Inheritance of the barred plumage pattern of the Silver Campine Fowl, together with its relationship to other patterned fowl

Abstract

1. An investigation was conducted among the progeny from a cross between a Silver Campine male and a Silver Spangled Hamburgh bantam female into the inheritance of the autosomal transverse barring of the Campine. 2. Both parental breeds possess the marble chickdown phenotype which has been shown to depend upon homozygosity of 3 genes; the birchen allele E*R at the E-locus, the eumelanin restrictor DB*B and the feather pattern arranging gene PG*P whilst the spangled feather pattern of the Silver Spangled Hamburgh has been attributed to homozygosity of E*R, DB*B, ML*M and PG*P, where ML*M is the eumelanin extension melanotic. 3. Examination in F and F generations of both chickdowns and adult plumage demonstrate that of the 4 1 2 loci, segregation occurs only for ML*M and hence the genotype of the Silver Campine to be homozygous E*R, DB*B, ML*N and PG*P. 4. The relationships between the genotypes of the Campine and those of other breeds with autosomal transversely barred plumage and between the Campine and those of other patterned fowl based on the E*R allele are discussed and presented in tabular form. In addition patterned fowl based on alleles other than E*R at the E-locus are included in order to demonstrate the effect of substituting E*R.