Color genetics

[mariaricarto]

If I put a white ram on black, spotted ewes what color will the offspring be? Does the ram have to be colored to produce colored babies from white ewes?

[jerryf]

The color white "covers up" the other colors. Your ram could carry a black or brown or spotted gene. If he carries a color gene, about 50% of his lambs will be white---Covering up the ewe's color and 50% of them will be the color gene he carries. To be spotted a sheep must have 2 spotted genes. So your spotted ewe can have a white lamb (from your white ram) that carries one spotted gene. If you have a ram carrying a spotted gene and a ewe carrying a spotted gene..theoretically they should have a spotted lambs 1 time in 4........but its seems to be more like 1 in 8.......as both genes have to "match up"

See Shaltz Farm Shetland color genetics.......color genetics is not specific to one breed so the info will be correct no matter what breed you have.

http://www.shaltzfarm.com/shetcolgen.html

Jerry Fletcher
Shetland sheep in spotted, modified colors and solid colors
http://fletcherthreeoaks.blogspot.com/

My spotted ram lamb "Brewster"

[LibertyWool]

I raise Costwold and Romney crosses. I have dominate black from my Romenys, which allows me to breed a white ram to a black ewe and get black lambs more often than not. Jerryf is right, white is normally dominate, but there is also a dominate black gene (shows as Ed). The link Jerryf gave is on the Sheltand Colors, but there is another link that talks about dominate black:

http://www.shaltzfarm.com/shcolgen.html

[sheepish]

This is what I learned from a couple of ovine genetics texts my daughter used for a project years ago.

Colour is located on 2 different pairs of genes. The interplay of dominance is tricky, but can be predicted over a large enough sample of lambs. (This was the premise of her regional championship project where she correctly predicted the colour of our entire crop one year.)

Pattern is located separately. Even a white animal can carry pattern genes that will express if the necessary colour is present in the offspring. Pattern is quite reliably reproduced, if the colour is there.