Opal Black Shouldered Peacocks

The Opal Black Shouldered Peacock is one of the more recent colour mutations. The appearance of the Opal Black Shouldered Peacock is very distinctive. Unlike the Opal peacock the male has no barring on its wings.  The wings are a solid grey colour with the neck feathers the beautiful iridescent colours of navy, purple, pink, jade and grey.

The Opal Black Shouldered Peahen looks very similar to the traditional Black Shouldered peahen.  However she is more of a cream and grey colour than the traditional Black Shouldered peahen.

The peachicks hatch yellow and develop light grey colouring as they develop and grow. Opal Black Shouldered peacocks breed true.

Breeding Opal Black Shouldered Peafowl

When I originally imported the Opal peacocks into the UK in 2011 we had alongside the Opal peacocks two Opal Black Shouldered peacocks. However sadly no Opal black shouldered peahens. Initially we left the Opal Black Shouldered peacocks in the Opal pen with the Opal birds. Then a couple of years later I moved some Black Shouldered Peahens into the Opal breeding pen. We waited and hoped for some peachicks from the Black Shouldered peahens in addition to the original Opals. However, starting a new breed takes time, in fact many years and many breeding seasons to establish a new breed.

That year we hatched our first Opal Black Shouldered pea chick, but sadly only one. However this hatchling created great excitement! As the precious peachick grew we were delighted to subsequently discover that it was a girl. This peachick looked the same as any standard black shouldered peachick. However the peachicks genetics are that the peachick was a Black Shouldered peachick split to Opal Black Shouldered. What this means is basically that this precious peachick carried the Opal Black Shouldered peafowl gene. When the peachick matured and mated with an Opal Black Shouldered Peacock, we would see results. Any peachicks hatched from this peahen would be 50% Black Shouldered and 50% Opal Black Shouldered.

The next year we hatched a few chicks and consequently some of them were full Opal Black Shouldered chicks. It has taken time, but now we have a pen of Opal Black Shouldered peafowl. We still put Opal peahens and Black Shouldered peahens in the pen with the Opal Black Shouldered male and consequently the gene pool each year is varied. Every year we are hatching more full Opal Black Shouldered peachicks.

We are proud to introduce the Peacocks UK Opal Black Shouldered Breed. Come and visit us to see this amazing new breed. Visits by appointment please.

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