Before Reading Vocabulary:
Co-dominant: It is a relationship between two genes in which neither gene masks the other. They are both expressed. (Ex: Red and Blue are co-dominant, one is not dominant over the other, instead, when mixed, you get purple.)
Heterozygous: When you have one copy of a gene. (Ex: You have one dollop of red paint, and one dollop of blue.)
Homozygous: When you have two copies of a gene. (Ex: you have two dollops of blue paint.)
Intro
BBS (blue, black, splash) genetics, are probably some of these easiest genes to understand, and extremely popular in the chicken community.
There are multiple patterns that involve BBS, for example;
- BBS Lemon
- Brown Red
- Lemon Blue
- Lemon Splash
- BBS Wheaten
- Wheaten
- Blue Wheaten
- Splash Wheaten
- And just good ol’ BBS
- Blue
- Black
- Splash
You may have heard people refer to BBS orpingtons, or BBS Ameraucanas, and wonder what that means. Or, you knew what it meant, but wondered why people said BBS, instead of "blue," "black," or "splash." Why are they all squashed in one category? They look vastly different (mostly) after all.
Well the reason is they all are involved with the same set of genes. Bl, and bl+. They are both Co-Dominant. This means that one is not dominant over the other. When you have a bird with both genes, you get a sort of mix between the two.
Bl means blue. it is a dilute gene.
When homozygous, it dilutes black to splash, and when heterozygous it dilutes black to blue.
Bl/Bl = Splash
Bl/bl+ = Blue
bl+/bl+ = black
Homozygous blue dilution genes is splash.
If you breed these birds together, you can really have some fun.
Blue x Blue = 25% splash, 50% blue, 25% black
Blue x black= 50% black, 50% blue
Blue x splash =50% blue, 50% splash
Black x black = 100% black
black x splash = 100% blue
splash x splash = 100% splash
