Explanation Of The Blue-Eyed Gene In Goats

In goats, blue eyes are a dominant trait. If a buck doesn't have blue eyes (even though his parents do), he does NOT "carry" the blue-eyed gene. He is no more likely to produce blue-eyed offspring than is a brown-eyed buck with no blue-eyed ancestor anywhere in the pedigree. One parent must have blue-eyes for the offspring to have a chance at being blue-eyed. The fact you can get brown-eyed offspring from two blue-eyed parents show that brown is recessive or the color that can be "carried". A carrier means that even though you can't see the trait, they can still produce that trait. Remember basic genetics. If the goat has two genes for the dominant trait (blue-eyes in this discussion), the goat will have the trait and all of its offspring will also have the trait. If the goat received one dominant gene and one recessive gene, it will have the dominant trait, blue-eyes, but each of its offspring will have a 50/50 shot on whether it gets the dominant (blue eyes) or recessive (brown eyes) gene. If theý get both recessive traits, brown-eyes, they will display that trait and will only pass on the recessive trait for that gene. If two blue-eyed parents produce a brown-eyed kid, you know both fall into the middle type (1 dominant and 1 recessive). Because to be brown-eyed you had to get that from each parent, all you have is the brown-eyed gene so despite the parents, the goat can only pass on what it has which is brown eye genes. Tom E. Rucker