White Hen peahen crosses

[Pavomuticus]

What are the results of crossing male Peacocks of Opal,Bronze,Cameo etc onto White Peahens? What colour will the young be, white or will they follow the fathers phenotype? Most information seems to relate to putting these colours onto Indian Blue peahens or onto each other.
Thanks in advance

 

[pedda munnangi]

A white x Any color ( Bronze, opal, jade, midnight black shoulder ete..) = Indiablue looking chicks with a couple of white flight feathers. India blue color is dominant, needs only one copy to express. All other colors are recessive to indiablue. Need two copies, one from each parent to express White is incomplete or co-dominant, therefore shows a couple of white flight feathers and some times a white throat patch.

 

[pedda munnangi]

Bronze x Opal = Indiablue looking chicks, they are actually 50%bronze and 50% Opal. Both are recessive colors and need two copies to express.. Since the chicks from this cross have one copy of Bronze and one copy of Opal, neither of these colors express. Hence the original parental color Indiablue shows up, even though they carry no-Indiablue genes.

 

[Pavomuticus]

How? Where has the Indian Blue colour come from? The Opal male has to have two recessive colour genes for opal, it can not have a gene for Indian Blue or it would not be opal and the same for the white hen...... surely the chicks have to be Opal, white or something in between. My understanding of the genetics of these birds is that neither birds genotype has wild Indian Blue colouration in it , or phenotypically they would not be opal or white...... could anyone explain the genetics behind this, i would have thought there would be a order to it.

 

[new 2 pfowl]

You might check these out for basic pea genetics:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/388465/peafowl-101-basic-care-genetics-and-answers
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/390889/peafowl-201-further-genetics-colors-patterns-and-more
http://www.leggspeafowl.com/basicgenetics.htm

 

[Pavomuticus]

Excellent, Thank you. I think thread 201 has explained it, because the different colour genes are not on the same part of the chromosome it is not a case of A OR B, but can be A AND B and it depends how they interact. The White hen has the Indian Blue Colouration gene, its simply "masked" by the white gene, which simply tells feathers not to express any colour. Therefore any chicks would most likely be spilt to White and the Opal, although if I used Cameo et al , it looks like I would get Cameo hens and normal spilt males.
Therefore unless someone had put Opal into a White years ago and i was lucky enough to put Opal back onto the correct hen I will not get an opal.
Thank You Again

 

[pedda munnangi]

Every time two different recessive colored peafowl are bred, the resulting offsprings will look Indiablue ( the original, classic, dominant , parental color from which all these colors have mutated.) but actually split to those two colors. They do not have to have any India blue gene.. They say it is only an expression.

 

[Rosa moschata]

You are assuming that the White peahen does not have any other color/pattern genes and is simply a White IB. This may not be true. Having two copies of the White gene will mask everything else. Being as so many people breed for Silver-Pied, and about 25% of offspring from Silver Pied X Silver Pied will be White, you may very well have a White peahen carrying genes for other things. If she arose from breeding Bronze Silver-Pied X Bronze Silver-Pied, then genetically she has two copies of White, two copies of Bronze, and two copies of White-Eyed. But having two copies of White will not make that apparent by looking at her.

The only ways to know would be to find out what her parents were, or through test-breeding. If you breed her to a Bronze male and get only IB split to White offspring, then you know she does not have the Bronze gene herself. But she may very well be another color "under the white." If you can't find out her parentage, then all you can do is rotate her through males of different colors to continue to eliminate what color(s) she DOESN'T carry. And if none of her offspring show any white eyes in the train, you can also eliminate White-Eyed from her genotype.

The only exceptions would be if you paired her to a male showing a sex-linked color. Regardless of what she has or doesn't have "under the white", her daughters will have their father's color, with the addition of some white feathers (thus being "split to White"). If her sons also show their father's color, then she, herself, must also be that color "under the white".

Thus the importance of keeping pedigree records....

 

[pedda munnangi]

Rosa every thing you said is 100% true. You really have in depth genetic knowledge on Peafowl. You reply above is only if a white looking peafowl has other colored genes hidden ( again assuption), and it is for the benefit of all of the participants and viewes knowledge base in peafowl genetics.. Thank you.

 

[Pavomuticus]

Hi
I know that the white hen must be Indian Blue as I'm based in the UK and the number of Silver pied in the UK, is unlikely to be in double figures and the number of second generation birds is likely to be nil, the same goes for the other colours. I have heard of only one or two people with any of the more exotic colours.
Cheers