The Inheritance of Shank Color in Chickens.

Several publications in recent years have given conflicting reports upon the inheritance of shank color. Yellow shank color has been reported to be inherited in a simple Mendelian fashion, the sex-linked gene for yellow shank color ( U ) being dominant to its allele (y) , the gene for blue shank color. In contrast to this, the gene for yellow shank color has been reported to be autosomal, the recessive gene (w) designating yellow shanks and the dominant gene (W) representing white shanks. Obviously, these two assumptions are in disagreement. Still another hypothesis is that yellow shanks carry a dominant sex-linked inhibiting gene for dark shank color (D), while dark shanks lack this inhibitor (d). In other words, the following situation prevails: