Peafowl Genetics for Dummies (in other words us)

[pedda munnangi]

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.

Silverpied is a bird with 1)one copy of white gene (T) 2) One copy of pied gene (pd) 3) and two copies of white eye gene (w/e, w/e ). together the genetic code of a silverpied bird is "T,pd,w/e,w/e" Our friend Yoda uses the term split silverpied frequently. My question is " what is meant by charcoal split silverpied ? " I understand that this bird carrys two copies of charcoal genes. what other genes this bird carry to be called a "split silverpied ?" When we say " A charcoal split white " this bird carry two copies of charcoal gene and a single copy of white gene. Split silverpied carrys What genes?

 

[Rosa moschata]

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.

It gets confusing again because the terminology is muddied. What is a Silver Pied pea, appearance-wise? From what I've gathered, it's a mostly white pea, males have white-centered ocelli (well, any that aren't already white from the pied parkings), and there's a dusty or "silver" appearance on the saddle. OK, so what genes go into that? It seems agreed that to start, the birds must be Pied. OK, what makes Pied? That answer is one copy of the Pied mutation, and one copy of the White mutation. OK, now the white ocelli -- that's the White Eye mutation. Does the bird need one or two copies? That's the tricky part. One hypothesis is that the bird needs two copies, and that the dusty or "silver" appearance is due to a separate gene. Others say that there's an allele (or "other version") of the White Eye mutation that gives the dusty or "silver" appearance. So if there's a separate "silver" mutation, then the bird needs two copies of White Eye. If "silver" is a form of the White Eye mutation, then the bird needs either one copy of "regular" White Eye and one copy of "silver" White Eye, OR simply two copies of "silver" White Eye.

So when people say "split to Silver Pied" what do they mean? I think we all can agree that Silver Pied requires multiple mutations to come together to produce the phenotype. So saying "split to Silver Pied" is a very unclear statement. Do you mean split to Pied? Or split to White? Or Single-Factor White Eye? Or the mysterious "silver" mutation? Remember that a bird CAN'T be split to Pied AND White but show neither -- they are alleles, which means the total number of copies of Pied, White and Normal can't be more than 2. OK, so what about Single-Factor White Eye -- is that what the "split to Silver Pied" birds are? Or are we going back to having one copy of the "silver" mutation (whatever it is)?

When you say a pea is "split to" something, it means that if bred to a bird visual for the "something", you should get 50% of the "something". But since Silver Pied is based on Pied (which is a heterozygote for the Pied and White mutations), then that's not possible, and the "split to Silver Pied" term has no solid meaning. If you want to understand it better, do something akin to what was done with Oaten -- rather than giving a new name for a two-mutation phenotype, call it what it is based on its parts (i.e. Cameo Blackshoulder).

And that's a good example of why they should be named that way. Try this: IB split to Oaten male X Oaten female. What do you have to do to figure it out? You have to translate "Oaten" to "Cameo Blackshoulder" and then realize that there are two separate mutations inherited independently. So you won't get just IB and Oatens, as would be implied from the first terminology. You'd get:

IB split to Blackshoulder daughters
IB split to Cameo and Blackshoulder sons
IB Blackshoulder daughters
IB Blackshoulder split to Cameo sons
Cameo split to Blackshoulder daughters
Cameo split to Blackshoulder sons
Cameo Blackshoulder (i.e. Oaten) daughters
Cameo Blackshoulder (i.e. Oaten) sons.

Now...would that make any non-Oaten offspring thus "split to Oaten"? Look at all the genotypes of the non-Oaten offspring -- the term "split to Oaten" would have no concise definition. It's the same logic behind "split to Silver Pied". No wonder there's confusion.

 

[DylansMom]

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.

With everything I've read on here and learned the past few days, I was going to ask if it was even possible to have a split to silver pied bird, but I had to go make dinner and you beat me to it. Looks like I am not the only one wondering about this.

 

[AugeredIn]

Silverpied is a bird with 1)one copy of white gene (T) 2) One copy of pied gene (pd) 3) and two copies of white eye gene (w/e, w/e ). together the genetic code of a silverpied bird is "T,pd,w/e,w/e" Our friend Yoda uses the term split silverpied frequently. My question is " what is meant by charcoal split silverpied ? " I understand that this bird carrys two copies of charcoal genes. what other genes this bird carry to be called a "split silverpied ?" When we say " A charcoal split white " this bird carry two copies of charcoal gene and a single copy of white gene. Split silverpied carrys What genes?

pedda, the current question is whether the bird you describe above which I am going to call a pied white eye is truly the same as a silver pied bird.

...and to answer your question, I believe that "split to silver pied" is a meaningless term unless silver pied is totally different than any current thought. See Rosa's post above for other theories.

 

[pedda munnangi]

You said it right. Silverpied is not an independently mutated gene. Therefore, there can never be peafowl described as " split silverpied. It is the cumulative effect of the 3 pattern genes that can be developed in all colors with a proper breeding plan.

 

[Yoda]

This is what he said about the charcoal w/e:
Yoda the charcoal white eye...has silver pied in his background.......reason for the pieds when mated to a pied.
Reason you could get white chick from him also if mated to a pied..
Edited by deerman - 9/14/11 at 4:29pm

you hen may be split pied....do you know the wing band number ,i can check my records.
He emailed me back saying that yes she was split to pied that is why I got the colors I hatched. I was wrong it was bigcreek that stated it being split to silverpied not Deerman

 

[AugeredIn]

This is what he said about the charcoal w/e:
Yoda the charcoal white eye...has silver pied in his background.......reason for the pieds when mated to a pied.
Reason you could get white chick from him also if mated to a pied..
Edited by deerman - 9/14/11 at 4:29pm

you hen may be split pied....do you know the wing band number ,i can check my records.
He emailed me back saying that yes she was split to pied that is why I got the colors I hatched. I was wrong it was bigcreek that stated it being split to silverpied not Deerman

Ok, this makes more sense as I believe he was telling you the male is split white and the hen is split pied. That covers all the possibilities of colors you previously mentioned except for the white birds. You should not get white from that pair.

 

[Yoda]

Deerman told me not to sell the white male cause I will not know if the bird is a white charcoal or a white IB split to charcoal. He said I will not know til I breed him which one he is. So if he says the whites are from the pair, which I know are cause the eggs marked charcoal and that is what it said on the shell. I had a problem in 2011 cause the only pair breeding from Deerman's birds was the charcoal pair. He told me the hens were only 2 years so they might breed. The eggs I got from the other pens were not fertile and they were towards the end os breeding season.

 

[Dany12]

What is a bird split we ?
It's a bird with one gene of White eyes !
Other way they say that to get all eyes White on the tail you must have 2 genes of White eyes, if only one only a part of the tail will get White eyes.

So a bird split White eyes his phenotype has some White eyes !

 

[Yoda]

There is no such thing as split w/e it either is or not.