# This one's for the genetic ppl



## ryan (Mar 17, 2008)

i have recently made an interesting observation. i have a white hen and a white cock. the white hen mated with a blue bar and the white cock mated with a black hen. the young from the WHITE HEN are 90 percent white. the young from the WHITE COCK are 90 percent black. i am asking the question ...are the genes from the mother more dominant from that from the father? 


Q) from the young from the white hen i observed that one young was whiter than the other. and i know(or think) that the mother passes on more genes to the son than the daughter and likewise with the father and daughter? if so then this could determine the sexes of the young bird far before they start to mate. which ever one looks more like the mother is the son and which ever looks more like the father is the daughter.



my theory may be wrong and i may be ignorant of some facts so all of you genetic "specialists" (lol) tell me how i did lol.


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## pdpbison (Mar 15, 2005)

Hi Ryan, 


I have noticed a similar thing here with Mated-Pairs where the Hen and Cock are very different Colors-patterns.


I have an ex-racer Hen, who is sort of Orange-Tan-Amethyst colors, and her Husband is a typical Blue Bar ex-feral.

Every Clutch, both Babys look like her, every time.


Other pairs I have, one the Hen is a sort of 'Goodyear Red Rubber 'Red', and her husband is a typical Blue Bar ( who has a little white here and there, born of y Shop Ceiling ferals who are his parents ). Their first clutch, one Baby was 'red' just like her, and the other, looked like poppa.

She and quite a few other all 'red' ones, were born here of two non-release-able ex-ferals where the Hen had just a hint of 'brown' in her Primarys, but hardly conspicuous, in fact, it was subtle and not even visible unless the light was hitting her just right.




One feral peir I have who live in the Shop ceiling, both parents are Blue Ber ferals ( but who have one white Primary feather in the Father's case ) every clutch they make, one Baby is almost all White ( with some grey or black) , the other Baby is typical Blue Bar with no white whatever.



I notice these things, but I do not understand them..!


Phil
l v


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## jbangelfish (Mar 22, 2008)

*it depends*



ryan said:


> i have recently made an interesting observation. i have a white hen and a white cock. the white hen mated with a blue bar and the white cock mated with a black hen. the young from the WHITE HEN are 90 percent white. the young from the WHITE COCK are 90 percent black. i am asking the question ...are the genes from the mother more dominant from that from the father?
> 
> 
> Q) from the young from the white hen i observed that one young was whiter than the other. and i know(or think) that the mother passes on more genes to the son than the daughter and likewise with the father and daughter? if so then this could determine the sexes of the young bird far before they start to mate. which ever one looks more like the mother is the son and which ever looks more like the father is the daughter.
> ...


It is not so much that a hen is stronger or more dominant, just that she normally has only one color gene. Cocks are often split for a color besides the one that they show and they can also be split for dilute or other modifying factors.

Most white pigeons are genetically ash red but not all are this way. It's just the most common expression of white in pigeons. An ash red cock bird (even though it appears white) can also be split for blue or black.

When you say the young are 90% one thing or another, are you saying that 90% of them are one color or another or the bird is 90% white and 10% black?

There are many genetic factors that can make a bird white and you may have two completey different genetic makeups to these two white birds. There is recessive white and there are pied whites besides the more typical ash red grizzle white.

I believe that the white that you are producing has nothing to do with determining the sex of the young. I'm not actually sure how recessive white works as to whether it is sex linked or not (I don't think it is) but it sounds to me like you are making piebald young which seems to work quite randomly.

Bill


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## bluecheck (Aug 17, 2006)

Happy 4th of July all!

Okay - let's take a bit of this one at a time. Ryan, what we call "white" may actually be produced in a half dozen or more ways.. The bottom line in all of them is that somehow pigment is not produced and/or is not put into the growing feather. What causes this to happen may be very very different genetically, but it produces the same result.

An analogy might be this: I dye you with red food color; I put a bright red sweater on my friend; I jump into a vat of tomatoes; and I stuff my brother into strawberries. When we all stand beside one another we are red! even though we all got there a different way. Same with white.

As Bill said, a lot of white birds are ash-red homozygous grizzles (these birds are white, usually with colored eyes and perhaps a foul feather or two); many whites are recessive white (a non-sexlinked autosomal recessive condition); these birds are bull-eyed. Even though recessive white birds put beside one another look identical - they may be something totally different under that white "overcoat"; one might be a blue bar; one red; one black; one andalusian, etc. When these birds are crossed to a bird that doesn't carry recessive white, the genetics of the underlying color again show up in the young.

NOW, add in the fact that lots of whites also carry various piebald (pied) factors, a lot of which haven't been fully described and/or figured out yet and you get a very, very confusing mix of things. For all I know your hen is carrying one pied factor while your cock is carrying another or two or more. Without a lot of breeding tests - and also knowing what the mate to these birds each carry, it would be extremely difficult to even hazard a prediction as to what will pop out. BTW - keep records and you may the one to help us finally determine just how some of the pied factors inherit and how they interact with each other. Some evidence suggests that many of them are alleles and some that they are independent.

We're trying to figure out about 5000 years of mutation, breeding, etc., that have gone into our birds and it's not an easy thing to do -- but it IS one heck of a lot of fun.

Phil - that white flight seems to be a dominant trait from what I've seen in my own lofts -- of course then!!!!!! I've also raised some white flights out of birds not showing anything so who knows or maybe, just maybe, we got us another mystery that needs working on or maybe another two or three or four mutations that produce similar phenotypes. 


Frank Mosca


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## re lee (Jan 4, 2003)

ryan said:


> i have recently made an interesting observation. i have a white hen and a white cock. the white hen mated with a blue bar and the white cock mated with a black hen. the young from the WHITE HEN are 90 percent white. the young from the WHITE COCK are 90 percent black. i am asking the question ...are the genes from the mother more dominant from that from the father?
> 
> 
> Q) from the young from the white hen i observed that one young was whiter than the other. and i know(or think) that the mother passes on more genes to the son than the daughter and likewise with the father and daughter? if so then this could determine the sexes of the young bird far before they start to mate. which ever one looks more like the mother is the son and which ever looks more like the father is the daughter.


If you are looking at the color To say this bird is a hen or cock It will not work, Not unless it a sex linked color. Not Some people say You use a hen to develop the body . The young birds get there body type from the hen. Perhaps this is right as several poeople use this concept in breeding. Off set of visible faults Is used in pairings. White cock over black hen You produced more pied birds Or darker birds.But the blue over white produced more white in the pied color. I do not know But do not think you produced any first generation self whites DID you. The blue may have been very well from a pied bird even a grizzled bird. And white flight even though they may have not been produced for year will still show back up. I have bred birds and then thrown white flights looked back on peddigrees And found a white flighted bird Some 10 years back. Genes come forward And birds mask many colors. You can throw a bird of different color Bring it back forwad Then you have also brought forward Some of the other masked colors. This Has happened And also tore whole lofts down When people began to dig deeper on there line of birds When gentics was made more popular in the 1970s. YOU can take black colored birds IF need be and improve your white birds Its just a matter of resetting the color base. Used to be said there was 3 colors of white Each color more refined. Milky Was a fade color of white. As with some breeds Or ressesive colors Say red as the birds aged white feathers would replace the red feathers as they moulted Called milky white. You might have a bird and then 3 years later it would moult in white feathers some alot some a few. And found more in some of the more rich colored birds. Why they say white is not a color Is just an idea. because White breeds white And white over takes other colors as it is bred in. I used grizzle over white this year in race birds I produced about 1/3 soild white birds then pied yellow ,white grizzle ,red grizzle ,even a bared pied lavender colored opel. Now each bird that is marked still carries White Which back over white will produce a certion number of whites. They whites from the grizzles cross over white will produce mostly white Young. Color is just a coat of paint Quality is the goal.


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## ryan (Mar 17, 2008)

yeah i thought i would have been wrong but thanks a lot for all the replies.


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