A former post was edited by the poster - it does come across like I am having a rant now but my comments are now being taken out of context as their (not very polite) comments have been removed. It was initially my intelligence that was being insulted. I don't really mind whether you get your information from university or the university of life, but when you're wrong, you're wrong and you might as well be gracious about it. The scientists who established how the silver gene works (first page of the article http://jhered.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/pdf_extract/86/1/68)) would have done it in the same way as a breeder could have if they were interested - by keeping careful records of breeding and repeating the experiment multiple times. In fact in the article he does say its a well known mutation to breeders and he is just giving it scientific credibility by testing that the birds did indeed breed in the way that breeders said and then opening his work up to scrutiny. This work is now backed up by molecular genetics. If there is good, hard evidence that crossing silver with silver can produce wild-type offspring, then by all means post it here and do let Dr Tsudzuki know as well because it is his life's work to study the genetics of poultry including quail species. All I am doing is trying to provide some accurate information into the workings of one gene, in fairly simple terms as requested. I have no interest in getting into discussions about intellectual snobbery vs anti-intellectuallism. Though, if I was in fact an intellectual snob I am sure I wouldn't be at all interested in sharing my knowledge with "the unwashed" - whoever you mean by that. I thought everyone on this site smelled fine.
With regards to the colour genetics of button quail, which is what I am actually interested in talking about, if you don't want to believe me a very good source for finding out what your button quail will produce is the button quail calculator on http://kippenjungle.nl/Overzicht.htm#kwartelcalculator
The site has been translated from Dutch(?) and can be a bit hard to follow but once you get the hang of it it's fascinating.
You need to click on the link just below the photos of the quail, and then change the dropdown boxes so that the bird changes to appear like yours - for silver you change the dropdown box showing Si+//Si+ (wild type, not a carrier) to si//si (silver) - or for a carrier of the silver allele Si+//si
Then hit the calculate cross button. It defaults to showing the phenotype (appearance) of the birds, or you can un-tick the box for "hide genotype" to show the genetic makeup of the birds.
This guy has some really good resources for other species, his chicken section is amazing and has pretty much every colour gene for chickens worked out. And he was good enough to translate it into English for us.
With regards to the colour genetics of button quail, which is what I am actually interested in talking about, if you don't want to believe me a very good source for finding out what your button quail will produce is the button quail calculator on http://kippenjungle.nl/Overzicht.htm#kwartelcalculator
The site has been translated from Dutch(?) and can be a bit hard to follow but once you get the hang of it it's fascinating.
You need to click on the link just below the photos of the quail, and then change the dropdown boxes so that the bird changes to appear like yours - for silver you change the dropdown box showing Si+//Si+ (wild type, not a carrier) to si//si (silver) - or for a carrier of the silver allele Si+//si
Then hit the calculate cross button. It defaults to showing the phenotype (appearance) of the birds, or you can un-tick the box for "hide genotype" to show the genetic makeup of the birds.
This guy has some really good resources for other species, his chicken section is amazing and has pretty much every colour gene for chickens worked out. And he was good enough to translate it into English for us.
