# Question about blue eyes



## loveallgoats

Since I am new to ND and I have gotten some contradicting answers on this question, I would like to ask you guys. In order for a kid to be born with blue eyes does one of the parents need to have blue eyes? Or could it happen if neither of the parents have blue eyes but the grandparents had blue eyes? Just curious. Thanks


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## StaceyRosado

a parent has to have blue eyes expressed. THere are two forms of blue eyes - the cristal clear blue eyes and the marble blue (which can look brown in some lighting)


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## loveallgoats

Thank you!


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## KW Farms

Yep, what Stacey said...at least one parent has to have them. If you breed two blue eyed goats you are VERY likely to get ONLY blue eyed kids. Then if you breed a brown eyed with a blue eyed it is generally a 50/50 for blue eyed although you could get 100% blue eyed or brown eyed depending on the blue/brown eyed background of the parents.


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## StaceyRosado

there are two forms of blue eyed gene and one is 100% blue eyes (homogeneous I think it is) and the other is like a 50/50 chance (another H word I cant remember the spelling of)


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## SDK

heterozygous!


yay for bio!

but yes.. one must have blues


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## KW Farms

StaceyRoop said:


> (homogeneous I think it is)


It's homozygous :wink: Homozygous is dominant and heterozygous is recessive.


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## StaceyRosado

hehe see I knew I was close - but thanks I will try to remember the spelling but dont count on it LOL


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## ChestnutGrove

You must have one parent with blue-eyes to get a kid with blue-eyes. If you get a kid with blue-eyes out of two brown eyed parents - DNA as you had a buck jump the fence.

I know people think that you have a better chance of getting blue-eyes out of a goat with brown-eyes that had a blue-eyed parent but that is not true as the goat only has two brown-eyed genes and the only way to get blue-eyes is to bred to a blue-eyed goat.

Deidre :horse:


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## KW Farms

Yes you're correct you CANNOT get a blue eyed kid from two brown eyed parents...


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## ChestnutGrove

No you do not have a better chance. (sorry if I was confusing) Like my Lilly - her dam was brown-eyed and her sire was blue-eyed. Lilly is brown-eyed. The only gene she can pass on is brown. Which means when I bred her to a blue-eyed buck with one blue-eyed gene and one brown eyed gene I have a 50/50 chance of getting blue - just like her dam Splash and just like her granddam Mimic who had brown-eyes. Lilly was a twin to Lilac - Lilly had brown-eyes and Lilac had blue-eyes (sire Blue Diamond) - came out 50/50.

Our first Nigerian kids born where out of Gay-Mor's JJU Mimic (brown eyes out of brown eyed parents) sired by Gay-Mor's LR Blue Macaroon (blue-eyes - dam had brown eyes, sire had blue-eyes) - Which produced Princess Diana and Blue Diamond - both had blue-eyes. Just the luck of the draw and a flip of a coin. 

I have have not had a goat with a double blue-eyed gene (which means that all they can produce is blue-eyes). All my blue-eyed goats that I have kept have had one brown-eyed gene and one blue-eyed gene - you never know if you are going to get brown-eyed or blue-eyed - I think it is fun to see what colors and markings and eye color happens to pop out - that is why I loved the Alpines - you never know what you are going to get which makes it fun. (now I know I have a high chance of getting buckskins but sometimes I get black which is recessive - but that is a whole nother topic).

It is not raise the odds for a brown-eyed goat to have a blue-eyed parent (in all my years - it has been 50/50 after a matter of time - sometimes you are ahead in blue eyes and sometimes you are ahead in brown eyes - the way I feel it is just eyes and all the colors are lovely).

What I have noticed is the brown-eyed goats eyes tend to match the brown coat color which I think is pretty neat. Like Lilly as eyes that match her medium brown color and Mimic's eyes matched her darker bay color. But I am getting off topic sorry!

Deidre :horse:


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## KW Farms

http://members.cox.net/foxcroft/genetics.htm (toward the bottom)


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## capriola-nd

My head is spinning.  

Blue eyes and crazy colors are fun. . . the genetics part is verrry confusing! :scratch:


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## FunnyRiverFarm

I have quite a bit of experience with genetics and will try to break this down to make it easier to understand. 

The eye-color trait in Nigies involves 2 genes. One gene is inherited from the mother and the other gene is inherited from the father.

Even though every goat has 2 genes coding for eye color, only one gene is expressed (used to indicate eye color). The gene that is expressed is called the Dominant gene. In Nigerians, blue eyes are dominant. If the gene for blue eyes is present, it will always be the gene that is expressed (eyes will be blue). 

So, as has already been mentioned...in order for a Nigerian to have blue eyes, at least one parent has to have them BECAUSE if a parent is carrying the blue-eyed gene it will be expressed (it is the dominant gene) and that parent's eyes will be blue. 

However, having a blue-eyed parent...or even two blue eyed parents does not always guarantee that the kids eyes will be blue. That depends on which genes a kid inherits from its parents. Each parent has two genes (4 combined) and the kid will only inherit one gene from each parent (2 total). 

Since blue eyes are dominant and it only takes one blue-eyed gene to have a blue-eyed goat, a blue-eyed parent could also have the gene for brown eyes. You just don't know it's there because the brown-eyed gene is over-ridden by the dominant blue-eyed gene. The brown eyed gene is not expressed but it can still be passed on to the kids.

To illustrate the point, let's say that the captial letter “B” is the dominant gene for blue eyes and the lowercase letter “b” is the recessive gene for brown eyes. 

If a goat has the gene combination of: Bb, it is called heterozygous (it has two different genes for the same trait) This goat would have BLUE EYES but has a genes for brown eyes that it could pass on to its kids. 

If a goat has the gene combination of: BB, it is called homozygous dominant (has two of the same dominant genes for the same trait) This goat would have BLUE EYES and could only produce blue eyed kids no matter what other goat it was bred with. 

If a goat has a gene combination of: bb, it is called homozygous recessive (has two of the same recessive genes for the same trait) This goat would have BROWN EYES. A goat can only have brown eyes if it has this gene combination. 

If you bred two goats that were BOTH heterozygous (Bb with BLUE EYES) they could have kids with the following gene combinations: BB (blue eyes), Bb (blue eyes), or bb (brown eyes). Each kid would have a 75% chance of being BLUE EYED and a 25% chance of being BROWN EYED.

If you bred two goats, one heterozygous (Bb with BLUE EYES) and one homozygous dominant (BB with BLUE EYES) they could have kids with the following gene combinations: Bb (blue eyes) or BB (blue eye). 100% of kids from this breeding would have BLUE EYES.

If you bred two goats, one homozygous dominant (BB with BLUE EYES) and one homozygous recessive (bb with BROWN EYES) they could have kids have kids with following gene combination: Bb (blue eyes). 100% of kids from this breeding would have BLUE EYES. 

If you bred two goats that were BOTH homozygous dominant (BB with BLUE EYES), 100% of the kids would be BB with BLUE EYES. 

If you bred two goats that were both homozygous recessive (bb with BROWN EYES), 100% of the kids would be bb with BROWN EYES. 

There are also such things as “incomplete dominance” (accounts for different shades of blue) and “codominance” (accounts for such things as having one brown eye and one blue eye), but for simplicity's sake, I am not going to go in depth with these things. 

Hope this helps clear up some confusion.


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## liz

Absolutely makes it simpler! Thank you FRF :hug: 

My buck is from a BE buck and a brown eyed dam...he has brown eyes so his "genes" would be "bb" regardless of the fact that his sire is blue eyed. I know I cannot expect BE kids from him, so obviously his sire must have come from parents that either one was "Bb" and the other was "BB" or"bb" which is why my buck has brown eyes. And even if he was bred with a BE doe, he would not influence the chance of BE kids.


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## KW Farms

Thank you FunnyRiverFarm...this is exactly what i'm trying to get at....thanks for taking the time to get it all down in a easier way to understand!! :wink:


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## StaceyRosado

liz said:


> Absolutely makes it simpler! Thank you FRF :hug:
> 
> My buck is from a BE buck and a brown eyed dam...he has brown eyes so his "genes" would be "bb" regardless of the fact that his sire is blue eyed. I know I cannot expect BE kids from him, so obviously his sire must have come from parents that either one was "Bb" and the other was "BB" or"bb" which is why my buck has brown eyes. And even if he was bred with a BE doe, he would not influence the chance of BE kids.


Liz you are correct.

So my doe is it seems from a BB doe but the buck was bb so my do is Bb and she was bred to a buck that is either BB or Bb so we shall see what we get from that breeding


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## FunnyRiverFarm

liz said:


> Absolutely makes it simpler! Thank you FRF :hug:
> 
> My buck is from a BE buck and a brown eyed dam...he has brown eyes so his "genes" would be "bb" regardless of the fact that his sire is blue eyed. I know I cannot expect BE kids from him, so obviously his sire must have come from parents that either one was "Bb" and the other was "BB" or"bb" which is why my buck has brown eyes. And even if he was bred with a BE doe, he would not influence the chance of BE kids.


Glad to help! 

And you are right: your brown eyed buck (bb) could only have blue-eyed kids if he was bred to a blue-eyed doe. If she was Bb, the kids would have a 50% chance of having blue eyes. If she was BB, all of the kids would have blue eyes.

I am glad you mentioned that because I actually forgot to do a bb (with BROWN EYES) and Bb (with BLUE EYES) combination up above.


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## ChestnutGrove

http://members.cox.net/foxcroft/genetics.htm

Thank you for posting this site! I could not find it (lost all my links this year) - I think this site explains it the best - I also like her chart as it makes it easier to understand.

Deidre :horse:


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## Haviris

Aren't genetics fun?

I have one homozygous blue eyed buck, so far he has only been bred to brown eyed does, but he will always throw 100% blues. I had 3 blue eyed does I bred to brown eyed bucks this year, and ended up w/ 100%, 50%, and 0% blue eyes (each had twins). I knew two of the does were Bb, the other I wasn't sure since both parents were blue eyed, and she's the one that had two brown eyed kids! Answers that question I guess.


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## loveallgoats

Thank you for the explantion FRF!


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## Firestone Creek Farm

That's exactly why I had to do a punnet square when Sweet Violet was born. :scratch: She has brown eyes, but mom and dad are both blue eyed! I KNEW that mom could not have possibly been bred by anyone else. I was standing there when she was bred! So, obviously both mom and dad are carrying recessive brown and passed on bb to little Violet.  :shocked: 

Angie


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## ChestnutGrove

Isn't funny how genetics work! 

Just the luck of the draw! 

Deidre


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## myfainters

everyone here missed one tiny little thing... the part where looks can be deceiving... If you have a goat out of a blue eyed parent and get an extremely marbled eyed kid (mainly hazel, brown or gold) but still genetically BLUE... those goats can and will still produce blue eyed kids. :- ) So... you are all correct in that a genetically brown eyed pair can only produce brown eyed kids.... but you have to take into account the fact that what you see is sometimes masking the actual gene. Same thing with coat color.

Jess
Faint-Hearted Ranch
www.faintheartedranch.net


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