black ram + silver ewe = white lamb?

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How likely is that? The silver ewe, a Rambouillet, gave birth to two white lambs this week, one ram lamb and one ewe lamb. The sire was a big black Rambouillet.

Another silver ewe bred to the same ram gave birth to two jet-black ram lambs the week before.

Being new to sheep genetics, this amazed me.

-- brooklynsheep (robbins@informinc.org), April 24, 2002

Answers

Well, it's pretty likely, since it happened! Rambouillet are traditionally a white breed -- in order to produce a colored animal, some other genetics had to be added along the way. Apparently, the dominant white genetics of both parents combined to produce your set of twin white lambs. The other silver ewe may have carried the genes for black coat coloration.

If you want colored lambs from the silver ewe that produced the two white ones, you'll probably need a different ram. As it is, you can always put the white ram lamb in the freezer, and cross the white lamb with the other black ram -- that white lamb will probably have some black genetics from her sire....

Anyway, it's fun, huh?

Anita Evangelista

-- Anita Evangelista (evangel@atlascomm.net), April 24, 2002.


well since the rambouillet have white genes somewhere along the way...maybe the silver ewe is silver cause of black adn white genes (i don't know it's been a while since i studied genetics) and the lambs both got the white genes from both parents. sometimes black is dominant and sometimes black and white are codominant creating silver? i don't know if it depends on the breed or what. whatever. i really don't know much about what i'm talking about...heheh. i know we studient codominant feather genes in chickens... :P

-- C (punk_chicadee@yahoo.com), April 25, 2002.

sorry if this posted twice, i hit stop after i submitted this..heh.

well since the rambouillet have white genes somewhere along the way...maybe the silver ewe is silver cause of black adn white genes (i don't know it's been a while since i studied genetics) and the lambs both got the white genes from both parents. sometimes black is dominant and sometimes black and white are codominant creating silver? i don't know if it depends on the breed or what. whatever. i really don't know much about what i'm talking about...heheh. i know we studied codominant feather genes in chickens... :P

-- C (punk_chicadee@yahoo.com), April 25, 2002.


Hi!The ram must not have been dominate for black=BB, but Black with white=Bw. The ewe may have been sw(silver/white). Offspring color combos could have been: Bs (looks black, masks silver. Bw (looks black, masks white). ww (looks and is pure for white). sw (Guessing here, (silver maskes white.) I started breeding Budgies several years ago, LOT's of colors to play around with! 8-)

-- Mona Jensen (keypenjones@centurytel.net), April 25, 2002.

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