Peafowl Genetics for Dummies (in other words us)

[DylansMom]

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.

Thank you again! That is good to know, I have many whites here some are out of pied parents some are not. I was long ago told by someone that if it is white it is also WE, but through all of this discussion I started to see that maybe that was not actually the case. This also makes sense in that if all whites were WE then all split white birds would have to have 1 copy of the WE right? And we do not usually see any White eyes on a bird we call split to white, so they probably did not inherit a WE from the white parent. Thanks so much!

 

[DylansMom]

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.

I would tend to agree with you on this. Silver was the "Big" thing around here 10 years ago, so I figured I needed to have a couple. I bought a hen and then produced a male, but I never quite got what all the fuss was about. When you put him next to his Daddy, nobody even gives him a second look.
His Daddy is the Pied above not the IB in the pic with him.

 

[zazouse]

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.

i will be hatching the eggs out of my pied looking peacock and whites he is with and will report back with my hatchlings to let ya'll know what i get color wise.
Last year my pied hen and IB split white gave me pied with alot of white and all the others were what i use to call dark pieds with white on their necks, wings, legs and molten feet.
out of my white hens and the same split white male i got almost all whites from my white hens.

 

[Yoda]

Well, I absolutely agree that that is a silver pied or pied white eye bird but everything I have learned would require that one or both birds be visual for white. Maybe I am not seeing something on the photos I was looking at.

I asked deerman how was I getting those colors and he told me that the hen is split to pied and he is split to silver pied. I was also told a split to silver pied will not show signs of it. But I will tell you that yes those eggs came from the charcoal pen and went into the charcoal incubator.

 

[AugeredIn]

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

I would not think that his page would get into the kind of detail you in particular might expect. And quite frankly if peach is crossover and I believe that you are correct in the synopsis you previously gave, that could be considered a type of "mutation".

 

[Rosa moschata]

It's not, really. A mutation would be a change in the DNA sequence of a particular gene. Crossover is different. It's a process by which two separate mutations, each existing on separate copies of the same chromosome pair, are brought together onto one chromosome. While the mutations responsible for it are not on the same chromosome, it would be like calling Oaten a mutation, when in reality it is a phenotype composed of two separate mutations (Cameo and Blackshoulder). The same thing goes for Peach.

Correct terminology is important for accurate predictions in breeding. If you consider Peach a mutation, then predicting Peach male X Purple female offspring would result in IB split to Peach and Purple sons, and Peach daughters. But when you tried it out, you'd get something different -- all the sons would be Purple in color. The accurate representation which would fit the results would be that Peach is genetically Purple-Cameo. Sons therefore get two copies of Purple and thus show Purple. The sons also get a copy of Cameo (which tags along with one of the copies of Purple), so they'd genetically be Purple split to Peach.

 

[AugeredIn]

Trust me, I am not arguing with your logic there. I agree with every word you just said but I still stipulate that because that crossover does not occur at every mating someone is still going to consider that a "mutation"....right or wrong.

 

[Rosa moschata]

If that's the case, there'll be some head-scratching going on when "surprise" offspring result......

;-)

 

[AugeredIn]

I asked deerman how was I getting those colors and he told me that the hen is split to pied and he is split to silver pied. I was also told a split to silver pied will not show signs of it. But I will tell you that yes those eggs came from the charcoal pen and went into the charcoal incubator.

Yoda, I am going to have to do some looking around. I don't know what split silverpied means. Obviously, we have some stuff to get straight with regards to silverpieds. Gonna have to search through the old Deerman threads.

Got a little trip planned for this weekend though so I might just learn some new stuff.

 

[AugeredIn]

If that's the case, there'll be some head-scratching going on when "surprise" offspring result......

;-)

I believe that is happening quite frequently with folks not knowing what they have. I know at least one person that has one of the color combinations we have discussed previously but does not have a clue what it is. Unfortunately, as has been discussed lately, some of the potential color combinations do not result in spectacular changes. They just look only slightly different than one of the original colors.