# Inherited genes



## wildcat hunter (Jan 17, 2014)

I'm talking about racing pigeons now. I have a question regarding using of some birds. I notice some will go through their birds and dispose of the "weak, poorly developed, etc. My question is; the bird inherited its parents genes so why can't they be bred from and produce a quality bird ? After all its got the genes from the sire and dam that were good birds or otherwise you would not breed from them - right ? The eggs could be put under foster parents if need be. Whats with the sellers of birds saying they go through the birds and will not sell a bird they would not want ? Why not, they have the parents genes. 
I've read the cock and the hen each give 1/2 to the babies. The hen gets hers from her sire and the cock gets his from his sire and his dams sire - true ? 
Is disposing of a weak youngster because it would not perform well, I could understand that but it should still breed quality young because it carries the parents genes. 
Another question; Take the sire, He passes one of his chromosomes to the young bird OR are the genes from both chromosomes "mixed up" and a portion from each one is passed on ? As for the hen is the "X" chromosome passed on "whole" or are the genes mixed up with something ? I know the "Y" is blank or very small, could genes from the Y " mix with the genes from the "X" chromosome ?


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## Symbro (Oct 28, 2005)

genes in birds work much the same as humans. Each parent giving one of each of their paired chromosomes.

There are some odd things with pigeons though. For example, a hen only has one color gene since the other is actually the hen gene. the simplest pair to talk about is a red hen paired to a blue cock. since blue is recessive, this means the cock is blue blue. the hen is red * (* is often used to talk about the non color gene that makes it a hen.)

so only talking about color. the cock can ONLY pass on blue. the hen can pass on red or *.

so what are our possibilities? Red blue, Red *
the first is a cock who appears red but is ressisive blue he can pass down later
the second is a hen who is red.

color has nothing to do with patterns. the only other color is brown (super rare and recessive to blue). Any other colors are other genes affecting the appearance of the three possible colors.

Furthermore, colors and patterns have NOTHING to do with racing ability. Though i should say that if you have one red bird in a flock of blues... guess who the hawk is going to go after.


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## IndianFantail (Apr 7, 2019)

*About genetics and inheritance*

Wildcat hunter, regarding your question about inheritance and chromosomes the female has a z and w chromosome and the male has two z chromosomes. the w only means female, the z chromosome contains genes about colour and other features. Each bird gets one chromosome from each parent so if it gets zw it will be female and it will get a w from its mum which contains no other information other than to be female so all the genetic info will come from it's dad. I made a video all about this; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSP9j2q6sk4 Hope this helps


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## thbaig1 (Sep 3, 2012)

Hi,
Can you repost the youtueb url ? it is not available


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## Ladygrey (Dec 10, 2016)

A young bird needs time to see how he will perform. 
I have heard of birds coming into their prime at a few years of age.


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