HigginsRAT wrote:Uh yah...now that we finally cleared out all the hangups you been told. Genetics IS SIMPLE, the KISS principle, seven year old kids get this...sure sure we could muck with your mind, and complicate this for you...but why? There is no boogie boogie boogie man here to jump out and tell you the little letters and a bitta math is going to be difficult. Try ABC and 123...it is easy if the foundations are solid that you start with, that you bite off little bits, try to keep it at about 15 minutes of new stuff...the brain OD's on too much information. Be kind to yourself and crawl, walk, then run...remember, we do not bounce no more, we break, so be gentle to thyself Grasshopper (and watch out for dem turkeys out thar, ready ever to gobble you up!).
Go to my website, Tales from Rat World, got some very good genetic info there, kids version and adult version...read both.
GENETICS
14 Teaching Colour Genetics with Easter Eggs & LEGO Blocks
15 Kid’s Genetic Terminology
16 Genetic Term Glossary
17 Turkey Colour Genetics
18 Poultry Plumage Pigment
19 Colour Genetics as it Pertains to Canines
Suggest the first three, 14 15 16, 17 needs work--this version is way too simple--WIP and it has become a HUGE document now, but that is a WHOLE other project I gotta get thru maybe this winter...18 is good and 19 would be boring unless you got dogs you wanna see about. Liisa is a wonderbar lady, colour genetics discussions where her are just amazing! She is into all sorts of species and floors you with her dabblings! Somebody to aspire to mirror!
Speaking of dogs...when I went from the dogs heavily into playing with the birds more (me wanted to learn MORE), about 8 years ago, I left many of the ACD canine crowd with some colour genetics info, but not alot. I just presumed they were going along as I was with the birds...amassing knowledge, trying to get better and better. Sad part, couple months back, one came to me and actually was using the terminology RED (not a"y" or e/e) and BLUE (not a"t" or K) as the colour genetic terminology for the two recognized colour varieties in the breed.. They had actually stood completely STILL for eight years, never progressed, never did nothing to enlighten themselves regarding colour genetics in canines. The kids that took my canine colour genetics presentations knew more about terminology in the Australian Cattle Dog than these breeders...breeders with decades of dog breeding experience.
Note, within the poultry exhibition crowd, I was told by a fellow in the States just this year, that maybe, maybe 5 to 10 percent know much about genetics in poultry. That to me is so very sad. There is just a ton of answers to just so many issues we birders have in those little letters if we would only FRIEND them! TONS of help and to deprive ourselves of that knowledge is just criminal, to us and the birds. If we can easily fix not yellow legs, and Cushion Combs and all the other ISSUES, why would we deny ourselves those tickets to freedom. So much fear envelopes people...you hear someone say, "Oh I had this colour pop out of my Whites...must be a cross bred!"...oh good gosh! NO!! The fear stems from the unknown.
CynthiaM, you go look at all the colours UNDER our whitest of white exhibition bantam Wyandottes...just amazing the colourful patterns and such hidden under a proper White. Some will look at that and figure, "Oh now she has ruined her Whites!"...No, now I know all the components my Whites have, I understand what makes White, ah um ah, WHITE! Not a simple colour, complex when you do NOT want leaky black and leaky reds. To know a topic, you need to tear it down to the base and build it back up, brick by brick and learn, if I forget this one step, so what happens.
I wish you could come play Lego (nfi) blocks and plushy ducks with us on Dec 10th...the thing about teaching colour genetics in this fashion, the playing with finger paints to discover why Blue dilution makes blue, that mixing paint is far more enlightening in how colour genetics work than many people know. That a Punnett Square is of huge help in understanding predictions for breeding expectations (don't guess, do the Punnett and keep doing them until you can do them in your sleep), that it is merely a game matrix no more complicated than a game of tic tac toe. That these are predictions and the roll of the dice each time is a new shot at the expectations...tossing of a coin, heads 300 times in a row is a little far fetched, but it could happen. Hatch lots of chicks and spend exorbitant amounts of time looking and holding your birds....they will teach you more than anyone can.
You should have seen my eyes pop out when I discovered two of my Chant bantam projects were Brockbars--Red Barred/Cuckoos! My eyeballs (oh my eyes
) near fell out on the ground. Coopers and Nuthatch, go see Sig's page 141!
Most of all enjoy and share. The fancy can be as complicated or as simple as you want to make it.
You will and can learn a few new tricks, old dog...can't leap as well or as high but we old birds got a few "tricks" up our sleeves. Dump the persona that to understand the little letter language you gotta be some kinda genius, you just gotta want it bad enough to learn a little math (oh my head hurts, here's an aspirin), a few little letters (think in terms of shorthand, the little and big letters are abbreviations that will save the typo fingees a bit of work in the future)--like baking a great Christmas pudding. Place all the necessary ingredients in the pens, mix it up, (shake 'n) bake it and--proof is in the pudding?? ...NOPE proof is in the eating of that said pudding...nummers--egger quiché or meat pies!
You are a really keen fancier that wants to breed up good birds, make improvements and have a really well stocked toolkit. Armed and dangerous (but only to ourselves), don the safety glasses, scary bird bird hat, Kelvar undies, pack yer purse, flap the cape and away! Captain Colour Wizard, Gizzard, gulp and gosh...AWAY!!
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. And yes, VikingSue, welcome to our forum!! SkippySue, love your new nickname, smiling that big smile.
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... Wicked wicked EVIL woman of mischievous smiles--smiling lady leading lambs off to slaughter...well at least I feel OK...baaaaa baaaa!! Nice lady with the smile and a cleaver held behind her back!! 
, beautiful days, CynthiaM.