Classifications

• • A—HUMAN NECESSITIES
  • A01—AGRICULTURE; FORESTRY; ANIMAL HUSBANDRY; HUNTING; TRAPPING; FISHING
  • A01K—ANIMAL HUSBANDRY; AVICULTURE; APICULTURE; PISCICULTURE; FISHING; REARING OR BREEDING ANIMALS, NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR; NEW BREEDS OF ANIMALS
  • A01K67/00—Rearing or breeding animals, not otherwise provided for; New or modified breeds of animals
  • A01K67/027—New or modified breeds of vertebrates
• • A—HUMAN NECESSITIES
  • A01—AGRICULTURE; FORESTRY; ANIMAL HUSBANDRY; HUNTING; TRAPPING; FISHING
  • A01K—ANIMAL HUSBANDRY; AVICULTURE; APICULTURE; PISCICULTURE; FISHING; REARING OR BREEDING ANIMALS, NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR; NEW BREEDS OF ANIMALS
  • A01K45/00—Other aviculture appliances, e.g. devices for determining whether a bird is about to lay

Definitions

• the present invention relates to a method of rapidly determining the gender of fowl.
• the present invention further relates to a new breed of turkey.
• the invention further realtes to DNA molecules which regulate the expression of color in the down in the new breed of turkey.
• the present invention relates to a method of rapidly determining the gender of fowl.
• the present invention relates to a new breed of turkey, designated as Gender-specific Fading Down (GFD).
• GFD Gender-specific Fading Down
• the gender of a poult is determined by visual or mechanical examination of its genital region (commonly referred as its cloaca or vent) shortly after hatch.
• the examination is typically accomplished by a specially-trained human being with or without the aid of a mechanical sensor. While commercially acceptable, several problems arise from this method of determining gender. First, it is not absolutely accurate: male poults can be misidentified as female poults.
• the process of examination requires extensive physical manipulation of the poult, including modest pressure on the bowel to express feces from the lower digestive tract, spreading of the legs to view the genital region, and finger-tip manipulation of the genital region itself to make identifying characteristics visible.
• the present invention is a new breed of turkey, designated as Gender-specific Fading Down (GFD).
• GFD breed of turkey contains a genetic mutation which suppresses the genetic effect of the White gene in the poult, but not in the adult.
• Newly hatched poults of GFD parentage have gender-specific colored down. Male poults have black down while female poults have brown down. This color difference facilitates rapid, accurate separation of poults by gender.
• the suppressive action of the genetic mutation fades, and the colored down is replaced by white plumage. At commercially relevant ages, the turkeys are completely white. The fading characteristic of this mutation is paramount in the production of desirable white turkeys.
• the present invention relates to a method of rapidly determining the gender of fowl.
• the present invention further relates to a new breed of turkey.
• the present invention relates to a method of rapidly determining the gender of fowl.
• the present invention further relates to a new breed of turkey.
• the gender of a poult is determined by visual or mechanical examination of its genital region (commonly referred as its cloaca or vent) shortly after hatch.
• the examination is typically accomplished by a specially-trained human being with or without the aid of a mechanical sensor. While commercially acceptable, several problems arise from this method of determining gender. First, it is not absolutely accurate: male poults can be misidentified as female poults.
• the process of examination requires extensive physical manipulation of the poult, including modest pressure on the bowel to express feces from the lower digestive tract, spreading of the legs to view the genital region, and finger-tip manipulation of the genital region itself to make identifying characteristics visible.
• One object of the present invention is to provide a method of determining the gender of a poult without examination of its genital region. Another object of the invention is to provide a more rapid method of separating male and female poults. Still another object of the present invention is to provide a new breed of turkey that produces poults that can be separated without examination of the genital region. A further object of the invention is to provide a less expensive method of separating male and female poults.
• the new breed of turkey of the present invention is designated as Gender-specific Fading Down (GFD).
• GFD breed of turkey contains a unique genetic mutation which suppresses the masking or epistatic effect of the recessive White gene and permits the expression of hidden or cryptomeric color genes.
• Newly hatch poults of GFD parentage have colored down. The colored down is progressively replaced by white plumage such that by commercially- relevant ages the turkey is completely white.
• the color of the down is linked to the gender of the poult: male poults have different colored down than that of female poults. The difference in color enables inexperienced personnel to rapidly separate male and female poults and completely eliminates the need for examination of the genital region.
• a male-line is bred for its physical characteristics that result in rapid development of muscle and hence provide large quantities of meat. Male characteristics are highly heritable and will be passed on to subsequent generations.
• a female-line is bred for prolificacy; i.e. lays larger numbers of fertile, hatchable eggs. Primary breeders provide to the market male-line toms and female-line hens, which when bred produce large numbers of eggs that hatch to yield rapidly growing poults.
• a male-line is bred for its physical characteristics that result in rapid development of muscle and hence provide large quantities of meat. Male characteristics are highly heritable and will be passed on to subsequent generations.
• a female-line is bred for prolificacy; i.e. lays larger numbers of fertile, hatchable eggs. Primary breeders provide to the market male-line toms and female-line hens, which when bred produce large numbers of eggs that hatch to yield rapidly growing poults.
• the genetic basis for gender-specific colored down in offspring of GFD sires is illustrated in Figure 1.
• Auburn is a genetic recessive, gender- linked condition, commonly denoted by e. Please note that in avian species, males are homogametic while in mammals females are homogametic.
• Auburn feathered toms are homozygous for the Auburn allele, ee, while auburn females are hemizygous, e- (where the "-" designates the absence of a functional allele).
• the dominant condition is referred to as non-auburn and is denote, E.
• Non-auburn toms can be EE or Ee, while non-auburn hens must be E-.
• GFD toms are genetically auburn, but are phenotypically white because of the duel action of the two Fading genes.
• Commercial white -feathered hens are genetically non-aubum.
• a cross between GFD toms and commercial hens would yield male poults with black down (Ee) and female poults with auburn down (e-).
• the interactive, suppressive effects of the Fading Down genes on the White gene would be lost as the birds mature and the poults of this cross would be uniformly white at commercially- relevant ages.
• the GFD breed and the BUT 78 breed are congenic for the Fading Down genes and auburn color genes. That is they are genetically identical except for those three genes and any passenger genes that have not been removed from the population by repeated back-crossing. It is likely that there is less than 1 % genetic polymorphism between these two breeds.
• SSR simple-sequence repeat
• PCR polymerase chain reaction
• a partial-length cDNA clone both Gender-specific Fading Down genes are identified using a [32P]-labelled synthetic oligonucleotide probe.
• the initial clone is retrieved by DNA amplification using the PCR with synthetic oligonucleotide primers.
• the resulting amplification products are ligted into plasmid vectors such as pCR-II (Invitrogen), transformed into competent Escherichia coli (E. coli) cells, colony-purified and propagated by growth of the resulting transformed cells in liquid culture.
• the plasmid DNA's are purified from the cells and the nucleotide sequence of the clones are determined.
• the complete cDNA sequnece of the Gender-specific Fading Down genes and corresponding amino acid sequences are determined.

Landscapes

• Life Sciences & Earth Sciences (AREA)
• Environmental Sciences (AREA)
• Animal Husbandry (AREA)
• Biodiversity & Conservation Biology (AREA)
• Animal Behavior & Ethology (AREA)
• Zoology (AREA)
• Birds (AREA)
• Measuring Or Testing Involving Enzymes Or Micro-Organisms (AREA)
• Investigating Or Analysing Biological Materials (AREA)

Applications Claiming Priority (5)

Publications (2)

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Family Applications (1)

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Citations (1)

• 1996
  • 1996-11-25 EP EP96941433A patent/EP0866653A4/de not_active Withdrawn
  • 1996-11-25 WO PCT/US1996/018713 patent/WO1997019588A1/en not_active Application Discontinuation
  • 1996-11-25 CA CA 2239050 patent/CA2239050A1/en not_active Abandoned

Patent Citations (1)

Non-Patent Citations (2)

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