Phenotype-Genotype questions

[sikwate2]

Materials data:

Brood Cock - 3 years
Leg: white legged
Color: brown-red

Brood Hen - 1 year
Leg : green
Color: black

I crossed a red-brown brood-cock to my black brood-hen.
the off-springs were 4 chicks and 3 of them are green-legged blacks and the 1 is white legged red.

My question is if the phenotype of the black chicks came from the brood-hen, does that mean the genotype of the chick is surely inherited from the brood-cock?

Any help would do.

[bob152]

genotype is its genes. phenotype is how it looks.

White legged brown red- tells me its a cross. true brownred will have dark legs.
black hen with green legs - guessing a cross on this one too and a black hen usually has blue or black legs.

black/brownred is dominant over red wheatons and red duckwings. the three black chicks prove this. The red chick proves both parents are crosses because it didn't receive a brownred gene from either parent and the hidden pattern appeared.

[sikwate2]

thanks for the reply.

Yes they are crossed.

still, you think the fighting style of the Brood-cock is passed (bh fighting style lesser) on the black chicks than the red one (red chick)?

maybe i need some more inputs.

[Butch93]

this is where are the arguments and differances of opinions start lol. now if he is a prepotent cock then he may pass his genes better but being a cross the chance of him being prepotent is less but not impossible same goes for the hen. to me this is why people try and set strain and inbred families so that there broodfowl pass the desired traits that they want. seeing that both parents are crosses and not from set families then there going to be all over the map more than likely. doesnt mean u wont get good fowl or fowl like u want but chances are the offspring probably will all he differant and who knows how close to the parrents they will be.
yfis
mark

[sikwate2]

Originally Posted by Butch93

this is where are the arguments and differances of opinions start lol. now if he is a prepotent cock then he may pass his genes better but being a cross the chance of him being prepotent is less but not impossible same goes for the hen. to me this is why people try and set strain and inbred families so that there broodfowl pass the desired traits that they want. seeing that both parents are crosses and not from set families then there going to be all over the map more than likely. doesnt mean u wont get good fowl or fowl like u want but chances are the offspring probably will all he differant and who knows how close to the parrents they will be.
yfis
mark

I have read on a book that we can lock a certain strain (bro - sister breeding). do you mean that my broodcock's strain must be locked first before I start using the particular family to the my basis of my future fowls? I mean is that the reason why bloodlines should be locked so the offsprings will not be as far as the whole line's traits and styles?

see im happy with the traits of the BC im using right now and i also have the sisters of it as well as some of its batch.

well anyway thank you for the thoughts. its turning out to be more complicated as what i expected.

[Skidoo]

I think you need to lock the strain through selection, You need to select the phenotype you are breeding for and then cull any offspring that do not conform, you then breed these offspring and when ALL of their offspring conform to a chosen phenotype the line is 'set'
Warning: I'm not an expert and this is an over simplified definition, as posted above you need to breed in order to discover what genes are hidden, as even though progeny may be phenotypically desirable it doesn't mean they aren't carrying recessive genes, bro-sis mating is a way to discover these recessive genes by producing double recessive offspring.
Repeat Warning: my experience is with reptiles and tropical fish do this may not all apply to poultry, but genes are genes. Hope this helped

[Skidoo]

PS: genetics is not complicated, it's VERY complicated especially when you are trying to select for multiple traits which may or may not be gene linked, maybe try and find some books on line breeding for others species or look at line breeding for colour, it may simplify it a bit for you.

[Butch93]

i think people try and way over complicate this and its not as difficult as people try and make it. in my opinion the hen throws the stags and the sire will throw in some traits as well but if u like the dad id breed him back to his mother or even sister to produce fowl closer to him. Every single chicken is a cross bit the differance between a strain/family or a cross is the traits are set/fixed. now u cross two families the traits are no longer set and the gene pool is wide open. the crossed rooster may be carring alot of recessive genes that u dont know bout. a family can as well but over time they get less and less. Not all great pit cocks make great brood cocks and thats a fact. all u can do is breed him and see what his offsping come out like but the hen is more important to me and plays a bigger role in set and maintaining a family. people inbred to set traits and outcross to mix traits that complament each other in hopes of making the perfect pit cock. there many differant ways in ideas on how to do all this and everyone is an expert or believes sh!t they've read all i can say is put 2 chickens together and see what happens. theres no substitute for life experiance and the rest are just theories and ideas written on paper.
yfis
mark

[Outlaw greys]

Exactly i know an older fellow who wouldnt have any idea of anything you just ask but when he heels one up you know it he breeds winners to get winners thats all that matters to him

[Sentenciador]

I just watched the DVD of "Secretariat", the thoroughbred horse. Did some online research and I found out his heart muscle was 2 1/2 times the size of a normal horse.

That's genotype.

His phenotype was chestnut color.

[reli]

This is what I have thought of the following:

Genotype - the genetic makeup of an organism, as opposed to its physical characteristics phenotype.

Phenotype - the visible characteristics of an organism resulting from the interaction between its genetic makeup and the environment.

[Darkside]

i did a 4 way cross before and none of them were inbred and i got all kinds of offsprings lol.....here a question...if i wanted a line that i could no longer get ahold of and all i have is a 2way cross left of that strain... is it possible that, the genotype i want like the strain that i cant no longer get ahold off...will appear in one of the offsprings when bred, and cock and hen are not inbred? just curious if this was possible...

[Skidoo]

Not really, as you only have one half of the genes (cock or hen). You could recreate the phenotype but not the genotype, you may get so close that there is no real difference, but you can't get exact.
I think you would have to breed the offspring back to the parent to get close but if even one the traits you are after is sex-linked and you don't have the right brood stock you wont be able to recreate the line.

[Skidoo]

Also why are you so worried about inbreeding?

[Grillo]

I look at it as a dice shoot when you make a breeding, and its a dice shoot every single trait. Now having a set line or inbred bird is like having a dice that is all 6, or all 2, etc... So when you make the breeding (roll the dice) what you going to get out of that shoot? Well, all 6 everytime or all 2, etc... Now if getting a 7 is a winner, then you get a dice that has all 4 and another one that is all 3 and what do you get every single throw? 7, 7, 7. Now a cross or scatterbred fowl is like having a regular dice with numbers 1-6, then you breed to another scatterbred and well you gonna get all kind of numbers from 2 to 12 and you never know which is which LOL.

Having a set family is more about purifying the good traits and breeding out the bad stuff, so when you roll the dice (breed) you know what you going to get.

[gaff]

Originally Posted by sikwate2

I have read on a book that we can lock a certain strain (bro - sister breeding). do you mean that my broodcock's strain must be locked first before I start using the particular family to the my basis of my future fowls? I mean is that the reason why bloodlines should be locked so the offsprings will not be as far as the whole line's traits and styles?

see im happy with the traits of the BC im using right now and i also have the sisters of it as well as some of its batch.

well anyway thank you for the thoughts. its turning out to be more complicated as what i expected.

What's the books title, if I may ask?

[unico]

There has been a long standing school of thought on inheritance following a sort of criss-cross pattern...the male offspring inherits more of the motherside genes and the females more of the fatherside genes...which is probably why a lot o fbreeders refuse to let go of their pullets/hens due to the idea that these females carry the "TALENT" or should I say the treasured genetic influence of the father (broodcock) they came from...then again, there is that idea that the mother usually passes on something like 70% of the genes onto any offspring.

It does get a little more complex if we factor in the influence of PREPOTENCY which is the measure of either parent to pass on its good...or bad traits to the offspring regardless if he is inbred or a product of a cross. On one hand it is believed that a certain degree of inbreeding (linebreeding included)does influence the power of prepotency

[Skidoo]

Could someone tell me if chickens have the same method of sex determination that humans do? I mean we have the x and y chromosome, women have two x chromosome while men have an x and y pair, the y chromosome is physically much smaller than the x and functions more like a set of switches that alter the way the x chromo is expressed, it doesn't carry a lot of unique information.
If there is a qualified geneticist on here he's gonna spank me for that explanation, but it could explain the phenomena above, as the hen carries all the important information, the cocks genes just tell the hens to behave differently?
I hope that makes some sense to someone, I need to dig out my book on poultry genetics, and give some more solid explanation

[Grillo]

It's similar, but in this case it is the hen that determines the sex of the offspring. Chickens have chromosome Z and this is the ones that determines sex. It takes a pair of Z chromosomes to make a rooster, a single one will be a hen. cocks are said to be ZZ, and hens Zz (lower case z signals the absence, there really is no lowe case z chromosome). So why does that hen determine sex? Because when they breed, the hen will pass to some her only Z chromosome and to others it will pass nothing. The ones that receive the Z chromosome will be cocks, the ones get nothing will be hens. cocks when they breed will always pass the Z chromosome because they have two.

The Z chromosome contains the primary genes for feather and leg color, that's why the daughter always take their leg and feather color from the father. The son will be a mix of both.

[Skidoo]

There is a genetic abnormality in humans, the exact name eludes me atm, but it is where a female ends up with three x chromosomes instead of two, as a result they become super women, the best example of this is the butch blonde chick from one of the 1980's Bond movies, anyway it sounds like a rooster is a 'super-hen'. Does the second z chromosome alter the expression of the first or does the chinatown of the two produce unique expression of the gene?

[Skidoo]

Not Chinatown, I meant combination. Damned auto spell on my dumb-phone

[Butch93]

Originally Posted by Grillo

It's similar, but in this case it is the hen that determines the sex of the offspring. Chickens have chromosome Z and this is the ones that determines sex. It takes a pair of Z chromosomes to make a rooster, a single one will be a hen. cocks are said to be ZZ, and hens Zz (lower case z signals the absence, there really is no lowe case z chromosome). So why does that hen determine sex? Because when they breed, the hen will pass to some her only Z chromosome and to others it will pass nothing. The ones that receive the Z chromosome will be cocks, the ones get nothing will be hens. cocks when they breed will always pass the Z chromosome because they have two.

The Z chromosome contains the primary genes for feather and leg color, that's why the daughter always take their leg and feather color from the father. The son will be a mix of both.

i here what your saying but the feather color in my experiance isnt always that cut and dry. i bred 2 chet families together this year. the father was from a black breasted red and the whole family is and the hens family comes redquill color. when i breed the fathers family they throw all blonde chics and the mothers family throws all brownred looking chics. well when bred together all the chics came redquill color, no blonde chics or black breasted reds at all. i also have had this when i breed my black families all the offspring are black so i dont think the feather color is all that cut and dry and that doesnt include mutaions like blues.
Now understanding how genetics is a good thing when breeding but people are starting to way over think things. We as breeders can only see phenotype and the genotype is always a mistery. people make claims that there birds are more pure than others but in reality we dont know. all we can do is breed a family towards the phenotype we want and when we have birds come mostly uniform thats all we can do. there will always be small variation and differances in all families. we cant do a dna test so we will never know truely how uniform our fowl are till we can do that. now if u breed a single pair and line breed or b-s mate u can cut done the number of of variances in a family but u wont raise many fowl every year. ive just always felt the more simple u can keep things the better it will be. u get all crazy with this genetics and u will over think it and drive your self crazy chasing a unicorn. biggest thing to remember every time u add outside blood to "improve" or "freshen" a line up u change the genetics forever. this is why u raise seed stock and pit fowl. they are 2 differant things and breeding pit fowl is like putting a puzzle together in my opinion. u take 2 or 3 families with set traits and breed them together and hope that the desired traits are passed on to produce your super pit fowl. there are many philosophies in breeding u just have to find what works for u.
yfis
mark

[Skidoo]

Good points there.
The cases we have talked about have been best case scenarios and as you pointed out, you could take two near identical parents and through random segregation, crossing over and mutation there will always be variation across generations.
The situation of the red quill and black breasted red may not be such a clear cut case, yet the results seemed to be consistent, so it is unlikely to be a case of crossing over or random segregation (which could produce wildly unexpected results) instead I think it is a case of incomplete or co-dominance where rather than have one trait dominate over the other, the two chromosomes blend to create a third variation.
It is possible to infer the genotype from repeated breedings and carefully recording your results, but it is very time consuming and could be better resolved by forking out the $$$'s for private genotyping (not affordable for most). Personally I find the time spent trying to understand genetics a very rewarding part of keeping and breeding animals and I may be chasing a unicorn but the fun is in the chase not the capture.
Due to my inexperience with gamefowl, I'm finding this thread to be great as I can finally contribute something to the forum

[Grillo]

Well pointed out Butch, that's why I said "primary genes" This holds for red and grey, but when you go to brownred, redquill, black you are talking about other genes which may not be sex linked. These are what I believe they call "modifiers" Most birds are basically red or grey fowl, but then you add the modifiers and you get all kinds of colors, like blue, redquills, brownred, lets not forget dominant and recessive white. Solid black, etc ... most of these I do not know how they work or if they are sex linked. For example I believe brownred and redquill are not really colors but a "Pattern" that modifies the basic color. A red bird that comes with the brownred pattern, will throw you your brownbrested red cock. A grey one will be the "black grey" If you look at these two they both have the same pattern, just switching red for grey and of course a pigment modification making both red and grey darker. It's similar for the red quills. The dominant white for example is a modifier gene that "masks" the basic color making the bird white, but when the cock is not homozigous for the modifier, some of his offspring will be red. There's a lot of stuff I don't really know how all of them work and their interactions LOL.

[Grillo]

Originally Posted by Butch93

i here what your saying but the feather color in my experiance isnt always that cut and dry. i bred 2 chet families together this year. the father was from a black breasted red and the whole family is and the hens family comes redquill color. when i breed the fathers family they throw all blonde chics and the mothers family throws all brownred looking chics. well when bred together all the chics came redquill color, no blonde chics or black breasted reds at all. i also have had this when i breed my black families all the offspring are black so i dont think the feather color is all that cut and dry and that doesnt include mutaions like blues.
Now understanding how genetics is a good thing when breeding but people are starting to way over think things. We as breeders can only see phenotype and the genotype is always a mistery. people make claims that there birds are more pure than others but in reality we dont know. all we can do is breed a family towards the phenotype we want and when we have birds come mostly uniform thats all we can do. there will always be small variation and differances in all families. we cant do a dna test so we will never know truely how uniform our fowl are till we can do that. now if u breed a single pair and line breed or b-s mate u can cut done the number of of variances in a family but u wont raise many fowl every year. ive just always felt the more simple u can keep things the better it will be. u get all crazy with this genetics and u will over think it and drive your self crazy chasing a unicorn. biggest thing to remember every time u add outside blood to "improve" or "freshen" a line up u change the genetics forever. this is why u raise seed stock and pit fowl. they are 2 differant things and breeding pit fowl is like putting a puzzle together in my opinion. u take 2 or 3 families with set traits and breed them together and hope that the desired traits are passed on to produce your super pit fowl. there are many philosophies in breeding u just have to find what works for u.
yfis
mark

And yes butch, if you go too deep into the genetics, well its fun if you like it, but you will be banging your head too!! Common sense goes a long way. And you don't have to be a geneticist to breed a strong family.

[Butch93]

Originally Posted by Grillo

And yes butch, if you go too deep into the genetics, well its fun if you like it, but you will be banging your head too!! Common sense goes a long way. And you don't have to be a geneticist to breed a strong family.

you got it right there Grillo "common sense goes a long way" ive taken many genetics classes and have a basic understanding but in chickens i think people go a little over board. fact is we have know idea what our birds genotype is so theres no way we can know how homozygous a bird or family is and all claims on how pure and homozygous there fowl are is strictly based on observation of the phenotype and some math formula somebody use but they fail to mention or accept they are dealing with 2 unknown genotypes so they really dont know what they have. to top that off we dont know what recessive genes may be benificial and if they are truely bred out we may cause more damage than good. you can see these examples in people with tay-sachs and cycal cell. if u carry one recessive gene u are imune to taburculosis or malaria in these examples but if u inherite 2 recessive genes u would get these deseases. so for the majority these recessive genes are good and only bad for a couple. so if u breed out all recessive genes in fowl are u really creating a better fowl? my guess would be no and u may cause more damage in the long run just because u were chasing the phenotype u desired. i think we all want families that throw simular fowl with slight variations but as close to standard for the breed as possible and that will pass these desired traits when bred. also theres a differance between seed stock and pit fowl. some families are specialists and bred for a single trait or style to breed into pit fowl and other families are bred to compete just the way they are. some people for example like to breed a smart good cutting birds to an aggressive power family to produce a well rounded pit bird. now neither family is that good on there own but crossed gets u into the 80% win column that u want. some like breeding this way and others will refuse to breed a family that cant stand on there own and will breed a single family and always try to improve it. nothing wrong with either way but they are differant philosophies just like to inbreed or not. some guys feel u need to tightly breed to maintain the desired traits they want were others will only breed winners or just fowl with the desired traits they want without ever inbreeding.
yfis
mark

[Mike Everett]

Originally Posted by Butch93

you got it right there Grillo "common sense goes a long way" ive taken many genetics classes and have a basic understanding but in chickens i think people go a little over board. fact is we have know idea what our birds genotype is so theres no way we can know how homozygous a bird or family is and all claims on how pure and homozygous there fowl are is strictly based on observation of the phenotype and some math formula somebody use but they fail to mention or accept they are dealing with 2 unknown genotypes so they really dont know what they have. to top that off we dont know what recessive genes may be benificial and if they are truely bred out we may cause more damage than good. you can see these examples in people with tay-sachs and cycal cell. if u carry one recessive gene u are imune to taburculosis or malaria in these examples but if u inherite 2 recessive genes u would get these deseases. so for the majority these recessive genes are good and only bad for a couple. so if u breed out all recessive genes in fowl are u really creating a better fowl? my guess would be no and u may cause more damage in the long run just because u were chasing the phenotype u desired. i think we all want families that throw simular fowl with slight variations but as close to standard for the breed as possible and that will pass these desired traits when bred. also theres a differance between seed stock and pit fowl. some families are specialists and bred for a single trait or style to breed into pit fowl and other families are bred to compete just the way they are. some people for example like to breed a smart good cutting birds to an aggressive power family to produce a well rounded pit bird. now neither family is that good on there own but crossed gets u into the 80% win column that u want. some like breeding this way and others will refuse to breed a family that cant stand on there own and will breed a single family and always try to improve it. nothing wrong with either way but they are differant philosophies just like to inbreed or not. some guys feel u need to tightly breed to maintain the desired traits they want were others will only breed winners or just fowl with the desired traits they want without ever inbreeding.
yfis
mark

Exactly...couldn't have stated it better myself.....LOL

[Mike Everett]

Originally Posted by Skidoo

There is a genetic abnormality in humans, the exact name eludes me atm, but it is where a female ends up with three x chromosomes instead of two, as a result they become super women, the best example of this is the butch blonde chick from one of the 1980's Bond movies, anyway it sounds like a rooster is a 'super-hen'. Does the second z chromosome alter the expression of the first or does the chinatown of the two produce unique expression of the gene?

I think in humans, the superwoman with the 3rd chromosome has something to do with testosterone production, also they are infertile, they don't have the internal reproductive system of normal females.

[Skidoo]

I'm pretty sure the abnormality is called trisomy or something like that, I was just using it as an example to highlight chromosome interactions and how 3 'female' genes can create a more masculine female.

[Darkside]

Originally Posted by Grillo

I look at it as a dice shoot when you make a breeding, and its a dice shoot every single trait. Now having a set line or inbred bird is like having a dice that is all 6, or all 2, etc... So when you make the breeding (roll the dice) what you going to get out of that shoot? Well, all 6 everytime or all 2, etc... Now if getting a 7 is a winner, then you get a dice that has all 4 and another one that is all 3 and what do you get every single throw? 7, 7, 7. Now a cross or scatterbred fowl is like having a regular dice with numbers 1-6, then you breed to another scatterbred and well you gonna get all kind of numbers from 2 to 12 and you never know which is which LOL.

Having a set family is more about purifying the good traits and breeding out the bad stuff, so when you roll the dice (breed) you know what you going to get.

skid i about the inbreeding what he said lol..very well said lol thanks sir grillo...