[Jacob-list] Re: Jacob crosses

[Neal and Louise Grose]

Ariel Marshall said:
"We had a black spotted Jacob that carried
> "lilac" that was bred to 2 different Katahdin rams, a father and son.
>  The first ram, a fawn spotted pied, sired a black (white blaze, sox
> & tail tip) and a solid white with the Jacob.  The second ram was a
> chocolate agouti; the lambs from this cross were a solid agouti and a
> white with a small amount of agouti spotting. "

This just goes to show that there is more than one type of genotype for
"lilac". Our results here from test crossing lilac Jacob to both homozygous
white sheep and a moorit Shetland have only produced black or piebald
black&white lambs. The cross to homozygous dominant white proves that we
have a dominant black gene in the Jacob, and we see a 50/50 ratio of black
and white offspring in the back cross to the white side of the family. The
moorit is the least dominant gene, and would allow the expression of any
other allele, yet we got only the black.

Rather than being absent, the black gene is present in these lilacs, and is
concealed by two lilac alleles. Our options are:
a) We have different "lilac" genotypes.
b) We have different dominant black genotypes.

Neal Grose



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "A. Marshall and J. Noles" <marshallandnoles at yahoo.com>
To: <jacob-list at jacobsheep.com>
Sent: Wednesday, December 15, 2004 11:01 AM
Subject: [Jacob-list] Re: Jacob crosses