Please set me straight on splits

[tonini3059]

Thanks waterdog, that actually sets everything straight. I understood the fact that the white gene was sex linked but where I was having problems was I was thinking of mammalian genetics in that the male carries the Y chromosome. However in birds it is opposite so that the female is XY where the male is XX. So thank you for the link and I am glad that is all cleared up so now that I can go to bed.

 

[rollyard]

White is a sex-linked recessive in Mandarin Ducks. Being hemizygous for sex-linked genes, if the female has it she will be white & if she isn't white then she doesn't have the white gene (she can't be split for white)! If you mate a white heterozygote male (Wh+/wh) to a coloured female (Wh+/-) you will produce half white (25%) & half coloured (25%) female progeny. All male progeny (50%) will be coloured but approx half of them will carry sex-linked recessive white hidden.