your breeding goals are. A white out of Silver Pied X a Dark Pied out of SP gives you all SP chicks.

 

[Rosa moschata]

Not about peafowl, hope you guys and gals don't mind...

@Rosa moschata , maybe you could help me understand a Muscovy duck color question... My Muscovy flock started with a pair of black and white ducks and their first batch produce more of the same and a couple of chocolate females. For five years all of the chocolates were always females, but last spring I started to see a few chocolate males. Why is that?

-Kathy

By "black and white ducks" do you mean one was black and the other white? Or that each was black and white (i.e. black split to white)? Also, are you saying the same pair is suddenly producing chocolate sons, or that within the flock formed from them and their offspring, chocolate sons are appearing?

Chocolate is a sex-linked brown-dilution of black in Muscovies. For a daughter to be chocolate, the father would have to be chocolate or split to chocolate. For a son to be chocolate, you'd ALSO need the mother to be chocolate.

I'd need more specific information to figure out what's going on. Also, are you sure they're actually chocolate and not simply "brownish"?

 

[Rosa moschata]

Dylansmom,

You do not automatically get the We gene with the white gene. Whites bred to whites you get all whites, now white can be hiding other colors and patterns. If your birds are just white then you get white. What you are thinking of, and this comes from Deerman, is that when you breed Silver pied to Silver pied you get some of those chicks that are white. The white chicks from SP X SP get one white gene from each parent and one We from each parent. This is why you need to have good records. Some people think a white out of SP is better than a plain white. It just depends on what your breeding goals are. A white out of Silver Pied X a Dark Pied out of SP gives you all SP chicks.

I know it's just personal preference, but I keep scratching my head about why people think the Silver Pied birds are so pretty. I like White. I like the colors. I also like White Eye on certain colors. But seeing a bird that's almost White except for random non-symmetrical spots of "normal" IB pattern poking through just doesn't "do it" for me. To each his own -- I know I'm weird.

 

[MinxFox]

Minx, Rosa is right. I was wrong. Too much cold medicine.

Aww are you sick? I hope you get better soon.

Well at least I understand just a bit of genetics. Just enough for my own birds that is.

Okay so it is Aqua Eyes! Good to have you back!

 

[casportpony]

By "black and white ducks" do you mean one was black and the other white? Or that each was black and white (i.e. black split to white)? Also, are you saying the same pair is suddenly producing chocolate sons, or that within the flock formed from them and their offspring, chocolate sons are appearing?

Chocolate is a sex-linked brown-dilution of black in Muscovies. For a daughter to be chocolate, the father would have to be chocolate or split to chocolate. For a son to be chocolate, you'd ALSO need the mother to be chocolate.

I'd need more specific information to figure out what's going on. Also, are you sure they're actually chocolate and not simply "brownish"?

Both the original parents were black and white, sort of like this:


Original pair produced lots of black and whites and a few chocolate females in 2008. There are many and they free range, so no way to know which ones are from what hens once they mature.

I am positive they are chocolate, lol.

Here are some pictures of ducklings


And this is the oldest chocolate drake along with some other, but don't remember what sex they were.





-Kathy