Please set me straight on splits

[tonini3059]

I have a pair of split to white mandarins and was wondering what they will produce when the reproduce. I figured that they would produce 25% regular, 50% split to white and 25% white. However I have read bits and pieces that say that all the females will be white while half the males will be split and the other half white, at least I think that is what it was. Just let me know what I can expect and if you can explain the reasoning behind it. Thanks for your time.

 

[Boggy Bottom Bantams]

splits usually produce more whites than normals if bred together, as for percentages, never paid much attention to that, so no help there.
Just know all my splits, especially a split bred to white, throws more whites than normals, and all normals should be split too

 

[waterdog]

I am no expert on this but from what I have been told is that hens can only carry one gene (ex white or regular color) but drakes will carry both. So fi you breed a white mandarin hen with a regular colored drake you will get split to white drakes, drakes with both white genes and regular genes, regular colored hens, white hens, and very rarely a white drake. If you breed a split to white drake with a white hen your percentages of getting the white drakes will greatly increase not sure on extact percentages but should be about a 50-50 split of whites to splits. When two whites are breed together all offspring will be white. Thus in the mutation world hens are easier to find than drakes. So in breeding the splits you mentioned the drake will carry the gene while the hen will not but you should get a few of the whites. Hope this makes sense.

 

[tonini3059]

Ok, thanks but I am still a little confused, maybe a little background to make sure we are on the same page. When I think of split, ex. a split to white mandarin drake I assume that it means that he is normal colored but carries the white gene. So my split to white pair are both normal looking. Now based on what you say the female in a normal mandarin hen, however the male has the white gene? If that is the case how would I get any whites from that pairing? Sorry for being a little slow, I am just thinking in terms of simple Mendelian genetics and it appears to be a little more complicated than this and I just want to make sure I understand this.

 

[Boggy Bottom Bantams]

yes a split is a noraml colored bird with 1 copy of a new color gene, it takes two copies for the new color to show up solid, so breeding splits together will do that, that or a solid to a split, based on that, the hens are what they are theory, in other words sex linked, is not correct, because I have hatched solid white from split pairs many times. If the hens did not posses the white gene (i.e. being split) this wouldnt be possible.

 

[tonini3059]

That is what I thought, since the mandarin eggs you got off of rareroo were from our split pair which produced a white offspring. So if only the male could carry the white gene then at most breeding a split male to a normal female (assuming any female appearing normal is indeed normal and not split) would produce male offspring that would only have a single copy of the white gene, obtained from the father since the mother can only give a normal gene. Since the white gene is recessive they would only be split and no white offspring would be produced.

 

[waterdog]

We are on the same page from what I have read about the Apricot and White gene in Woodies and Mandarins it is a sexed linked recessive gene carried by the drake.

 

[tonini3059]

I understand people saying that only drakes can be split, but what I do not understand is how could you get white offspring from a pairing between a split to white male and a regular female.

 

[waterdog]

I found the link I was thinking of I may not be explaining it right but this link should help
http://www.utm.edu/departments/cece/idea/aixgenetics.shtml

 

[tonini3059]

I found this on Mallard Lane's website: Split/White Drake w/reg colored hen- 20-25% white offspring about 50% of the regular colored offspring will be split/white while the other half will not carry the white gene. So that is what I have and that is what they will produce, which is along the lines of what waterdog was saying. Now I am still not understanding how you can get white offspring from only one parent carrying the white gene? Also in that 20%-25% white offspring will that only be males or both sexes? If it is both then that gets me really confused. Thanks for all the patience, I really just want to try and figure this out.