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Uhm, yeah
. As mentioned before, egg yolk contains Xanthophyll which is what makes it yellow, the Xanthophyll is passed on to chicks giving their skin shanks etc a yellow color, a color that they can not make on their own and must get from the food they eat.
I have already sited a couple sources to back this statement up.
To which I do not disagree. Since an embryo cannot poop where else would the waste product go?
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The data does not back up this claim. Just because one chick becomes yellow from eating a substance, does not mean that all chicks will be yellow
Exactly
However, making a statement that the reason chicks are yellow, is because the yolk is yellow does not exclude chicks that are not yellow from remaining that way, even if they do consume the same food; an attempt to make this mutually exclusive is an invalid argument. Again I have sited sources that explain this further in my previous posts.
To which I agree, but the way the instructors comments were repeated to us, it appears that was what he was saying. It's like saying all fords are cars therefore all cars are fords.
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As stated before, not all coloration is a result of pigments created by an organism, many pigments are acquired through diet; again, I have already sited sources to back this statement up.
And I said the same thing, the coloring absorbed through the yolk during digestion that comes out on the fluff is a waste by product.
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Misleading yes, but not inaccurate. As I stated previously, the statement made by the teacher, taken at face value, is accurate, if not complete and We would need to know the exact context of his statement in order to make a determination on his state of confusion.
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Again, if you read the sources I sited previously you would have learned that chickens derive their yellow color from their diet and do not produce the compounds used for the yellow pigmentation.
Therefore, it is true that a chicken must have the right set of genes for the yellow pigment of their food to have a visual effect on their coloration; it is not true that the genes passed on from their parents direct them to produce a substance that causes any yellow pigmentation.
So if I understand what you are saying correctly, you are asserting that NONE of the yellow pigmentation of chicks fluff, skin, shanks etc is a genetic coloration from their parent. I find that very hard to believe. The yolk pigment as a contributing factor yes, but deciding factor? Nah, not buying it.
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Now youre getting it! The amount of Xanthophyll present in the food that the hen eats will determine the amount of yellow pigmentation within the yolk of the egg. Ultimately the pigmentation of the egg will be consumed by the chick which will alter the chicks pigmentation.
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I would counter by saying, knowing the context of the speaker is important in that, we need to know if he is making the statement that chick down is effected by the pigmentation contained in the yolk, or did he mean that the chicks skin, shanks, fat, beak are affected by this; the latter being correct while the former being incorrect.
I took each point made in the original post and found information that was valid to each point, with the intent to discover the truth about the statement.
I separated ideas that were not specifically dependent on each other.
I have sited sources that back up any statements I have made, and have tried not to make any assumptions about things for which information was not provided.
I do enjoy a good debate, and as, this is a topic for which most of my experience is all of about 48 hours, I welcome any valid rebuttal.
Please site your sources
So, genetically speaking, if you take two embryos from the same parents, dye one yolk and leave the other alone, you will have two different colors in appearance but one color genetically.
The way the information was passed on to us, I interepreted it as the instructor was trying to imply that the dying of the yolk creates a genetic change in the embryo. This is not true.
"Anyways, my teacher said that the reason
chicksare yellow, is because the yolk is yellow. "
This statement is only partially correct; all chicks are not all yellow, some are all yellow some chicks have some yellow. Going back to my previous comment that all fords are cars therefore all cars are fords. The statement lacks clarity leading the listern down the wrong path to the conclusion.
"And that if scientist injects dye with a needle into the yolk, the chicks hatch out different colors. "
Again, partially correct. You are seeing the waste by product in their fluff, however if the color of the fluff is already darker than the dye used, only the areas (if any) of fluff that are lighter than the dye used will be will be noticably altered. A chick that is predetermined to hatch out black is not going to have a noticable difference in color by dying the yolk blue prior to hatching.
Last of all, if the instructor had done an adequate job of explaining the context and information he was trying to pass on, dino wouldn't be here asking about it would she.
Sources: 2 years of anatomy / biology / common sense.
