Playing with Punnett Squares and Genetics

[tadkerson]

Tim,
not quite sure what to make of the autosomal red, it is a bit beyond my comprehension right now. How is this different from the gold/mahogany/wheaten red?

Most of the time the red in a bird comes from the gold allele (which is sex linked) but if a bird is silver (also sex linked) the bird should not have any red, only silver(white). If a bird has red in its feathers. the red would come from some other gene that is not sex linked. Genes that are not sex linked are autosomal.

Wheaten red is caused by the wheaten allele and is different than the autosomal red. mahogany just makes any red a darker red.

Tim

 

[perryalana21404]

That was the clearest description I've seen yet! I spent about 40 minutes googling "autosomal red" and nothing came close to helping me understand exactly what it meant in layman terms.

Ok, so if my silky hybrids are silver white not dominant white, then the faint red showing up would be an autosomal red because the silver should have replaced the gold. I've read that dominant white is leaky and will let some black come through (which I've seen in one of my white Leghorn hens.) I just guessed that the red could also leak through as well. Sounds like it is a completely different interaction though.

Thank you for the clarification.

 

[perryalana21404]

Holy crap Tim, you are a silky guy too?? I just found one of your old posts from '08 in a google search:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/88682/silkie-genetics
(from that post pasted below...)

..."Fm fibromelanosis
id+ dermal melanin (sex linked) These three make black skin.
W+ white skin

h hookless for silkie feathers

Mb for muffs and beard (bearded variety)

P pea comb
R rose comb P and R form a walnut comb

Po polydactyly 5 toes

dw sex linked dwarfism Dwarfism can be caused by a number of
genes and there are two other alleles at the
Dw+ locus

Pti-1 and Pti-2 feathered feet ( silkies most likely have a different allele at one of the loci)

Cr crest

0+ for white egg shell color (no brown egg shell genes)

c recessive white Recessive white is an epistatic gene and can hide any color. Most recessive white birds are black under the white.

Bl/bl+ blue is an incompleley dominant gene that dilutes black to blue.

Bl/Bl produces a splash chicken or white with splashes of blue.

Most black birds are extended black ( E) because this genes needs the least amount of help from other genes to make a black bird. Some black birds are birchen or E^R. Birchen needs help from black extenders to make a black bird..."

Unfortunately it creates just as many questions as it answers. Now I have to figure out this recessive white business. It must not be complete if I'm getting the faint red coming through... time to look up 'epistatic gene'...

 

[tadkerson]

No not a silky guy. Epistatic can mean one gene hides the expression of another gene. Recessive white is very good at stopping the production of pigments. A bird would have genes for the expression of black and should be a black bird, but if the bird also has two recessive white genes then the bird is white. The white covers the black. A person would say the recessive white gene is epistatic to all the other plumage color genes in a bird. A bird can be any color and the white phenotype (what the bird looks like) is epistatic to the other plumage color. You can say color or genes are epistatic. Epistasis ( epistatic) an also mean a relationship. Epistasis occurs when one gene has an influence upon or has an influence over another gene. Rose comb and pea comb influence each other and produce a strawberry comb.

Tim