Quote: Yes, silver/gold is sex-linked, and what mama has goes only to her sons. Her daughters inherit the shorter W chromosome, which does not contain the gene. So, the daughter's s-gene comes from her father. If he is silver, she will be. If he is gold, she will be. If he is golden, she could be either silver or gold. Incompletely dominant means that what is displayed is intermediate between the two alleles present. Golden looks more like silver than like gold, but it is not that pure silvery white; it has a sort of yellow or brassy tinge to the colouring.
If the father carries blue, he will pass it on to some of his offspring. Approximately half if he has one copy, to all of them if he has two copies. Since he is recessive white, when bred to another recessive white the blue gene will be passed, but not expressed. If he is bred to a bird that does not carry recessive white, the blue will express, but whether it will make a "blue" bird will depend on all the other genes present. Could be blue partridge, lemon blue or any other variety/mix that contains blue. And of course, blue can be so dark that it looks black and is not obvious in the phenotype.
Do you know how to make punett squares?
Wheaten underfluff is creamy; asiatic partridge undercolour is greyish. Brahmas are asiatic partridge; orpingtons are wheaten.
Not all colour genes are completely documented. There is an undocumented recessive black, which could be a single gene, or more likely a combination of genes that enhances eumelanin. There are also thought ot be other melanizers that are undocumented. The chicken calculator is a wonderful tool, but not nearly as complex as nature. We all keep waiting for someone to develop that handy-dandy pocket dna-synthesizer that Henk once jokingly referred to so that we can get complete genotypes of all our birds.
Ron Okimoto once stated that he thought the best exhibition black and blue silkies were probably E^R based.
Ah, thank you E^R makes black on the chicken calculator with melanisers - the e^b did not. I figured there was probably more out there than the chicken calculator could handle - especially if the genes are not fully understood yet. Undocumented recessive black.. maybe something that could turn the e^b into solid blacks too... just not documented yet. There was talk of a supressor gene too - undocumented - to explain why some crossings did not come out as expected (something supressing a color that should have been there.
Yes, I did the Punett squares to figure percentages on the splash cross. Since the mother was Splash on the blue chicks - they all got Blue from her. We don't know if the father carries Blue - he is recessive white with who knows what else underneath. Crossed to the splash he appears to throw mostly blue with one partridge appearing chick. If she finds that one silvery chick to be splash then the father does carry blue. She did get the one Partridge striped chick - so either or both father and mother could have hetro melanisers (Cha or Ml or ?) or carry split E^R loci to something else?
No wonder Partridge is so hard to get right - there are so many combinations that look close...
Thanks on the confirmation about my understanding of Silver (even if I got S and s+ backwards). Mommy only passes what she has onto her sons - father passes what he has on to both sexes and he can carry both S and s+ which further confuses who gets what. The Golden color I have seen in a Silver Duckwing x Gold Duckwing (not my cross but somebody elses). It would probably be harder to see in Silkies.
Oooh, when they come up with the handy-dandy pocked DNA tool - put me on the list! It would make breeding for things SO much simpler!
Ok, I have to digest what I just learned... and try not to dyslexia it again! Capital lettered Genes are Dominant and appear with one gene, lower cased genes are recessive and only appear with two copies..
.. except in the case of silver because of Golden appearing in the roosters..
... I before e except after c, except in words like neighbor and weigh... aaaaaaaH
I think you need to realize that incompletely dominant is not quite the same as dominant, and that sometimes even recessives show to a slight extent with a single copy (for example, mottling can show in juvenile feathers, and even in young adult plumage when only one copy is present).
Genetics of Chickencolors and Basics is pretty helpful.
I like your spelling analogy
Partridge really isn't that difficult to get right...at least not once you have the right gene combinations in both parents. (Oh, and the colour and pattern of a male partridge (e^b base) is pretty much identical to that of a male gold duckwing (e+ base) or a male wheaten (E^Wh base). Females, however, look entirely different with these three bases.
Your advice was much appreciated. I will also be on the lookout for nicer buff roosters for sale in my area.
