Peafowl Genetics for Dummies (in other words us)

[Rosa moschata]

From what I've heard, the White Eye trait becomes more pronounced over time -- Single Factor birds more slowly than Double Factor birds. As an amateur, I'm guessing your bird is...2 years old in the pic? Others will be better able to tell you about "how they look" than I am.

 

[frenchblackcopper]

This must be the case with my IB/BS male that will be 5 yrs old this spring. Late last breeding season I started to notice some w/e. His new train now is showing a lot more w/e but still not every eye feather is or has white. I planned on putting him with 3 IB hens that have white flights this summer. This should give the peachicks 2 copies of w/e? Most of the chicks will be IB wild pattern since the hens are all just the wild pattern?

 

[zazouse]

Zazouse, what were the parents of that bird? Are there any other white spots besides the throat?

he is a pied and his parents looked like regular IB's but produced mostly pieds like him.
These are some of his pictures when he was younger.

 

[zazouse]

From what I've heard, the White Eye trait becomes more pronounced over time -- Single Factor birds more slowly than Double Factor birds. As an amateur, I'm guessing your bird is...2 years old in the pic? Others will be better able to tell you about "how they look" than I am.

Yes he will be 3 in August of this year

 

[pedda munnangi]

A male with one copy of w/e gene x female with white flights = do not produce chicks with two copies of w/e gene.. Both parents need to have at least one copy of w/e gene to produce some chicks with two copies of w/e gene.

 

[Rosa moschata]

he is a pied and his parents looked like regular IB's but produced mostly pieds like him.
These are some of his pictures when he was younger.

I'm guessing, based on the pattern of white, that your bird is Dark Pied -- in other words, he has two copies of the Pied mutation. This means his parents are each split to Pied, and would probably look like "normal" IB peas, with perhaps a tiny white throat patch, and one or two white feathers in each wing. The Dark Pied birds I've seen in pics tend to have symmetrical white spotting -- wings and throat mostly. It somewhat resembles the "Duclair" mutation in Muscovy ducks, or the "Magpie" mutation in Mallard-derived ducks. Both duck species also have an incompletely dominant White mutation, but unlike with peafowl, it is NOT an allele of the Duclair or Magpie mutations -- so birds CAN be homozygous for Duclair or Magpie, AND ALSO be split to White.

But anyway...the Duclair and Magpie mutations in homozygous form (i.e. not being "split" to the mutations) results in a regular symmetrical pattern of white spotting. Ducks split to White have more haphazard white spotting. Since people usually call any animal "pied" when it has patches without melanin (i.e. "patches of white" in birds with only one type of pigment), regardless of pattern, it can be confusing when one person's "pied" looks so different (and breeds so differently) than another person's "pied".

SO...that being said, if you let one of your Dark Pied birds breed with a White bird, all the resulting offspring would be "traditional" Pied peas -- genetically, they'd have one copy of Pied and one copy of White.

 

[AugeredIn]

I agree that is what I was thinking when I asked the question. He is probably dark pied.

 

[pedda munnangi]

Dark pied peafowl usually have a much smaller white throat patch and not as much white on wing feathers as well. He is possibly a simple pied male. The best way to know for sure is to breed with a white hen , together should produce all regular pied chicks.

 

[DylansMom]

I have a pretty straightforward (and I'm sure easy) question for the genetics heavyweights here! I have a BS male who is split Cameo, mom is BS Cameo(oaten) and dad is straight BS as far as I know. If I breed my BS split Cameo male back to momma I know I can get some BS Cameos of both genders, if I cross him with a hen that is not Cameo, will I still have the possibility of getting Cameo hens? If so and the hen I use is BS they would have to be BS Cameos right? And if the hen used is IB(Barred Wing), they would have to be Cameo barred wing correct? Thanks much, I checked the genetics sticky for this but couldn't find this
exact answer.

As an afterthought, if I were to breed him to a silver pied hen, what could I possibly get from them?

 

[zazouse]

Dark pied peafowl usually have a much smaller white throat patch and not as much white on wing feathers as well. He is possibly a simple pied male. The best way to know for sure is to breed with a white hen , together should produce all regular pied chicks.

Well thie peacock i posted above is now has his adult train and has a pied and 2 white in his harem so far, i might have to hatch some eggs after all this year.