Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
tility, wellness, and creation of a clean and stress-free environment. Of these, the ever-
present effort is to properly feed your breeders.
Good Food = Fertility
The breeding season diet is very important. You can't rely on the feeds given at other
times of the year. A laying ration does not provide all of the trace vitamins and essential
nutrients that a breeding ration includes. A breeder feed usually has a higher concentra-
tion of vitamin E and methionine, to name a couple.
A plastic or metal leg band works well but requires regular checking as the bird grows.
GENETICS TERMINOLOGY
Some knowledge of common genetic terms can be helpful when trying to understand
the process.
A
homozygous
genetic trait is the same from both parents.
Heterozygous
means there is a gene for each expression of the trait. Heterozygous
describes a bird that displays a rose comb but actually has an
allele
(a form of gene)
for both rose comb and single comb.
The term for what the genes dictate is
genotype. Phenotype
is the term for what
we see. A rose-comb bird that produces single-comb and rose-comb offspring is het-
erozygous for the trait of comb type.
Select back
means to go through several generations of offspring and continue to
search out the ones closest to the proper type.
Pedigree
is a documented lineage of parents.
