The concept of a recessive mutation is something people made up. In nature there may not always be a clean line between say recessive and co-dominant. Piebald may be a recessive gene with co-dominant tendencies. The big question is why it wouldn’t be consistent.



Regardless, I just want to get to the bottom of this but it will take me years and those who have been working with them longer don't seem to be talking much. The genes are whatever they are regardless of politics/marketing/feelings. I'm glad we have places like this forum where we can try to get to the bottom of whatever the truth is.



The concept of a separate marker gene being liked to the actual morph gene is interesting and sounds like something that could happen, I'm just not sure it's what is happening in this case although it is a good explanation for the inconsistency. My main argument for the alleged pied marker actually being the direct effect the pied gene is that to me it looks like the beginning of pied creeping up from the belly (I’ve only seen pictures of real pieds but to me this looks like where the white comes from). I guess breeding results will eventually help us figure it out.

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