I was playing around recently with the Kippenjungles chicken genetics calculator, and out of curiosity, I put in a Rhode Island Red male crossed over a White Leghorn female. Now, I've made this cross with my own birds before and chicks have always hatched out white with some red down. I'm assuming they would grow up to be white with red leakage.
I know that most hatchery White Leghorns (which is what my birds are), will have at least one copy of the dominant white gene. If I assume that, according to the calculator, half of the chicks hatched should be black (which actually leads to another question, where is the black coming from?). Since they are all hatching white with red leakage, can I assume that my White Leghorns have two copies of the dominant white gene? If I did assume that, the calculator's result is that all of the chicks would be white. Dominant white is a 'leaky' gene though so that would explain where the reddish down is coming from.
Ok, so back to the original cross placed in the calculator. Where do the all black offspring come from? Maybe I am missing something quite obvious here... looking forward to someone shedding some light on the situation!
Thanks!
I know that most hatchery White Leghorns (which is what my birds are), will have at least one copy of the dominant white gene. If I assume that, according to the calculator, half of the chicks hatched should be black (which actually leads to another question, where is the black coming from?). Since they are all hatching white with red leakage, can I assume that my White Leghorns have two copies of the dominant white gene? If I did assume that, the calculator's result is that all of the chicks would be white. Dominant white is a 'leaky' gene though so that would explain where the reddish down is coming from.
Ok, so back to the original cross placed in the calculator. Where do the all black offspring come from? Maybe I am missing something quite obvious here... looking forward to someone shedding some light on the situation!
Thanks!