Buford

Bronze

Peafowl

An Even Stranger Color Development

Almost as interesting as the original birds' new basic coloration, is the fact that this bird developed more and more white after each moult. AB a yearling, this peacock had very little white plumage. It looked like a bird that was split to white or a very poor pied peacock. By

1996, this peacock was close to 80% white. Even more interesting than this fact is that the white and dark areas change after each moult! The only other color change in an animal's colored areas that we can find is a variety of koi, whose black areas and white areas change yearly. The reason for this fish's color changes is also unknown. Thus some Koi and some peafowl destroy the old proverb about a leopard's spots never changing.

Early in the work with this bird, we were concerned that perhaps this bird was descended from the Cameo line and had inherited the so called "death gene" from the Cameos. It doesn't appear to be the same; however we cannot be totally sure. We still don't know the answer to this affliction or malady. It has been suggested that perhaps it is a glandular problem or some other nongenetic reason. This male is now developing more dark. Perhaps it will continue to get more and more dark until it is totally without white. His white coloration is not passed on genetically, at least in the normal way. None of his offspring are split to white when he is bred to hens not carrying white or Pied genes. This cock is a robust healthy peafowl in all other respects.

Peafowl have been raised at Roughwood for over thirty five years. Roughwood is owned by Clifton Nicholson, Jr. who has been consumed by peafowl for many decades. Dennis Wischmeier is the manager of Roughwood and has been for five years. He is in charge of caring for and raising each new generation of peafowl. Dennis also has his own peafowl farm, Driftwood Valley Farms in Vallonia, Indiana. We're working on expanding the Purple and Bronze genes with Pieds and White Eyeds and also with the Green species. Already spectacular Purple Spaldings and Purple Pieds have been produced. We're also working on Charcoals, Peach and other new colors. Roughwood Aviaries is dedicated to the establishment of all new color mutations.

At Roughwood we are also dedicated to the propagation of the Malay Great Argus pheasant. We have been raising them since 1984. This is truly one of the kings of pheasants and needs to be in more collections. A couple drawbacks in raising Argus are they're very large and need winter heat because they are tropical.

Roughwood Aviaries is proud to introduce a new color mutation in peafowl. The aviaries that introduced the Purple peafowl in 1994 has been working on establishing a new color and has now produced enough offspring to offer them for sale. The Buford Bronze Peafowl is this beautiful new addition. We peafowl enthusiasts will long treasure this in our aviaries.

This peafowl was named for the late Buford Abbott of Marysville , Tennessee . Buford had worked with this new mutation for four years after buying the young male at an animal swap meet in Lucasville , Ohio , in the fall of 1988 for $25.00. It was a young male of that year's hatch. Buford later bred this peacock to a number of different varieties of peahens - Green, Pied, Cameo, Spalding and Blue. He produced numerous offspring.

This peacock came to Roughwood in 1992 after Buford Abbott's death on February 20. All of Buford's animals were sold by his family at a sale at his farm. Numbers of other peafowl were also purchased in hopes of getting some offspring of this bird with which to breed to produce this new color. Buford used a toe punch and web notching method to keep track of his birds. Buford's records were not very decipherable, so we were never quite sure if we were breeding with the Bronze male's offspring or not. Another Buford Bronze was not produced at Roughwood until the original cock was bred to a hen we had produced here. The hen was one of his offspring. So most likely we were not breeding with any of his offspring prior to this.

We produced three Buford Bronze hens in 1994. Then we produced the first new Buford Bronze male in 1995 along with more Bronze hens.

Buford believed this original cock to be a gray Charcoal peacock. He had seen the Charcoal cock with which we were working here at Roughwood and felt it was most similar. The Charcoal cock is, however, much grayer than the Buford Bronze which has a browner base color, more like the Cameo peafowl. The Bronze cock also has lots of subtle colors in its train, whereas the Charcoal cock is totally gray.

There are now at least 33 Buford Bronze peafowl and numerous heterozygous birds breeding in several collections around the country. One could not comfortably say that this new color mutation is fully established yet, but it is well on its way. The Bronze Peafowl are vigorous birds. No health problems have surfaced yet. With out crossing to increase production of this new color, the vigor of these peafowl should be insured. The danger of too much inbreeding is always present when working with a small population.

Color Description

This is a most beautiful dark monochromatic plumaged bird. It's a study in dark brown, taupes, cocoa browns and mauves with touches of bronze and coppery iridescence over all the train of the male. His neck is a very dark, almost black with a dark green iridescence, similar to the color of a black olive. This makes for a most impressive peacock - subtle elegance.

The peahen is even more subtle. The iridescence on her head and neck are less brilliant than the normal Blue Indian hen. The green is also more blue with no yellow green at all. Her body color is lighter and browner all over.

We have not been able to distinguish the Buford Bronze chicks from the normal India Blue chicks at birth. They must be several weeks old to make this determination. The new wing feathers have a dusty gray appearance to them.

This mutation acts as a normal recessive gene. Each parent must contribute the Bronze gene to the offspring for the offspring to be a Bronze. If only one parent contributes the Bronze gene and the other contributes only normal color genes, then the offspring is heterozygous for Bronze whether it is a male or female. If Buford Bronze is bred to Buford Bronze, one gets all Buford Bronze offspring.