AK Michelle,
My problem is not with language, rather poor grammer and spelling.
Eclipse molt - See post #7410 for partial explaination of eclipse molt. To further, an eclipse molt occurs in adult birds, usually following breeding season. Birds shed the showy display feathers (around neck in some chickens) and replace them with shorter, rounder, and darker feathers that are kept on for a month our to until they are shed and replaced by next round of the showy display feathers. Most domestic roosters these days go from one showy set to another skipping the eclipse feathers. Timing for eclipse molt is during heat of summer. Be sure to follow links in post #7410.
Alleles - Everything characteristic an animal has is at least partially influenced by genetic code. The code is made up of many stretches called loci, each coding for a specific characteristic (eye color, feather shape, comb type etc.). Consider a loci coding for presence of toppy feathers in Icelandics (the tuff some have on head). In reality the chicken has two copies of the loci, one from mother and one from father. As matter of fact an individual has a single copy of each chromosome type from each parent. The allele term comes into play when mothers copy might differ from fathers copy which often is case. With the toppy loci, if chick gets only one coding for the toppy characteristic from either parent, then the chick will have the toppy look. No toppy allele, then no toppy look. The toppy example giving is very simple. Most characteriscs, like the complex and varied color patterns exhibited by Icelandics are a result of many loci and their alleles interacting. Icelandics are unusual in todays chicken world in that the number of alleles has not been reduced through selective breeding to match some ideal of perfection. That is good.
