The "Peach" Peafowl bandwagon?

[frenchblackcopper]

As with everything "new" many want to get "on board" so to speak and be the first one on their block to have the newest up to the minute gadget,ect.And in Peafowl it's always the first to have a new or rare color.My topic here is regarding the "peach" color mutation in peas.
I have spent countless hours on the phone this week as well as sending out e-mails looking for breeding aged Peach birds,,as well as Cameo's,,,course I know it's the worst time of year to find them,,but from some of the conversations I've had with some very reputable breeders,,,seems the general public cannot truly distinguish the two colors.I've heard some people sell actual Cameo's because the chicks they hatched looked slightly darker than previous hatches,,,thus they consider them to now be peach.I spoke with 1 very,very distinguished breeder who has travelled thousands of miles to buy "Peach" birds,only to find they was indeed,actual cameo's.
I realize not everyone sees a color exactly as someone else.You could compare it to a smell,,not everyone "smells" the scent of something the same as another person does,,this is why noone can get a patent on cologne or perfume,,
So my question is???? Of the breeders here who say they have "Peach" peafowl,,,how do you know they are indeed "Peach" and not a possible darker variation of the Cameo color? I own Peach and Yellow Golden pheasants,,,and there is a remarkable diffrence in color,almost strikingly diffrent.But is there such a slight variance in color tones,or hue to confuse many breeders into believing their Cameo's can somehow churn out a slightly darker chick,thus allowing that chick to be classified as "Peach"?

 

[6littlechickies]

Cameo is the darker shade, and peach is the lighter shade. If you haven't seen the birds next to one another before, you may not be able to tell the difference. Once you own them or have both types, it is easy to recognize the difference.

 

[Bigcreekpeafowl]

If you have straight peach or cameo side by side most can see the difference.
But when you start bringing in other colors/patterns into the mix such as green, pied, silver pied, the shades change.

We have a peach pied hen who most people think she is cameo pied upon first look.
Peach males, even when they are not in full tail are easier for the untrained eye to spot than hens.

 

[frenchblackcopper]

6littlechickens,,your sentence of "Cameo is the darker shade, and peach is the lighter shade" is exactly opposite of what one of the big name breeders told me yesterday.And your next part about if I owned both it would be easy to tell the diffrence,,,,,two of the breeders I've spoken with says they have been on long distance trips looking to buy "peach" birds from well known,established breeders who have owned Cameo's for years,and once they arrived to see the Peach birds,they were in fact plain Cameo's of a diffrent shade,,
I'm wanting to know,,,is there a definitive color chart with UPA that decides if the color is which? I've been told there is possibly 3 breeders of true Peach peafowl in the USA,,and if your birds didn't originate from these foundation flocks,,it's a very good chance you have an off-colored Cameo.sold as a Peach from someone who really didn't know the diffrence.There has to be a way besides color alone to know what the bird is.Like a paint color chart??

 

[Arbor]

One main problem with a colour chart is that the birds colours often fade as the season progresses. I recently purchased a peach pied male, and when comparing his colouration to a cameo male, the neck colouration on the cameo is brown, but you will see some hints of a bronze/green sheen in the sunlight ( he does have some green heritage, so that could be the cause. The rest of the body is a very light beige, while my peach male is more of an orange colouration on the main part of his body. I find is similar to comparing the wing portion of a barred wing purple male to the wing portion of a barred wing indian blue - the purple male has a more orange colouration to his wing feathers (not the actual bars, but the colours in between the bars. It has become very confusing with the peach colouration, I agree, but I find from experience, you must educate yourself about what they should or should not look like (this is true for all colours) before purchasing birds you may not have seen before. I think we will be having more of this issue as more colours come forward in the next 5 to 10 years.

 

[frenchblackcopper]

This I'm sure will get some roused,but could it be possible,,,,that peach was actually bred during the late 1960's when Cameo was first discovered??Is it possible that Peach and Cameo are actually the same color mutation with slight variances in color just as in many other colors,such as Purples? Everything is identical when comparing Peach to Cameo,,both are sex link recessive,,
Sure,by deliberate Purple-Cameo breedings this color Peach appeared,,but what was the actual colors being used in the late 60's to produce Cameo's? Could they have been off-colored birds who produced the present day Cameo color? It was a Brown peafowl or dunn color,,and by selectively keeping certain birds a more uniform color came into existance.But was all birds found NOT to be viable in creating Cameo all destroyed? I think not,,and although the insight back then into the most sought after genetics available at that time were utilized for producing Cameo,,could it be possible the birds no longer used for this color enhancement was crossed-mated with other colors available at that time?

 

[Arbor]

I am pretty certain cameo was a spontaneous mutation, and not by just selecting slightly off coloured offspring and breeding them over time. There are photos in india of a wild cameo coloured hen, Minxfox posted a link to one quite a while back. Purples, are also not just a slight mutation, side by side they are definitively different from blues. According to Legg's site, and I have talked to one of the originators of peach, it was a purple cameo cross. In theory this would only require one male offspring from the cross to mature to be able to produce a hen of mixed colouration (odds are not great, but in theory it should be able to be accomplished). It seems to make sense to me, as the purple has the more orange wing, and mixing with the cameo would make a more orange cameo (peach)? I only say in theory, as I am hoping to attempt this combination in the 2013 season. It may also be possible, that if it is a mix, the colour of the father used to create the mixed male may determine how peach the resulting hen would be. Clifton Nicholson Jr has mixed purple and bronze to get indigo. Two versions were hatched, one more purple, and one more bronze, but both were a mixing of both colours. Interestingly, the more purple one is sex-linked.

Just a few thoughts

 

[bandbaustin]

I know when I had the peaches here, they were definately more orangish in color than the brown of a cameo. I could see where some confusion could lie especially later in the summer when the colors have faded.

 

[zazouse]

So what breedings produce peach and what produce cameo.
Seems to me that would be the deciding factor when dealing with a particular color .

 

[Habibs Hens]

thats one lovley hen you got there

btw is the cock molting at the moment?