Has anyone noticed a pattern?

[Chickenheadmate]

When you make a cross, do males get certian traits from the roo and females from the hen? Or do males get certain traits from mom and females from the roo?
Traits as in breast, legs, personality ect

 

[Ridgerunner]

With a certain exception, a chicken inherits one gene from each gene pair from it's father and one from its mother. From that aspect, mother and father contribute equally. That can be egg laying, body configuration or size, or eye color. From my experience a rooster contributes as much as the hen as to whether or not the pullet will go broody, but that comes from knowing that his mother went broody a lot.

The exception is the sex linked genes. A rooster gives one copy of one of the genes at each gene pair to all his offspring. A hen is not so generous. She gives a copy of one of the genes she has at each "gene pair" but with her they are not all pairs. The sex linked genes are single genes where a pair should be. She does not give a copy of anything of these sex linked genes to her daughters. The absence of one of the genes at those sex linked genes "pairs" is what makes the difference between male and female. Unlike mammals, with chickens it is the female that determines the sex of the offspring.

Some of these sex linked genes have nothing to do with male or female traits. The barred gene for example. That just has to do with feather pattern, whether male or female. There is one that has an effect on the shade of brown on a brown egg. There are a lot of different gene pairs that affect brown shell color, only one is sex linked. But in this case a rooster can have more effect on the shade of brown than a hen if he happens to have that gene.

So it is possible a rooster can have more of an effect on his daughters than the mother, but the mother will not have more of an effect on sons than the father. They both contribute equally to their sons.

Even if they don't have more of an effect, they can have more of an apparent effect. Roosters do not lay eggs. If you know what kinds of eggs his mother and his grandmothers laid, you can infer what kinds of genes he might contribute to egg laying. But you can see what egg a hen is laying. You can more readily see what she is contributing. Same thing with body configuration. Due to their sex they have different body configurations even with the same general genetic contributions. If your interest is body conformation or even size for a cockerel to butcher, the father is a better model to go by than the mother, though if you know something about her father and grandfather you can draw some inferences.

I don't know if this makes sense or not. Basically a hen and rooster will contribute genetically the same as far as any traits go. I consider the sex linked contributions as really minor, in most cases inconsequential. A rooster from a really great egg laying line will greatly contribute to egg laying. Same with a hen from a great meat line. But since roosters don't lay eggs it is often better to select certain sexes for certain traits unless you have some really great historical records about their parents an grandparents.

 

[Chickenheadmate]

I didn't understand most of that, honestly, but I think it got me interested to want to learn about genes. Thanks

With a certain exception, a chicken inherits one gene from each gene pair from it's father and one from its mother. From that aspect, mother and father contribute equally. That can be egg laying, body configuration or size, or eye color. From my experience a rooster contributes as much as the hen as to whether or not the pullet will go broody, but that comes from knowing that his mother went broody a lot.

The exception is the sex linked genes. A rooster gives one copy of one of the genes at each gene pair to all his offspring. A hen is not so generous. She gives a copy of one of the genes she has at each "gene pair" but with her they are not all pairs. The sex linked genes are single genes where a pair should be. She does not give a copy of anything of these sex linked genes to her daughters. The absence of one of the genes at those sex linked genes "pairs" is what makes the difference between male and female. Unlike mammals, with chickens it is the female that determines the sex of the offspring.

Some of these sex linked genes have nothing to do with male or female traits. The barred gene for example. That just has to do with feather pattern, whether male or female. There is one that has an effect on the shade of brown on a brown egg. There are a lot of different gene pairs that affect brown shell color, only one is sex linked. But in this case a rooster can have more effect on the shade of brown than a hen if he happens to have that gene.

So it is possible a rooster can have more of an effect on his daughters than the mother, but the mother will not have more of an effect on sons than the father. They both contribute equally to their sons.

Even if they don't have more of an effect, they can have more of an apparent effect. Roosters do not lay eggs. If you know what kinds of eggs his mother and his grandmothers laid, you can infer what kinds of genes he might contribute to egg laying. But you can see what egg a hen is laying. You can more readily see what she is contributing. Same thing with body configuration. Due to their sex they have different body configurations even with the same general genetic contributions. If your interest is body conformation or even size for a cockerel to butcher, the father is a better model to go by than the mother, though if you know something about her father and grandfather you can draw some inferences.

I don't know if this makes sense or not. Basically a hen and rooster will contribute genetically the same as far as any traits go. I consider the sex linked contributions as really minor, in most cases inconsequential. A rooster from a really great egg laying line will greatly contribute to egg laying. Same with a hen from a great meat line. But since roosters don't lay eggs it is often better to select certain sexes for certain traits unless you have some really great historical records about their parents an grandparents.

 

[Mosey2003]

I wonder about prepotency in chickens. Prepotency, if you don't know, is the tendency to pass on a trait with more frequency. In horses, we often call it "stamping" the foals, like certain sires will pass on their color, markings, certain physical traits, much more often, and we'll say, "Oh yeah, Old Joe sure stamps his kids with those crooked legs, I won't use him." or the sort. In certain circles, you can watch a round of show horses go and actually pick out the sires of a few of them, if you're familiar, because they'll resemble them so much.
So, I'm interested to see if certain hens and cocks tend to be prepotent or not, or if that's just not a thing in birds. Right now, a friend wanted just a batch of birds to butcher for dog food, so I've got my good cock over my hatchery hens. I'm really interested to see those chicks grow and see if he passes on his downward pointing wing primaries or not (I hope not).

 

[Ridgerunner]

I didn't understand most of that, honestly, but I think it got me interested to want to learn about genes. Thanks

Yes you need a basic understanding of genetics for all that so I'll try to be simpler. A cockerel gets it's traits equally from mother and father. A pullet gets a teeny bit more from her father than mother, but it's pretty inconsequential.

Which traits you see will depend on which genes are dominant, which are recessive, which are partially or incomplete dominant, and how they come together. It doesn't take long for genetics to get sort of confusing. But knowing the basics of dominant and recessive genes really helps.

@Mosey2003 I wonder if that explains prepotency. That sire happens to have a set of really dominant genes for that trait. A simplistic example. In horses, black is dominant over red. So if the sire (or dam) is pure for the black gene (two dominant blacks at that gene pair) that will override any red contributed from the other parent. There are modifiers, some dominant and some recessive, that can change that black to some other color or give you a pattern. So if they are also pure for that dominant trait, they will tend to have foals that look a lot like themselves. Of course what the other parent contributes will affect that.

 

[Mosey2003]

@Ridgerunner yes, I know the different dominant and recessive genes It's interesting though when you match up different sires and dams, how one will pass on a certain trait much more often, regardless which mare they're put over. It's an enormous area of study, there are SO many variables, even when we know certain ones work certain ways, there are so many other possibilities with genes interacting. It's all fascinating.

 

[Chickenheadmate]

So black is not always dominant?

 

[Ridgerunner]

Black is always dominant in chickens, but there are several modifiers that can change black into another color. For example, dominant white changes black to white. If recessive Lavender pairs up so you have two Lavender genes at that gene pair, it turns Black into Lavender. If the chicken has the barred gene it changes solid black into black and white.

If the chicken is red, Dominant White and Lavender will have no effect but the barred gene will still insert that white bar.