Peafowl Genetics 301: Tracking Multiple Mutations
Here we will discuss how to track multiple mutations when you're pairing parent birds. You should first read and familiarize yourself with Genetics 201 & 202: Using Advanced Punnett Squares. Doing so will help you understand what's going on.
Multiple genetics in breeding birds is something that you will commonly encounter! Many birds are not just one color or one split, and you will be dealing with birds who have a color mutation, a pattern mutation, and a leucistic mutation all at once. This only gets more true as people mix and match.
Unfortunately, you do need to know the parents genetics for this kind of tracking to be useful, which is why I highly recommend keeping breeding records for all of your birds, and asking for breeding records/genetic info from any breeder who sells you birds. A good breeder will likely be able to give you SOME genetic information, even if they can't give you all of it. Some info is better than none, and you can do your own genetic testing if you want to know for sure what genes your birds carry. However, once you know, you can make better plans to make your desired offspring, or understand what offspring you'll get if you pair certain birds.
Multiple genetics in breeding birds is something that you will commonly encounter! Many birds are not just one color or one split, and you will be dealing with birds who have a color mutation, a pattern mutation, and a leucistic mutation all at once. This only gets more true as people mix and match.
Unfortunately, you do need to know the parents genetics for this kind of tracking to be useful, which is why I highly recommend keeping breeding records for all of your birds, and asking for breeding records/genetic info from any breeder who sells you birds. A good breeder will likely be able to give you SOME genetic information, even if they can't give you all of it. Some info is better than none, and you can do your own genetic testing if you want to know for sure what genes your birds carry. However, once you know, you can make better plans to make your desired offspring, or understand what offspring you'll get if you pair certain birds.
Section 1: Color + Pattern
When you need to track color and pattern at the same time, actually don't need separate Punnett squares! You can track them both at the same time by including a colon just like you would for multiple colors!
Let's look at opal blackshoulder (o/o:bs/bs) bred to opal het blackshoulder (o/o:WT/bs).
Let's look at opal blackshoulder (o/o:bs/bs) bred to opal het blackshoulder (o/o:WT/bs).
As you can see, even though there are multiple genes, the square isn't that big. This is because there's only one het. Let's look at what happens when we turn one of the opals into a platinum by adding bronze.
Again, even though we have three genes involved now, since we only have one split, we really don't have a big square, just a longer genetic code string.
We really don't have a lot of variation in genes for pattern, so even if you were to add more colors, this is pretty much it.
We really don't have a lot of variation in genes for pattern, so even if you were to add more colors, this is pretty much it.
Section 2: Color + Leucism
We DO have three leucistic genes- White, pied, and white-eye. White and pied are alleles, so it's kind of like having only 2 genes, as you'll only ever have one slot for them in a table. It still works the same way as tracking multiple colors, but since white and pied are alleles, the tables can get bigger or more complicated. This is because even though a pied bird isn't "split," it IS a compound het, meaning it has the equivalent of two hets.
Let's take a look at bronze pied bred to bronze pied.
Let's take a look at bronze pied bred to bronze pied.
The table isn't that big, but there's 3 different results instead of 2- bronze white, bronze pied, and bronze dark pied. Any time you're tracking white/pied, you're technically tracking color too, as white and pied aren't colors. Tracking color + leucism for white eye will track just like normal, you are just adding a colon and tracking the color as well.
Let's use bronze again, and breed bronze white eye x bronze white eye.
Let's use bronze again, and breed bronze white eye x bronze white eye.
Section 3: Pattern + Leucism
This is really no different to color + leucism. It will all transfer exactly the same, except you'll be using pattern gene names instead. Since we didn't do silver pied above, let's do blackshoulder silver pied x blackshoulder silver pied.
Since the parents are the same, the chart isn't very complicated still, it just has more genes in each box to track.
Section 4: Color + Pattern + Leucism
Section 5: Multiple Splits
THIS is where things get complicated!