I keep reading that the cream gene is recessive, and here's where I am confused, (not hard to confuse me, I have only a very slender grasp on very basic genetics!)
If I understand a recessive gene correctly, then it requires 2 copies to express? If it expresses partly with 1 copy then it's incompletely dominant rather than recessive? Do I have that right?
Working on the assumption that I have that right, then why do some 'cream' legbars have bright gold neck hackles, and some have much paler yellow, but still not the required cream? Until I read the cream gene was recessive I thought that the gold hackled ones had no copies and the paler necked ones had one copy.
I know that in horses the cream gene can dilute chestunt to palamino if one copy is present, and to cremello if 2 copies are present, and looking at pictures of incorrectly coloured clbs, it seems that the same thing happens with chickens, but I can't make that tally with the gene in chickens being recessive.
Can anyone help me out by explaining it to me in simple terms, please
