Breeding for feathered legs

[Smileybans]

Would breeding two very feathered legged birds make the offspring have more, or longer, feathers on their legs? I can’t find a good answer on google and I’m sure it’s been done before. Has any ever bred a booted bantam to a d’uccle for example? I picked those two as an example because when looking up feathered legs they came up the most.

 

[HeatherKellyB]

@Amer
@RoostersAreAwesome
@JacinLarkwell

 

[JacinLarkwell]

It might. There's 3 or 4 different genes though I think that all have different feather legged traits. I know having 1 copy of the gene will make the feathers less and shorter than 2, but that's all I'm certain of

 

[Amer]

Yes! It follows the common rules for breeding. Two long feathered birds bred together will most likely produce a few offspring with shorter feathers than themselves, many offspring with the same feather length, and a few offspring with longer feathers. This is because it is a quantitive trait. Many genes have tiny effects on birds, making the feathers just a little longer, the comb just a little bigger etc. The more homozygous genes you have for long feathers, the longer the feathers are. There is a limit to expression. Expression is limited by the number of these genes. When they are all expressed, you can't get longer feathers unless a new gene mutates, which probably isn't going to happen.
You will most likely get positive long feathered results by breeding within a breed rather than crossbreeding. That is because inbreeding brings homozygous results.

 

[Smileybans]

Thank you both. I’ll keep looking it. I’m interested to learn more about chicken genetics as well. Is there a good source of information so I can learn on my own? Or just google things?

 

[Amer]

Thank you both. I’ll keep looking it. I’m interested to learn more about chicken genetics as well. Is there a good source of information so I can learn on my own? Or just google things?

http://www.edelras.nl/chickengenetics/mutations1.html
My favorite.