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Black Gold Variety Discussions
John:
--- Quote ---Where did the blue gene come from?
--- End quote ---
They came from my bantam silver (maybe silver/birchen) females crossed with bantam white males (I think...because I also used black males over them and think the black cross produced the brown reds). The blues generally feathered out with some silver in their hackles. Mike took home one of these \"blue\" pullets that was solid blue with great type from a show in Ohio a few years ago.
I have heard of people getting blues from black and white crosses, even though I know they should come from black/splash crosses.
Mike Gilbert:
You will get blues from black / white crosses only if the white bird carries the dominant Bl gene that dilutes the black. The gene can\'t come from the black side of the mating, as the black would not be black if it carried the Bl gene. Some whites will carry the Bl gene and others don\'t. The only way practical way to tell, unless you know the parentage, is to test mate.
MikeG.
John:
It makes sense that the Bl gene is coming from the white birds, but seems odd to me that if the bird is heterozygous recessive white \"c\" and incompletely dominant blue \"Bl\" that the splash would show thru. It would also seem that breeding these white looking birds together would produce a % of pure splash birds and I don\'t remember getting any from my whites when I had them.
Mike Gilbert:
John,
The recessive white and the dominant Bl are two completely different alleles. Here dominant Bl only means one copy dilutes black. It does not mean it negates recessive white in recessove white\'s pure form. Chickens can be pure (homozygous) for both.
In fact, if only one recessive white gene is present, the bird would likely not be white at all. Recessives have to be pure to be manifested. Recessive white in it\'s pure (homozygous) form can cover up all kinds of colors, some better than others. And it definitely covers up black and/or blue. I\'m not sure if \"covers up\" is a good term, as it prevents the formation of melanin pigment in the feathers.
Similarly, the sex-linked barring gene prevents dermal melanin from forming, which explains why barred chickens with this gene will never have slate leg color.
Mike
Mike
Guest:
The genetic term for the action of reccessive white on a bird of color would be epistatic. A person would say the recessive white genes are epistatic to the extended black gene. In this case the recessive white genes supress the expression of the extended black gene.
There is another way of stating the expression of genes. In chicken genetics there are diluters and enhancers. It could be said that the recessive white genes dilute the black pigment eumelanin to white the absence of color.
Another term used in genetics is the term hypostatic. The extended black gene would be hypostatic to the recessive white genes. The black pigment is hypostatic to the absence of color or white.
Or you could say it the way Mike said and say the white covers the black. Most people could understand the concept the way Mike presented it.
Rooster
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