I found a good explanation of English blue in an article on Gotland sheep, English blue is co-dominate with katmoget, gulmoget, and gray agouti gene. The parents each contribute a gene for color and a gene for pattern so the possibilities are endless.
My neighbor starts lambing in May.......if there is a promising polled Icelandic ram lamb will get him .I will find a stocky well built ram and then look at the color. Every color and pattern will be available, as she has 50 ewes lambing bred to White, Black and a Spotted ram, Alot of the ewes having the agouti gene so have "pastel" coloring
Til later
Jerry
No decking of halls
1 week ago
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Jerry did you not get my email stating all of this to you?
Remember all English Blue BFLs are homozygous for it Aeb/Aeb. They can only produce Aeb lambs (and black at that, as there are no moorits in longwools). They can be Aeb/Ag, Aeb/At, Aeb/Ab (English Blue/Ag, Engligh Blue/Katmoget, English Blue/Gulmoget, but you won't just get the shetland marking alone, as no BFLs to date have the Aa allele.
I had two more mules born this morning from Flopsy. Both boys, Both English Blue (and carry Aa and moorit from their mom)
Hi Jerry,
I don't know about the Icelandics and their color genetics. But I can speak from 15 years of experience with the Bluefaced Leicester's and their natural color (black in the UK) version. Funny the Brit's don't call it 'english blue' that is a term coined by the Australian's.
My purebred flock of Bluefaced Leicesters, will normally produce 25% colored without trying.
Unlike some other USA flocks, mine do not have crossbred genetics of Wensleydale, Romney, Romanov, etc.. added. Just 'traditional' Bluefaced Leicester. When I put a colored to a colored it always equals 100% colored lambs. This is out of over 100 natural colored BFL's born here at Beechtree. I do however see shades in the natural colored, from silver saddles, to pewter, to a very dark charcoal. Also, they don't fade to light silver or washed out whites, even in the 7+ year old Colored BFL's. Now when you start throwing in different breeds and all their color patterns, then it is a whole different ballgame.
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