This is a topic that I feel doesn't get brought up nearly enough in peafowl breeding circles. The lack of outcrossing in peafowl circles especially in colors such as charcoal, cameo, purple, violeta, and peach has led to the serious degradation of these colors both in appearance and in vigor. To much inbreeding is never a good thing hence the importance of outcrossing. In the case of the sex linked colors it is far better to put the cock birds over india blue hens and put the sex linked hen birds under a normal IB cock bird. That way you will have maximum genetic diversity in your sex linked birds and you will have better vigor and fertility.
For regular recessives if you get a pair again you should split them up and breed both birds to IB's. Breed the hen chicks to the recessive male and breed the cock birds to the recessive female. This is especially important with the new colors since almost all of them came out of a single bloodline. It's also important to keep in mind that just because two birds have been sold as a "pair" does not mean they are unrelated. In most cases they are at the very least cousins.
It is also important to keep in mind that the crazier you get with color varieties the smaller the gene pool gets which causes problems. I blame in part the UPA with it's frenetic and compulsive push to create new varieties at the expense of genetic diversity. Again outcrossing is important and the results show themselves within just one or two generations.
For regular recessives if you get a pair again you should split them up and breed both birds to IB's. Breed the hen chicks to the recessive male and breed the cock birds to the recessive female. This is especially important with the new colors since almost all of them came out of a single bloodline. It's also important to keep in mind that just because two birds have been sold as a "pair" does not mean they are unrelated. In most cases they are at the very least cousins.
It is also important to keep in mind that the crazier you get with color varieties the smaller the gene pool gets which causes problems. I blame in part the UPA with it's frenetic and compulsive push to create new varieties at the expense of genetic diversity. Again outcrossing is important and the results show themselves within just one or two generations.
