Icelandic Sheep Coloring
Color Genetics in Icelandic Sheep by Susan Briggs Introduction I thought I had a pretty good "handle" on Icelandic sheep genetics after poring over Stefania Sveinbjarnardottr-Dignum"s article and info sheets for hours. And I certainly thought I understood it after having studied Stefan Adal Steinssons' exhaustive 135. The appearance of your sheep is made up of options of color, pattern, and spotting.
Note: The letters and numbers given below are the code "shorthand" used to indicate color/pattern/spotting of the sheep at registration. They are derived from Adelsteinsson's pioneer work on the inheritance of color and pattern in Icelandic sheep. Icelandic sheep have two base colors - black and brown; brown is also called moorit.
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Moorit can range from honey-brown to dark-chocolate, according to the Icelandic Sheep Breeders of North America. The base color is one of three parts of the coding system the association requires breeders to use when registering sheep. At Sunrise Sheep & Wool we have been studying the genetics of colors and patterns in Icelandic sheep for the past few years.
To aid us in our breeding program, we have prepared the following keys to the sometimes confusing world of genetic codes. Brent Nelson is the genetic specialist on our farm, who prepared these keys, and who finds the world of Icelandic genetics to be fascinating. In.
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Sheep Color Genetics References The next best reference is the landmark study published by the Journal of Agricultural Research in Iceland, Colour Inheritance in Icelandic Sheep and Relation Between Colour, Fertility, and Fertilization, by Dr Stefan Adalsteinsson. The colors of Icelandic sheep are inherited in a similar way to those of other sheep, but they display more variety in color and pattern than most other breeds, and some variations are seen which are not seen in other sheep. Each sheep carries three genes that affect the color of the sheep, and each gene has dominant and recessive alleles.
[citation needed]. Although you can look over a field of Icelandic sheep and see an apparently infinite range of colours, the genetics which determine which colour a sheep will be are quite straightforward. There are only two colours, black or moorit (brown).
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Black is the dominant colour, so a black sheep may carry two black genes, or one black and one moorit. A moorit sheep will be carrying two recessive moorit. There are three factors that influence the fleece color in Icelandic Sheep.
They are (B) The Basic Color gene, (A) The Pattern Gene and (S) The Spotting Gene. All Icelandic sheep inherit 1 gene for each factor from each parent, receiving 6 in total. The colors of Icelandic sheep are inherited in a similar way to those of other sheep, but they display more variety in color and pattern than most other breeds, and there are some variations not seen in other sheep.
Each sheep carries three genes that affect the color of the sheep, and for each gene, there are dominant and recessive alleles. Each lamb will receive one allele from each parent. The Icelandic sheep belongs to the Northern European Short-tailed group of sheep.
The leader sheep posessing the qualities of the Icelandic type, do not exist anywhere else in the world.
