Tupping season is fast approaching. If you want to use the cards in the book for planning your breeding groups but don't like the thought of cutting up the book:
Assuming no previous knowledge, the book uses a game of cards to visualise the rules that govern colour genetics, introducing terminology on the way. What are genes and alleles? What is the phenotype of a sheep? What the genotype? The reader is introduced to agouti-pattern, base colour, and spotting and strategies are shown to identifiy them in the reader's own flock. This knowledge is expanded to show how it can be used to plan breeding for certain colours. More genes that influence colour are introduced later in the book and thought is given to preserving diversity within a breed while strategically increasing the presence of desirable traits in a flock.
The book focuses on practical aspects. How to identify genotypes? Which animals should be used for test breeding? How can the knowledge be used for individual goals?
Written by a molecular biologist and science communicator and co-written by a professional editor of scientific textbooks - both of them breeders of coloured sheep - this book uses an easily understandable approach to explaining colour genetics.
Here they are as a pdf download for you to print out
If you landed on this page while searching google for books on sheep colour genetics:
You can get it here:
ebook version
Please note that there is an ebook version that sometimes gets hidden by amazon's way of displaying the results. Click on the hardcover book and look for different formats. That's where the kindle/ebook version usualy hides. Also note: the book uses a lot of coloured pictures and graphics so reading on a kindle device (black and white) doesn't make sense. If you use the kindle app on your phone of tablet you get it in colour.
Coloured Sheep: a colour genetics primer
Some skill, some luck and lots of fun: sheep colour genetics is like a game of cards! This book explains the rules of the game.
Assuming no previous knowledge, the book uses a game of cards to visualise the rules that govern colour genetics, introducing terminology on the way. What are genes and alleles? What is the phenotype of a sheep? What the genotype? The reader is introduced to agouti-pattern, base colour, and spotting and strategies are shown to identifiy them in the reader's own flock. This knowledge is expanded to show how it can be used to plan breeding for certain colours. More genes that influence colour are introduced later in the book and thought is given to preserving diversity within a breed while strategically increasing the presence of desirable traits in a flock.
The book focuses on practical aspects. How to identify genotypes? Which animals should be used for test breeding? How can the knowledge be used for individual goals?
Written by a molecular biologist and science communicator and co-written by a professional editor of scientific textbooks - both of them breeders of coloured sheep - this book uses an easily understandable approach to explaining colour genetics.
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| coloured sheep: a colour genetics primer |
