Essential Genetics for the Terrified
by Chris Rutt

Introduction

I travel around the UK quite a lot giving illustrated talks about Lovebirds, and over the years have often been asked to go into detail on the colour expectations of various pairings. It is certainly much easier to plan our breeding program if we have a basic understanding of genetics.

However, many fanciers admit to having no prior knowledge of the subject and though many members are very interested, rarely does time permit more than the most superficial answer to specific questions, and some of these members have asked me to produce some help for them. I have therefore prepared a short series of articles on the subject which I hope will help members come to terms with the subject. Do not be scared of it. Anyone who is prepared to read the articles should be able to understand them. I will take everything in short stages, and all long words will be thoroughly explained when they first occur, and if space permits, these explanations will be repeated occasionally through the series.

Some fundamental questions and answers first:

Q. What is genetics?
A. The study of how characteristics found in parents are passed on to later generations.

Q. How will understanding genetics help me?
A. It will help you to produce particular mutations in the fewest possible pairings, and to understand why two identical birds can produce a large variety of colours in their chicks and therefore understand the make up of the parents, and perhaps deduce their pedigree.

Q. Why are such long words used?
A. To save space! A so called "scientific" word (such as "genetics"), like any other, has a definition in a dictionary which may be a sentence or more in length. Providing all users agree to the definition, use of this initially unfamiliar word saves a great deal of time when the particular concept often comes up in a particular circumstance. Don't fret about their pronunciation - they sound like they look.

Q. How accurate is the science of genetics?
A. For the purposes of the average bird breeder, very accurate IF WE REMEMBER THAT ANY FORECAST OF THE OUTCOME OF A PARTICULAR PAIRING MADE ASSUMES VERY LARGE NUMBERS OF OFFSPRING, and that there are other processes at work beyond the BASIC genetics I am attempting to cover in these articles. If forced to quantify the accuracy, I would say that given 50 chicks from a particular pair the forecast outcome for any ONE particular characteristic would be around 90% right, and often more accurate. Do remember though that we are always dealing with average probabilities, and frequently with more than one characteristic.

Q. If I still don't understand after several readings, what can I do?
A.
WRITE TO ME, and I will prepare a follow up article dealing with the problems encountered.

Part1: A Beginning

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