Question

A rooster with blue (actually gray) feathers is mated wiht a a hen of the same phenotype. Among their offsrping, 15 chicks ar eblue, 6 are black, and 8 are white.

a. What is the simplest explanation for the inheritance of these collors in chickens?
b. What offsptring would you predict from the mating of a gray rooster and a black hen?

Answer 1

a) Incomplete dominance is the simplest explanation for inheritance.

b) If a black hen and grey rooster were to mate, 50 percent ( half ) of the offsprings would be gray and the remaining ( half ) 50 percent would be black.

Step-by-step explanation:

a) The best explanation for the variation in offspring between the hen and rooster is that they were both heterozygous, with gray being the dominant allele. After fertilization between the genes, some of the offsprings will be dominant for the recessive gene and therefore black or white.

b) 3 colors of offspring are possible, and gray color is intermediate between black and white,this is a case of incomplete dominance (the gray parents were both heterozygous). If a gray (Cc) andblack (CC) chicken mated, the offspring could only be black or gray.