Genetics of Chicken Colours, The Basics - Sigrid van Dort

[n8ivetxn]

Oh fantastic! Thank you so much, Karen

. I'll go through and read her articles - I have ordered some of Ann's birds, however, I think she may be done with fall chicks. So I'll likely get the 3 straight run chicks in the spring, along with the 2 pullets I've ordered from her. All 5 should be from her BBR pens..... I can't wait

V/R,

Rita

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

 
I ordered my copy through him a while back. You'll have to email him to see if he has any copies available.  Here is his website

 http://jerrysseramasllc.weebly.com/

Thank you! I'll check it out.....

 
She said it was written to make genetics easier to understand for the majority of us. We talked primarily about black vs. white and she suggested that white isn't a color but an absence of color.
We also talked about her other book, Extremes. I wanted to know if anything about earlobe and egg color was in it. There wasn't much.



Thanks for that.
My amazon gift cards will be useless for this book.

She's correct about white, and black is the presence of all color - I learned that in art school years ago .......Sorry about the gift cards, it would be helpful, these books aren't cheap!

not really correct about black, at least not in regards to genetics.. what you're talking about is the appearance of light that is reflected or absorbed.

 

[Ravynscroft]

I just had a flashback to a long argued debate between myself and my cousin in regards to 'black and white'... while one of us was arguing using light based color the other was arguing using pigment based color... and never the twain shall meet...

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

 
Hi there,

I'm making a Christmas list and I'm reviewing some genetics books..... I have the SOP on the list and the Brian Reeder books too, but does anybody have this one? The contact name, on her website, for U.S.. customers is Jerry Schexnayer. Is he on BYC, by any chance?

I'm not scientifically minded and I don't know squat about chicken genetics, so I'm looking at books for a beginner.

try these sites before you get a book. An old high school book and chapter on genetics would be a good start on the language of mendelian genetics. Then apply the information on some sites and that would be a very good start. 

You are going to have to put in some time- genetics has its own language- once you learn the language it becomes much easier to understand. I taught genetics for 25 years- so I do know something about the subject. 

this is a good place to get started     http://kippenjungle.nl/basisEN.htm

then get into more detail-  http://kippenjungle.nl/basisEN.htm and or http://sellers.kippenjungle.nl/page0.html

If you are having problems with something- post a question- if you do not understand a concept-that means there are others that have the same question

get a composition book and take notes- then you can use it as a reference

Sigrid's book is extremely good at explaining to a genetics beginner how the genes that determine chicken plumage colour and patterns work. Starting with general Mendalian genetics information would actually take longer to understand how the genes interact. Not that that is not aa good thing to learn, the first link you listed is an excellent start for that.

 

[n8ivetxn]

Oh that's great news, thank you! I also ordered the SOP... My brain will be aching after this! LOL.... Who needs Sudoku?!

.... For some reason, I think of genetics as being similar to math, which was never my forte in school

 

[Wappoke]

Oh that's great news, thank you! I also ordered the SOP... My brain will be aching after this! LOL.... Who needs Sudoku?!

.... For some reason, I think of genetics as being similar to math, which was never my forte in school

To be able to read research papers and understand genetics, one must first understand the language. Take for example the word heterozygous, many chicken fanciers use the term split instead of heterozygous. Individuals have come up with a word that helps them understand the bird carries two different alleles at the same locus on a chromosome. This is ok until you run into situations where the individual is homozygous or even hemizygous, then two new words have to be made up to satisfy the situations.

Most individuals want chicken genetics to be simple- well you can not make chicken genetics simple- it is a complex science that with enough time and considerable effort one can become reasonably educated. You can not quickly learn chicken genetics. Like any other science, it takes effort and time to learn the subject. Most people do not have 1 to 3 hours a day to study the subject in order to decrease the time needed to learn the subject.

Learn the basic mendelian language, then apply the language to chicken genetics. Do not get in a hurry and learn what you can.

I am not crazy about math, but I survived calculus at the university. What is good about chicken genetics is that you are not doing it for a grade.

 

[n8ivetxn]

Ahh, very interesting.... I didn't know "split" meant heterozygous.... I always wondered! ....Yeah, thank goodness there's no grade involved! - Unless the looks of your flock counts

Thank you for the encouragement.... I'm sure I'll be posting all sorts of crazy questions before long...

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

Ahh, very interesting.... I didn't know "split" meant heterozygous.... I always wondered! ....Yeah, thank goodness there's no grade involved! - Unless the looks of your flock counts

Thank you for the encouragement.... I'm sure I'll be posting all sorts of crazy questions before long...

actually split is more than just heterozygous...it is heterozygous and recessive. Therefore the trait does not show, but you know the allele is present due to breeding records, and can be passed to offspring.

 

[n8ivetxn]

Ok, so just to be clear, a bird can be split for something, but you may not know it (unless you bred and hatched it) until you see it's offspring.....Ahh, the lights are coming on!

Progeny testing your chickens.....

I'm still waiting for my SOP and the Van Dort book.... they'll arrive on the same day!

 

[Ravynscroft]

Correct... but the offspring either need to be bred together, or bred to the color they are split to to tell... and it will depend on %'s since you won't get 100% of either/or when breeding splits...