Zebra Genetics

Virdilak · Post by **Virdilak** » Mon Aug 13, 2007 10:39 am

Several months ago, I heard about a zebra finch at the local animal shelter I used to volunteer at. Since my zebra was being picked on, I decided to adopt the bird to help it out and help out poor Jack. They hit off right away and have since bred and raised a family.

Jack is a normal, standard zebra - Chloe is, as best as I can determine, a chestnut-flanked white. All of the babies (three males, one female) are in full adult feather and show as normal greys. By this, I assume that the CFW coloration is a recessive trait. My question is, how recessive is it? Is there a chance that it would show up if I bred one of the offspring with another non-normal (but also non CFW) zebra? What about with another normal grey?

Gunnar · Post by **Gunnar** » Tue Aug 14, 2007 10:58 pm

CFW is sex linked recessive. This means that if the mother is CFW all of her male offspring (all 3 males)will carry the trait. So any of them can produce CFW Females in future pairings with any normal grey hen. In fact statistically half of his female babies should be CFW. If one of these new male babies that you have is paired with a CFW hen then half of his male and female offspring will be CFW. The other half (Grey Males produced) will carry the gene like their father.
Does this help? Or just make it more confusing?
Gunnar