Need help with genetics

[boykin2010]

Ok so i am thinking about getting some lemon cuckoo orpingtons. I have seen some on ebay and the price is varied. Anywhere from 10.00 to 250.00. The difference is one breed it says split and the other is pure... What is the difference? Also if you breed 2 pure lemon cuckoo marans what would you get?
I am very confused and want to make sure before i buy i know what i am doing...

 

[Tanichca]

Quote:
A split is one color that carries the genetic code that could make a percentage of offspring another color. A split lavender (black carrying lavender genes) I believe, will give out 50% black, 25% blue, and 25% lavender. A pure color bird can also throw out splits, but the offspring of the splits could be lavender or lemon or whatever the color is... It's a matter of chance in the end.
As for the other question, probably a higher percentage of the babies would be lemon cuckoo, but some might also be whatever the base color of the variety is.

 

[boykin2010]

Ok thank you that helped me a lot!

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

Split is another word for heterozygous, but is usually used in the context of a recessive gene. Since the gene is recessive, its presence will not "show" unless the bird is pure for the gene; however, breeding records will (or should) document that the bird carries a hidden copy of the gene. Bred to another bird that is split for the gene or pure for it, a percentage of the offspring will be pure for it, and you will be able to see its presence in those birds.

A lavender split will not give 25% black, 50% blue and 25% lavender. Bred to a pure lavender bird, it will be 50% split, 50% lavender. Bred to another split, you will have 25% lavender, 25% not-lavender and 50% split for lavender--but ou will NOT be able to tell the not-lavender birds apart from the splits.

I am not all that familiar with lemon cuckoo, but cuckoo is not a recessive gene, it is incompletely dominant, and if present in even one copy will show. It is also a sex-linked gene, with females only having one copy. And I do not know which genes for lemon would/could be split, either.

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

Okay, I went and looked at teh auctions, and have a better understanding of how they are using the term in this case. It is not the traditional use of split.

The "splits" are a pure lemon cuckoo cock over a non-cuckoo (buff) hen. This will give offspring of about 50% lemon cuckoo hens and 50% lemon cuckoo cocks that are heterozygous for cuckoo. You will not be able to determine gender at hatching. Breed them together and you will get some males with two copies of the gene (as well as some with only one copy, and hens that do and also ones that do not have it).

Once you have a male with two copies, breed it to a cuckoo hen, and ALL offspring will be pure.

 

[boykin2010]

Thank you SO much!

 

[mrheinz77]

Be nice to me with those eggs.

At least the split ones.


Jim