Oxford Democrat., 1919-04-15
Inheritance of Coat Color.

The question OF inheritance Of coat
color In dairy cattle has been the object
of the studies of many breeders and
students of heredity without unanimity
of results. The necessity Of such exact
studies is forcefully brought home when
the fancy stock raiser breeds his care
fully selected black bull to his choice
black COW and red offspring results.
He cannot lose his reputation. The calf
10 disposed of, the sire and dam sent to
the butcher. But why this lossP Is the
fact that animals we're pure bred any
guaranty that 1t should not have hap
pened? Cannot an animal be black and
bred black for generations and still carry
d? The answer Is yes. For data are
now at hand in the first generation
crost es and few second generation of
.pripg of the cross.bred herd at the
Maine Agricultural Experiment Station
10 answer such questions. The matings
and the resulting offspring are shown
iabled below. In this tabulation, as ID
commonly praeticed in all animal breed.
ing work, the male animal is given first
and the female second. The results of
the crosses of pure bred black males
with pure bred black, fswn and red fe-
males are given in the first three lines.
The fourth line gives the results from
CT ossing a pure bred fawn male with
pure bred black female. In the fifth
line are shown the results obtained BY
crossing by brid black male (produoed
by crossing pure bred black male and
pure bred fawn female) with q pure
bred fawn female. And the sixth line
shows the results obtained by crossing
a hybrid black male and hybrid black
female, both of which were produced BY
crossing pure bred black male and
pure bred lawn female. The color OF
the coat, in every case, as given is the
ground color without regard to the white
markings.
l.. Behavior in inheritance Of the general
mating:
Black with black.
Black with fawp.
Black with red.
Fawn with black,
First hybrid black carrying fawn with
fswp.
First by brid black carrying fawn.
Body colors OF cattle coats.
Color of resulting offspring:
10 black.
20 black, brindle.
/ black.
s black.
8 black, / dark fawn, l red fawn.
3 black, 2 blue blacks.
The conclusions from these figures are
clear cut. Black is dominant TO the
other color in the first generation crosses
Il pure bred cattle where one member of
The cross is black. In the second gener
alton reappearauce OF the other colors
occurs. Thus the blacks carrying fawn
in the above matings produced blacks
20 Q fawn in one case and blacks to 2
blue blacks in the other. This reap
pearance of coat color shows that the
colors of fawn depend on separately in
herited materials transmitted IN sepa-
rate way without blending with the
black of the first hybrid (black) Cross
bred animal. The appearance of the red
fawn in place of the lighter cream fawn
of its Guernsey parent establishes tne
1ropping out of factor normally pres
ent in the make up of the Guernsey coat.
The brown brindle animal is of great
interest In view of the literature on the
subject AZ II shows the presence OF the
black factor in the coat of this type TO-
pether with brindling hereditary unit.
The blue blacks indicate the bringing In
of hereditary unit combinations from the
first generation animals to dilute the
coat Of these second generation offspring.
These studies, as has been stated In
previous letter of this series, are made
possible by the cooperative arrangement
between the Station and the College OF
Agriculture of the University Of Maine
|-Chas. D. Woods, Director.