chicken genetics

[avdpas77]

http://kippenjungle.nl/kruising.html

If you havent found this already it can be fun

Thanks,

There are a bunch of things I have to figure out yet. One of the big differences in chickens and pigeons is the differential between the cocks and hens. While there are sex link attributes in pigeons, a cock and a hen, with the same (non sex chromosome) alleles are exactly alike in coloring.

Do they have information on which alleles are on which chromosome? Obviously they have the information for the sex chromosome, but do they have information on what groups of genes are on a given chromosome

For those of you who have never had an understanding of genetics, Joe Quinn wrote a great booklet called the "The Pigeon Breeders Notebook" it was hand typed and I do not have Photoshop to change the PDF into a more readable font. It is a bit dry at first, but if one persists through the definitions etc, it provides an understanding of genetics in layman's terms that can be understood by anybody. I think the booklet is out of print now, but Joe's wife made it available for free to anyone who wished to download it.

http://hhttp://www.angelfire.com/ga4/rhuntley/quinn.pdf

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[Wappoke]

The same is true in pigeons except they have only one type of melanin instead of the two that chickens have, yet one sees pigeons in all colors. They two don't have the vibrant blue to extent of the chickens in the pictures, but they have all kinds of modifier genes which can make some pretty vivid colors. You many not see these in feral pigeons but the show people have done extensive work.
Many of the colors have different ways to be expressed. There is a dominant red alternative to the blue allele, but there is also a recessive red gene that is on a different chromosome, that will give a very intense red when doubled, that has nothing to do with the base color gene.

I doubt if chickens have been researched as much as pigeons, because pigeons were the animals originally used for genetic studies in many universities (50-75 years ago)

What I would be interested in, if somebody would explain is the phenotype which is termed "wildtype". I know what that is in a rabbit and a pigeon, but don't know what it looks like in a chicken.

Wild type in chickens refers to the genes found in the red jungle fowl. A good example of a bird that has the wild type genes is a light brown leghorn. Yellow skin, yellow shanks and feet, black breasted red phenotype in males and females are all wild type. The blue allele is not a wild type allele but the allele at the blue locus that does not effect plumage color is the wild type allele. The blue allele is a mutation of the non-blue allele at the blue locus.

 

[avdpas77]

I posted a couple of great links to help the beginner understand basic genetics. They really helped me when I was trying to understand without being so scientific one need a college course.
The managers of this site won't let someone who hasn't a certain amount of post (or some other rational which they can't seem to define clearly) that prevents relatively new members from placing links in their threads. They say they will review the posts and see if they meet their standards, but sometimes the post appears in a day or two, and sometimes it doesn't. The last links I posted over a week ago have never showed up, and they were in no way commercial or offensive.

I don't know if I can find the links again, but if I at some time in the future qualify to post links, and can remember to do so, I will include them here.

Thank you everyone for your help.

I had raised chickens years ago, some for show (my kids) , but at that time color was never an issue. Now 35 years later, show conformation is not an issue, but I have found an interest in certain colors and this genetic information will be a real help if I can decipher it.