Has anyone seen any markers for het ultramel? TIA
Not really. Markers can only be trusted when you already know that something is 100% Het. In the same clutch I’ve had 100% het pieds with and without belly tracks. One of my normal het pied females doesn’t have them either. I have 0.2 Spider Het Ultras and 1.0 Pin Het Ultra and they look exactly like you’d expect a single gene spider or pin to look.
2 Likes
Genetically speaking there are no visual indicators for recessive hets. Many believe you can tell the difference but scientifically speaking it’s not correct.
4 Likes
Actually, a friend of mine produced some 50% possible het ultramels several years ago. He asked me to look at them to determine which ones to keep and we both noticed an odd belly pattern on several hatchlings that matches the male used in the breeding. The three females he kept have all proven to be hets. I don’t know if there is any correlation or not but it was definitely something we both made a note of.
2 Likes
As Shawn notes, recessive traits, by definition, cannot have “markers” because having markers would constitute as a distinct het phenotype and thereby classify as an incomplete-dominant
.
.
.
This would be, as you note, a correlation but not necessarily a causation. To prove it is a direct cause of the Ultramel gene you would need to take two of those animals with the odd belly pattern and breed them to animals guaranteed to not carry Ultramel. Check those offspring for the belly trait. If the belly trait is present, take one animal displaying it from each of the clutches and breed them to animals guaranteed to not carry Ultramel. Check the offspring from those two clutches for the belly trait. If the belly trait is present, take one animal displaying it from each of the clutches and breed them to animals guaranteed to not carry Ultramel. Check the offspring from those two clutches for the belly trait. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. If the belly trait is present, take one animal displaying it from each of the clutches and breed them together. If the belly trait is directly caused by the presence of the Ultramel gene, then there is a 1:4 chance of producing a visual Ultramel. If the belly pattern is unrelated to the Ultramel gene then your odds of producing a visual after a cycle like this are vanishingly small.
Significantly shorter to execute would be to get a dozen unrelated Ultramels (or better yet, a mix of Ultramel, Crider, and VPI Burgundy) and breed them to animals guaranteed to not carry the Ultramel gene. If all of the offspring from all of those breedings produce the odd belly pattern, then that would likewise be a strong indicator it is directly related to the Ultramel gene being present
4 Likes