History Of Peach Peafowl

History of the Peach Peafowl

By Brad Legg

The Peach mutant first appeared in 1991 as a hen born at Roughwood Aviaries, Scottsburg, IN owned by Clifton L. Nicholson, Jr.

The mother of the peach hen was the mutant Purple hen born in 1987. This first purple hen was mated to a cameo cock. This mating produced two India Blue males. These India Blue males carried both the Cameo and Purple color gene. These two cocks were mated back to their mother, the original Purple hen. This mating produced eleven peachicks which included three India Blue (2 males and 1 female), three Cameos (females), four Purples (2 males and 2 females) and one Peach (female). This was the first Peach produced.

The next year one of the India Blue males split Cameo & Purple was bred back to its mother, the original Purple hen from which ten chicks were hatched of which one was a Peach female. During this same year the other India Blue male, split Cameo & Purple was bred to a Spalding hen which produced two chicks, which one was a Peach hen. This made a total of three Peach peafowl to be born at Roughwood Aviaries; the first female born in 1991 and two other females born in 1992. In 1993 the first Peach hen was bred to a India Blue male split Cameo & Purple, this mating produced the first Peach male.

Near this same time around 1992 another Peach chick approximately 3months old was found at the fall Exotic Auction in Gardner, KS. This chick was in a cage with a Cameo chick. Fred Huebner, North English IA and I found this unusual bird in which Fred purchased these two chicks. Inquiries were made to find the owner of these birds. The owner was from somewhere in Texas. When speaking with the owner he said the chicks were from a pair of Cameos he had bought from me a few years earlier at this same auction. I was able to trace this pair of Cameos back to progeny from 10 Cameo peachicks that I purchased in 1980 which were out of a Cameo hen and a India Blue male split to Cameo.

The following year Fred purchased the Cameo pair that had produced the Peach chick purchased at the auction and three more peach chicks hatched the current year from the gentleman in Texas. Fred later bred the Peach hens back to their father the Cameo male. This mating produced both Peach and Cameos chicks.

It is amazing that the Peach color showed up around the same time from two parts of the country; one Peach line from the original Purple hen and the other Peach line from a pair of Cameos.

Later Clifton produced a Peach in the Black Shoulder pattern which traced back to the original purple hen, which was found to be carrying the Black Shoulder Pattern.

Fred also bred some of his Peach hens to a Black Shoulder male then after a couple generations Peach Black Shoulders were produced.

During the mid 1990’s I purchased some Peach birds from both Clifton and Fred which gave me two different lines for breeding. The first year the two lines were bred separately. The following year the two separate lines were bred together to see if this mating would produce all Peach chicks, which it did.

It was thought that the Peach color mutation would be a sex link recessive, due to the color coming out of two different sex link color recessive parents the Cameo and Purple. This theory was verified by breeding a Peach male to India Blue hens which produced all India Blue males and Peach females.

Over the next few years the Peach color was mated to other patterns to produce Peach in other varieties. The Peach was also bred with the Green Peafowl to produce Spaldings in the Peach color.

From 1991 to the present the Peach color comes in the following varieties; Peach, Peach Pied, Peach White-Eyed, Peach Pied White-Eyed, Peach Silver Pied, Peach Black Shoulder, Peach Black Shoulder Pied, Spalding Peach, Spalding Peach Pied, and Spalding Peach White-Eyed.

Hopefully this provides a better understanding of the beautiful Peach color mutation.

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