Dominant White or Recessive White

[Sonoran Silkies]

This isn't so. Recessive white is recessive to black.

Independent genes are not recessive or dominant to each other. Recessive or dominant relates to different alleles of the same gene. Black is the E-locus gene. White is c-locus for recessive white or I-locus for dominant white. All chickens have two copies of alleles for each of these genes.

Recessive white (c) is recessive to "not white (C)," not to any of the black alleles: E, E^R, E^Wh, e^b, e+. Each of those black alleles has a hierarchy of dominance.

A single set of data, based upon one or a related small group of individuals does not give a generalized answer to all occurances. Recessive white in silkies bred to another colour often, but not always results in partridge. With my white, bred to a splash, I got chocolates. That does not mean that recessive white X splash always results in chocolate. It did with that particular breeding pair. Should I expect that your jersey giants would have the same result if bred to any splash? Of course not; it depends on the particular genes each half of the breeding pair donates to the offspring.​

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

Recessive white will yellow in hte sun. Doninant vs recessive makes no different there. Silver gene vs gold gene will limit the yellowing--at least that is the theory.

Silvery down is not due to recessive white--it too is due to silver gene.

 

[wilds of pa]

Sonoran Silkies, you said that just wonderfully..

Charlie

 

[Kim_NC]

Ask Henk69 or Blackdotte to comment. They will know.

 

[Black Feather]

Sonoran silkies is correct.

A basic genetic lesson is this: All genes come in pairs. One pair of genes will determine how you physically ‘look’ in some instances on the outside. For instance Blue eyes vs brown eyes. We inherit one gene from our mothers and one gene from our fathers to create the pair.

This is going to o a bit off track to begin with, so bear with me.

Genes in their simplest form are written in this manner: BB, or Bb, or bb. Dominant genes are written as capitol letters, recessive genes as small case letters. The dominant gene when written always precedes the recessive gene.

Dominant means that it only takes one copy of the gene to be expressed. Expressed means “show up”. For instance brown eyes are dominant to blue eyes. We’ll call this gene “B” for this demo. If you inherit one brown eye gene from your mom (dominant:B), and one blue eye gene from your dad (recessive:b) you will have Bb, so you will visually have brown eyes, but carry the blue eye gene. If you inherited two brown eye genes from both parents your genetic make-up would look like this: BB. You only have brown eyes, you can not pass on blue to your offspring. Same with blue eyes, if you inherit two ‘b’ genes from your parents, you will visually have blue eyes and can only pass on ‘b’ to your offspring.

The great thing about recessive genes is that you ‘know’ what the genetic make-up of the parent is. If you have blue eyes, you know that the only gene you can pass on is blue. If however you have brown eyes, you may be hiding a ‘blue’ gene, so you have no idea what you will pass on to your offspring.

Now, lets add second gene to the mix. Say there is a gene that controls ‘lightness’ of your eye color. We’ll call it “L”. If you have the dominant form of this gene, you have dark eyes (LL), if you have the recessive form of the gene, you have light eyes (ll). So, it does not matter what color your eyes are, they can be blue or brown, this gene will control whether you have light blue eyes, or dark blue eyes, light brown eyes or dark brown eyes. These genes work together to create the ‘look’ of the eyes. Sooo....this person (Bb Ll) would have brown eyes (Bb) that are dark in color (Ll). They would also carry the blue gene, and the light eye color gene). This person (BB, ll) would have brown eyes that are light in color. As you can see these genes play off one another.

Ok, on to chickens. Now I do not understand the full workings of poultry genetics by a long shot, but I do know a bit about recessive white and color. Like the eye color example above, poultry color is controlled by many genes working together. One gene controls the color, and another controls the ‘whiteness’ of the birds.

I’m going to simplify this completely and call the color gene “C”, and the white gene “W”. The color gene can be any of the poultry colors, black, blue, buff, red etc. CC, Cc, cc, it doesn’t matter. “W” acts on that color gene. Remember above where it doesn’t matter what color the eyes are, the “lightness’ gene effects that color by making it either light or dark. Same with the “W” gene. In it’s dominant form ”WW” or Ww” it will allow the “CC, Cc, cc” gene to be expressed and show the birds color. The bird will show what color it is whether it’s black, blue, buff red etc. However, in it’s recessive form “ww” cancels out, or ‘hides’ all color in the bird, and the bird appears white, even though it still has color genes, they are hidden by the action of this “W” gene in it’s recessive form. This si why it is called recessive white, the bird is only white if it carries two recessive copies of the “W” gene. So, even though a gene is recessive, it can still be dominant over ‘other’ genes, such as the ones that express color.

This is why white birds are so hard to cross with. The “ww” can be hiding almost any color. I think of it as a colored bird hiding under a white sheet. There is color under the sheet, it’s just hidden.

Ok, this is WAY oversimplified, but I think the concept is correct.

UC

 

[Dipsy Doodle Doo]

Hi! Simple is good! Now if I read it 27 more times, it might make sense.
Thanks!

 

[Roobie]

Thank you Urban Coyote, I'm new to chicken color genetics and found your post very helpful!

 

[Henk69]

In europe wyandottes are mostly recessive white. I noticed again on a recent exhibition that these birds are not pristine white but have a creamy yellowish tint to them.

Heterozygous dominant white often has black flecks. These can be large, but there can also be tiny black flecks/speckles in large numbers when viewed close by.

The best white would be an all silver bird with gold diluters, kept out of the sun. This is just an idea, no such breed exists...

Recessive white would typically have the darker skin compared to dom. white but this is not foolproof.

Recessive white is epistatic to all other color genes. The symbol c denotes color(less?).
Dom. white is epistatic to all black diluters and affects mostly black areas of the chicken plumage. There are effects on red areas too, but they can be ignored for now.

 

[tadkerson]

Is there anyway other than crossing with a black to tell if my birds are recessive white or dominant white?

recessive white cock over black hen = black offspring

dominant white cock over black hen = white offspring

This also works with genders reversed per the Kip Calculator.

Thanks

Excuse me if I repeat information and do not give credit to the members who posted in this string

If you are crossing white wyandottes or even white rock, research has shown that some white wyandottes and rocks carry dominant white and recessive white along with sex-linked barring.

In this post the F1 description is of down color

If the white bird only carries recessive white

white x black = non-white (any color plumage other than white); this is true if the black parent does not carry an allele for recessive white

ratios should be 100% for chicks with color or

if the black parent is a carrier of recessive white then F1 = 50% color and 50% white ( white down without any black spots) down color can vary with recessive whites- grayish down can be associated with extended black chicks but not always, down may also have a faint reddish tinge to it


It gets a bit trickier if the wyandotte carries recessive white and dominant white ( heterozygous or homozygous)


If the white bird carries reccesive white and dominant white

recessive white and heterozygous dominant white x black = 50% color and 50% white (same as if black parent was a recessive white carrier); if some of the chicks have black spots in their down this would indicate a parent was carrying one dominant white allele and that the white chicks are not due to the recessive white allele

also when the chicks get older- if the white adult males develop red in the pyle region, it is an indicator the parent was dominant white. Females that develop red on the head and breast is an indicator of dominant white. This all depends on the genotypes of both parents and may never appear in the offspring. Heterozygous dominant white adult male birds can also show partial black feathers or large portions of a feather that contain red color (see my avatar); females may just show black spots in their feathers.

Recessive white and homozygous dominant white x black = all white chicks with many of the chicks having black spots in their down. If the black parent is a carrier then you will get some white chicks but you could also get the same with dominant white heterozygotes in the F1.

Keep track of each egg and know which hen produced each egg.

Tim

 

[Buffchickenbuff]

Dominant white is leaky, and without modifiers does not create a completely white bird. Red pyle is a good example of where dominant white "leaks." Only if a dominant white bird has two copies of the same dominant white allele will all offspring be white (with or without leakiness). If their is only one copy, then only half the offspring will receive that copy.

Recessive white X black does not yield black--it all depends on the genes the white is hiding. Likewise with dominant white. If carrying blue or splash, the offspring may/will inherit those dilutions. If carrying pattern genes, those may be inherited. If melanizers are missing, their lack will be inherited. Etc.

Since white is an OFF switch to the colours and patterns genetically present, trying to determine the variety of the offspring is kind of like saying "if I mate my black (or whatever variety) to an anonymous bird, what colour will the offspring be?" You only know part of the equation, and without test breedings do not have sufficient information to provide anything but guesses.

Once I mated a white Leghorn bantam male with a Ancona female. The males in this Ancona line would show some red in the hackle. Early on the chicks appeared to be solid white, but then they stared showing a buff color on their bodies with the white mottle of the Ancona. I suspected that the dominant white covered up the black, but allowed the red to appear as a buff color. Unfortunately, all the chicks died before maturity. It was interesting that the red appeared as a solid buff color, rather than the red pattern found in a wild type male. I don't know how this would have appeared had they lived to maturity