What is locking genes?
Lock the genes is a phrase often use in gamefowl breeding.Like many other gamefowl breeding terms, lock genes is an inaccuracy. Locked genes is a genetic improbability. How do you lock genes? But anyway, in gamefowl breeding we use the term to mean to maintain the genetic composition of a generation.
For example you have a 50-50 cross between a hatch line and a grey line users of the term says that you lock the genes by mating a brother and a sister out of this mating. True enough the resulting proportion of the offspring’s blood is still 50-50 hatch and grey. Voila! The genes are locked. Is that so? Or what is locked is just the 50-50 proportion of the bloodline names involved?
The genetic composition or the entire genotype is not locked. Take for instance the inbreeding co-efficient of a full sibling mating which is 25% means that it is estimated that the offspring of said brother-sister mating possess 25% identical genes by descent. Take note that only 25%. The 75% are not identical by descent, so how can they call locked genes?
The idea of cloning excellent individuals by the so-called lock the genes misnomer is just not viable. It is a product of lack of understanding of the science on how genes are inherited. Breeding full brother to sister will ony maintain the proportion of the bloodline names, not the entire characteristics or even just most of the characteristics.
Locking the genes is one of the many inaccurate terms in gamefowl breeding, nonetheless, we use the term to mean maintaining the genetic composition, most of the time, in preparation to setting a new strain or breed. It is understandable because in gamefowl breeding we measure purity by bloodline names. A mating between two members of a particular hatch family is a pure of this particular hatch bloodline.For example mating a Travis Clark Kelso to another Travis Clark Kelso is a pure Travis Clark Kelso. Of course measuring purity by bloodline names is wrong, but this is what most are doing or it is their understanding.
In genetics it is called inbreeding for the purpose of making many genes in the line homozygous. If the good traits are homozygous then 100% of the times these traits will be passed onto the next generation. In genetics purity is measured by homozygosity of genes in simple traits and preponderance of desirables in polygenic and quantitative traits.
Again sorry, but there is no such thing as locking the genes.
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