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now when you say it turns OFF the expression, what do you mean by that?
and so far all my color chicks are girls and my white chick is a boy
I realized afer I wrote it that you only have one white. You did say you think you have one each of the greys.
Recessive white (which is far more likely than dominant white), when present in two copies prevents the creation of pigment. No pigment = white feathers.
So, if say a genetically partridge bird (e^b/e^b Pg/Pg) ALSO carries two copies of recessive white (c/c), the bird will be white. However, if a genetically blue bird (Bl/bl) also carries two copies of recessive white, it will also be white. Breed two recessive whites together and you will get recessive white offspring, since they inherit a copy from each parent. But the inheritance of OTHER genes gets muddied as they mix together through generations of breeding whites to whites. If you breed a recessive white to a non-white, you will get non-white chicks, as the non-white parent cannot contribute a white gene to its offspring. Thus the switch that prevents creation of pigment is turned back on, and pigment is produced--but the genes that determine colours and patterns are likely to be all mixed up. To demonstrate, go to the chicken calculator and select two different varieties as parents. Make one a patterned bird (laced, penciled, mottled, millefleur, etc.) and the other not patterned. Not for each bird, change the C+/C+ gene to c/c. Calculate the crossing. Select one of the genotypes to continue, and then add a new bird of an entirely different colour or pattern as its partner. Once again, change C+/C+ to c/c. Calculate the crossing and select one genotype to continue, and add in another new colour/pattern to cross with. Change it to c/c and calculate the crossing. After you do this for several generations, notice that the genotypes possible will become ever larger. But for all, the phenotype remains the same.
