"Pennellate" fulve su fondo nero

Grazie for the translations Carlo, Marco and Saviera :-)

Start with knowing all colorations in or chickens consist out of ONLY 2 color-pigments, Black-pigment (eumelanin) and Red-pigment (pheomelanin) and the absence of these two (we see as white).

I try to give my point of view in this. As I explained in my genetic-page to start understand what genetic color-gens are doing (acting and interacting) you always need to consider these 4 genes entwined, if not we will always missing the point.
These 4 genes are situated on the E-locus, S-locus, Ml-locus and Mh-locus (locus is the place where the genes are situated on the chromosome-line)
All the other "color-genes" you could call only are supplements with a certain action.

First I show the difference between a "Columbian" and "Quail" pattern in the Antwerp Baardkriel.
Buff Columbian Antwerp Baardkriel Quail Antwerp Baardkriel


The difference between the 2 cocks I posted is the first one is a "Buff Columbia" the second is a "Quail Columbia".
The only difference with these 2 cocks and the cock of Saviera is the one of Saviera is "Red" these 2 I posted here are "Buff".

Genetically the "Columbia" and the "Quail" (as well the Buff as the Red) are very close in genoom (genetic-formule).
We can discus on which mutation of the E-locus these cocks have there ground-color, there are 3 possibillities e+/e+ - eb/eb - eWh/eWh even a mixture of these 3 are possible e+/eb - e+/eWh - eb/eWh . It not make really a difference for what I want to let you see .
So we agree in the example I give they are "eWh/eWh".

Now we look the genoom of the 4 phenotypical colorations of these cocks
Buff Columbian : eWh/eWh s+/s+ Mh/Mh or Mh/mh+ ml+/ml+ Co/Co or Co/co+ Di/Di or Di/di+
Red Columbian : eWh/eWh s+/s+ Mh/Mh or Mh/mh+ ml+/ml+ Co/Co or Co/co+ di+/di+
Buff Quail : eWh/eWh s+/s+ Mh/Mh or Mh/mh+ Ml/Ml or Ml/ml+ Co/Co or Co+co+ Di/Di or Di/di+
Red Quail : eWh/eWh s+/s+ Mh/Mh or Mh/mh+ Ml/Ml or Ml/ml+ Co/Co or Co/co+ di+/di+

As you can see it are always the same genes that are involved in these 4 colorations (it is always about the same action and interaction between these genes that make the phenotype less or more different).

What we remark here ?
-the Red not have the "Di"-gene (=diluter of red-pigment) as the Buff have.
-the Columbian not have the "Ml"-gene (=intensifier of black-pigment) as the Quail have.

Now we can come to the point and to the question Saviera asked .
A completely Black cock with green shine and NO gold or dark red on the wingbows (so also no violet shine) have this genoom : E/E s+/s+ Ml/Ml mh+/mh+
The Black cock of Saviera with green shine that show dark red on the wingbows could have this genoom : E/E s+/s+ Ml/ml+ Mh/Mh or Mh/mh+
So because of "Ml/ml+" (only one black-pigment reinforcing allel Melanotic instead of two) the gold reinforced by the Mahagony allel(es) can come to the surface.

Why this suddenly can happen I try to explaine here :

Now if you breed always "Pure Black" X "Pure Black" you get always "Pure Black"
OR it should be that one of the parents was NOT completely pure !!
Than when the genes come together in a certain way (because a chick get always one allel of a gene from the father and one allel of the same gene of the mother to become again a gene with 2 allels, ex. Ml/Ml become Ml/ml+) than we can become suddenly a different outcome in one of the offsprings.
OR it should be that one of the Pure parents got unexpected visit of an other coloration of the opposit sexe and than of course we can get a completely different outcome in several of the offsprings.

Now you can understand why it is so very important to understand the basics of the acting and interacting of the color-genes so it become very easy to calculate what happened when you see one of the offspring different colored or you can even calculate in front what will be the outcome of the offspring when you do a color-cross with a certain reason.


When you not understand from the first time, read it again a little bit later and even several times but you will see you will understand the working of the genes eventually. (I needed several months because also I started from "niente" ;-)