Socks/stocking legs in shorthorns

[shortybreeder]

Can anyone point me towards some scientific literature that explains how socks work genetically? Are they dominant or recessive? Complete dominance, codominance, or is it epistasis like coat color in labradors? Is it sex-influenced like scurs? Any information is greatly appreciated!

 

[Dale]

I have only experience to offer, so this is not very scientific.  We have a calf with tall socks, that has parents with solid red legs unless they have a tick somewhere, with socks.  His sire shows percentage Maine on his pedigree, so the sock gene certainly would be coming in through him. 

His dam traces 7 generations back to a solid (again, in those days an animal with a white tick on a leg would have still been registered red and not RWM, and he was 99% plus red) colored G 9 son that never bred one with socks in our herd.  Dad and his family had been selecting against socks for decades.  We used a son of the solid bull on our commercials (Angus and Charolais and crosses), and he sired some with socks.  Another source of socks in his dam may be a herd that selected for performance without regard to the color, so they bred some as "spotted as goats" as some would say, and often with socks.  Also, that herd used a bull that came down from one of a pair of bulls at Denver that were very "different" in their day--they were in the herd book and probably would have blood typed Shorthorn.  The "different" bull called Silver was 5 generations back.

Surely socks are recessive or not?  Do Angus still carry a socks gene from being part Shorthorn when they were developed over in Scotland?  DL, we need your expertise. 

 

[Cabanha Santa Isabel - BR]

8)

 

[Lucky_P]

Socks are not addressed on this one, but one of the more cogent and complete coat color genetics sites currently on the internet is here: http://homepage.usask.ca/~schmutz/colors.html

There used to be a braunviehcenter.org website that had an extensive 3-part treatise on all the different color/marking patterns and their genetic inheritance, but it disappeared some years ago.
I have a printed copy somewhere - saw it about 3 weeks ago when I was packing up my office for the move to our new facility... don't know when I'll get around to digging it out, but I'll try to remember to revisit this thread if I find it and there's any pertinent information on 'socks'.

 

[idalee]

Socks are fairly common in older Shorthorn genetic lines;  This has occurred for at least 140 years in the breed and long before the introduction of outside breeding into the breed.  This apparantely and is a typical Shorthorn trait.  Maybe the Maine got it from the Shorthorn?    One of the premier Milking Shorthorn herds in Canada in the late 1800's was owned by Alexander Maclaren in Ontario.  It was called the Neralcam Herd and used multiple Dairy Shorthorn bulls imported from England in the late 1800's.    They were cattle of great thickness and very good milk production for that date in time.  Several of their cattle had white socks.  One of the major influences in Milking Shorthorn circles in New England was a bull called Neralcam King Arthur used in the W. Arthur Simpson herd in Vermont.  He had white socks and can be found in the background of many influential Milking Shorthorn pedigrees.  Another bull who  would sire white socks was Lago's Cache Winner and his sire was LaFraise Duke 3rd who is behind many of the Milking Shorthorn cattle double registered with AMSS and ASA in the late 1970's and 1980's.    White socks still appear with some regularity in tradition Shorthorn breeding programs.    I had two Double H Babe Ruth daughters who regularly had calves with white socks from different bulls,  although they did not show that trait themselves.  I had a steer last spring with white socks out of a daughter of Coalpit Creek Leader 6th and sired by a Canadian bull.  Again,  there was no Maine or other genetic influence  from outside of the breed.  This doesn't answer your question about the genetics but does suggest that this trait is heritable and that it cannot be explained as a simple recessive transmission pattern.