The aim of this assignment is to find one chicken, and one cockerel, and make them breed super hens. We have been given three chickens and two cockerels. I have narrowed the chickens down to two because the one chicken (Fern) is a nuisance. The chicken farmer has given the information about the sizes of the eggs the chickens lay and how many they lay per week.

•Slide 5 – Chickens

•Slide 6 – Cockerels

•Slide 7 – Variation

•Slide 8 – Continuous Variation

•Slide 9 – Discontinuous Variation

•Slide 10 - Causes of Features

•Slide 11 – Genetic Variation

•Slide 12 – Genetic Variation Continued

•Slide 13 – Environmental Variation

•Slide 14 – Environmental Variation Continued

•Slide 15 – Chromosomes

•Slide 16 – Inheritance

•Slide 17 – Genetic Cross Diagrams

•Slide 18 – Genetic Cross Diagrams

•Slide 19 – Cockerel and Chicken I Chose

•Slide 20 – Rosemary and Brian

•Slide 21 – Rosemary and Brian

•Slide 22 – Selective Breeding

•Slide 23 – Selective Breeding Continued

•Slide 24 – My Conclusion

•Slide 25 – Thanks For Watching!

Marjory

Average number of eggs per week-5. Average size of eggs-large.

Rosemary

Average number of eggs per week-10. Average size of eggs-small.

Brian

Average number of eggs per week-6. Average egg size-large.

Bob

Average number of eggs per week-8. Average size of eggs-small.

Living things that are the same belong to the same species. Cats for example are their own species. Two individual species usually cannot reproduce. They produce something called an offspring. An offspring is usually infertile and are unable to reproduce.

Continuous variation is just one of the types of variation. Continuous variation is a range of different things. For example, height is continuous variation because there is more than two different heights you can be and it gradually changes. Foot length and weight are also continuous variation. This a graph showing height variation.

Discontinuous variation is when you have a limited number of something. For example, eye colour, gender and blood groups are all types of discontinuous variation. Blood groups are a type of discontinuous variation because there are only four types, A, B, AB and O. This is a graph of the percentage of the population with the different blood groups.

How many eggs they produce per week and the egg size isn’t just their genetics, it can be environmental factors. It can depend on how much they are being fed, if they get exercise or if they get to run around outside and get enough vitamin D. Also, if two chickens have large eggs, they might not be exactly the same size because one chicken’s egg could be very large and another chicken’s egg could be medium large. So, how big is large, how small is small?

Genetic variation is what you get from your parents. The colour of your eyes and hair are examples of genetic variation. A child won’t look exactly like his father, he will look a bit like his father and a bit like his mother. This is because they inherit different features from different parents. Some examples are, gender, eye colour, hair colour, skin colour and lobed or lobe less ears.

Each egg cell nucleus and sperm cell nucleus contain half of the person’s genetic information. During fertilisation, the nucleus from the sperm cell joins with the nucleus in the egg cell, and a new nucleus is formed with all the genetic information needed for an individual.

Environmental variation is when the environment around you changes you. For example, if you dye your hair or cut down a tree branch it is classed as environmental information. Another example is if you eat too much you will become heavier and if you eat too little you will be lighter. Variation in a feature as a result as a certain factor in the surroundings is called environmental variation. Some other examples are your language, your race and religion. For example, hydrangeas produce blue flowers in acidic soil and pink flowers in alkaline soil.

Some features vary because of a mixture of inherited causes and environmental causes. For example, identical twins inherit exactly the same features from their parents. But if you take a pair of twins, and twin ‘A’ is given less to eat than twin ‘B’, then twin ‘A’ will be lighter.

Chromosomes are made out of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid). There are 46 chromosomes in everyone's body. In reproduction the parents both give 23 chromosomes to the baby. The sperm and the egg meet which creates the zygote. The zygote has two sets of 23 chromosomes.

These are some pictures of inheriting features.

The genetic cross diagram below shows the possible features of the children born to parents who have different features. We use letters to represent the alleles. Dominant alleles have a capital letter and recessive alleles have a small letter.

Rosemary = ee

Brian = EE

E E

e

e

Ee Ee

Ee Ee

Marjory = EE

Bob = ee

e e

E

E

Ee Ee

Ee Ee

Brian = EE

Marjory = EE

Bob = ee

Rosemary = ee

EE EE

EE

EE

EE EE

EE EE

ee ee

ee

ee

ee ee

ee ee

Brian Rosemary

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

Brian Rosemary

Brian's Eggs PerWeekRosemaryk'sEggs Per Week

0123456789

10

Brian Rosemary

Brian's Mother'sEgg SizeRosemary's EggSize

5 = Small 10 = Large

Over time, a species can change its appearance and could even evolve into a new species, but it could be unable to reproduce successfully with individuals of the original species. Selective breeding, also called artificial selection, involves people taking charge over which animal breeds with the other and to produce new varieties of that species. A variety is a type of a particular species that is different in some clear way from other varieties of that species.

As an example, pedigree dogs come in lots of varieties or breeds. They could be different colours or sizes.

If you wanted a variety of cow that produced a lot of milk. You could:

•Choose or select the cows in your herd that produce the most amount of milk

•Only let THESE cows reproduce

•Select the offspring that produce the most milk

•Only let THESE offspring reproduce

•Keep repeating the process of selection and breeding until you get the cow that produces a lot of milk.

Taking into account all that I have learnt in this topic, I am not sure what sort of eggs Rosemary and Brian will produce at first but I would breed them and then pick the chicken and cockerel that have the largest and most eggs. I would breed them again and see if the outcome was the same. In the next generation I would try to breed the best chicken and cockerel. Finally, through selective breeding, I would hope to produce a chicken which can lay as many large eggs as possible on every occasion.

I am Super Chicken!