Blue Butt

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BIOS
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Blue Butt

Post by BIOS » Mon Feb 25, 2008 10:40 pm

Can someone tell me when you cross a Pure York and a Pure Hamp what color will the pigs be? Will you get the whole litter blue butts, or is there a chance of a hamp looking pig, or a pure white one?
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Post by RingMaster » Tue Feb 26, 2008 1:43 am

Personally, have never seen a pure white hog out of crossing these two breeds. If I had to guess, expect 3/4 blue butts, usually get 1 or 2 hamp colored pigs out of a litter
I show purebreds...therefore I am of higher social status than you.

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Post by Piggy » Tue Feb 26, 2008 12:26 pm

If both breeds are pure you will NEVER get hamp colored pigs, white is dominate over black, some will be blue, most will be white, maybe some dark spots. good luck

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Post by BIOS » Tue Feb 26, 2008 1:17 pm

This is why I ask, some say one thing and others say something else.
We had a pure hamp that was bred to a pure york and she had 13 pigs, and four of them were hamp to black in color. The rest all white bodied with blue markings.
We were wondering which pig wasnt pure since we got so many black ones.
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Post by RobsShowHogs » Tue Feb 26, 2008 1:43 pm

The york is the one who wasn't pure. White is dominant over black, so if you ended up with black ones, the hamp was carrying that gene.
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Post by BIOS » Tue Feb 26, 2008 1:59 pm

We also AI'd a pure york gilt of ours to the same york boar and of course all white pigs, since white is dominant! Is that correct? or could there have been a blue dot somewhere? If indeed the York boar had a black carrier, then our york litter would all carry the black line, correct?
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Post by ter » Tue Feb 26, 2008 3:21 pm

BIOS: said
[quote:89c4b856be]If indeed the York boar had a black carrier, then our york litter would all carry the black line, correct?[/quote]

No, this is not correct. I'll explain, Traits are controlled by genes, and genes have different forms which are known as alleles. For example; the gene for coat color can have two alleles. One white allele and one black allele. In higher organisms such as pigs there are two alleles on each chromosome pair. So, one of each of the above alleles (black, white) can be found on a chromosome pair. Meaning the animal can carry both the color black and the color white. An example of this would be your boar who carries both the gene for black and the gene for white.

Dominant genes mask or cover the presence of recessive genes. Capital letters are used to designate dominant genes. A recessive gene is one that is over ridden by a dominat gene. For a recessive trait to appear (phenotypically) the animal must be homozygous ( have two of the same gene- one on each chromosome) for that characteistic to appear.

If you bred a PURE york to your non pure york this is what you will see

Pure York: White: WW
Cross Boar: WB : white/black

W........ B
____________
l...WW...l...WB...l.... W
l______l_______l
l...WW...l...WB...l
l______l ______L....W

So you will have half the litter that will be carriers of the black gene and the other half will only carry the genotype for the color white. Also, to clarify, BOTH white and black are dominant traits. That is why you get blue butts in the first place, due to codominance or incomplete dominance which is a blending of traits which causes the color roan/ blue.

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Post by ter » Tue Feb 26, 2008 3:40 pm

After re-reading what I wrote I thought I might need to explain a little more on why you get a totally white pig at times and one that is a blue butt with a York/ Hamp cross. The reason is that, as previously stated, a york carries the gene for white on two alleles. Due to a genetic mutation of the KIT gene one of these white alleles is fully dominant, which is the result of a splice mutation. The other white allele is only partially dominant due to a duplication of the KIT gene, which effects gene expression. So, if you breed a hamp to a york and the york passes on the white allele that is only partially dominant you will get a blue butt due to incomplete dominance. If the york passes on the allele that is fully dominant you will get an all white pig. If you have any more questions or need more clarification let me know and I'll try to help.

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Post by BIOS » Tue Feb 26, 2008 4:27 pm

TER

So what you are saying in short is that a pure hamp gilt bred to a pure york boar, I should not be getting any black, or hamp looking pigs? Correct?

Where should I start looking for problems? The york boar or my Hamp gilt?
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Post by Darin » Tue Feb 26, 2008 7:27 pm

If you get black from a pure york x pure hamp, you have a non-pure york. Doesn't mean that your hamp was pure either, but the proof in this case is against the york.
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Post by ter » Tue Feb 26, 2008 8:55 pm

Darin is correct. Just because you get a black pig from a hamp/york cross does not mean that the hamp is pure. The reason the proof is against the york not being pure in this case is because a phenotype ( outward apperance) of white can also carry a dominant black gene, but it is impossible for a phenotypically black pig to carry a white gene since the white gene would have to be expressed in the coat color in some way. Either the pig is all white or it is a blue butt or has some sort of roan color pigmentations here and there for it to carry a white allele (gene). Since your hampshires outward apperance is black it does not carry the white gene, but it could still possibly carry a recessive red. The only way to see if your hamp gilt is pure would be to breed her to a PURE duroc. If you get a red pig or any that have some sort of red pigmentation then your gilt is not pure either.

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Post by KID » Thu Feb 28, 2008 11:10 pm

Ter (showpig specialist), I find this very interesting and would like to read more on the genetics of color on pigs. Do you have any resources you would recommend?

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Post by ter » Sat Mar 01, 2008 9:18 pm

There are a few articles or websites that I can direct you to. Some of them will be very user friendly and easy to comprehend and others will be the exact opposite. I'll give you both and you can decide what you want to look at and not.

Some good articles to look at would be the following;

[i:e24ade4ec8]The Inheritance of Coat Color In Swine[/i:e24ade4ec8] by H.O Hetzer

He has studied and made about 6 or 7 articles on the subject with explainations of different breed crosses and what you will get. There are two problems with the articles he has written.
1) you have to pay money to get them/see them
2) if you do not have a very good understanding of genetics they will be very VERY confusing. Unfortunately, these articles are not broken down in lamen terms for the general public to be able to understand.


Jounral: Mammalian Genome
ISSN: 0938-8990 (Print) 1432-1777 (Online)
Authors: M. Johansson Moller1, R. Chaudhary1, E. Hellm?n2, B. H?yheim3, B. Chowdhary1, L. Andersson1


Here is a link to the abstract of the article: http://www.springerlink.com/content/tt7j1v5qhwjcpwxg/

Here is a site that talks about the same thing: http://omia.angis.org.au/retrieve.shtml?pid=2192

These article talks about the white coat color in swine and how the KIT mutation accounts for it. (not user friendly)

This website give a general overview of genes, alleles, dominant and recessive genes, etc.

http://cast.csufresno.edu/agedweb/core/clf254.txt

This website explains coat color in swine very well, but could be confusing and hard to read. (it wasnt written for the general public) But you can look through it and still get a lot of useful information if you take the time to read it and look up anything you get stuck on. http://www.genetics.org/cgi/content/full/150/3/1177#R15

I hope these links and references help you out. I wish there were more articles written that are broken down so that everyone could easily understand them, but unfortunately, these articles are very few and far between. If you get decide to read them and get stuck on something shoot me a PM and i'll try to help you out.

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