peahen turning white

[warcard]

Can peafowl change color as they age?

I have a cameo female that we bought, well cameo colored. Three years later (now) her feathers are coming in white (especially wing feathers).

 

[deerman]

Yes , and most cameo get lighter thru the year from the sun.

 

[DANNY]

That sound like the lethal gene. I have a couple do that. They also go blind. The blindness also happens in purple pieds also for some reason.

 

[peachick]

Your hen could also carry the white eye gene. a friends India blue male (that I now own) apeared to be a pure IB until he was 5-6 years old and then started getting white eyes in his train.

 

[deerman]

pic, of my Bronze, no white feather untill this year, NO he is not a pied.Yearling bronze peacock.

 

[peachick]

Deerman. Your Bronze looks like a TRUE Buford Bronze...

http://www.clnjr.com/Buford Bronze Peafowl.htm

 

[deerman]

Yes saw that site before, think he will be like the first Buford Bronze. He is a 2 yr now, he had no white until he started his molt last fall.
I have him with bronze hens(with no pied in their back ground)
He has no pied or w.e. in his back ground.
Cant wait until next year to see how he molts out with a full train.

 

[DANNY]

That is interesting. I have never heard of a bronze have the lethal gene and this may not be. I have hatched thousands of peafowl over the last 30 years and have raised hundreds to be adults and never had one do that. I have had birds with pied in them get more as they got older but the only ones that have gotten patches of white like that eventually turned totallywhite and went blind. It usually starts in years 2 or 3 and by 5 or 6 are almost totally white and blind.

 

[peachick]

my bronze pair are also 2 yrs old.... but his train is still bronze, with no sign of white coming in. Interesting that that gene is not consistent in this variety.

 

[deerman]

Yes I only know of 3 bronze peacock turning white, and one bronze peahen turning white.

Trying to lock this in with bronze.

Talk to lots of UPA members about this.

Pic of the same bronze, with a charcoal. note no white.