Question

two chickens are mated and most of the offspring are checkered, but some are black and some are white. what was the most likely phenotype of the parents? BB=black Bb/BW=checkered bb/WW=white
what type of inheritance pattern is this?

Answer 1

Most likely both parents were checkered (heterozygotes: B W).

This is codominance. A cross BW × BW gives:
- 1 BB (black)
- 2 BW (checkered)
- 1 WW (white)

So 25% black, 50% checkered, 25% white — which matches “most offspring are checkered.” (If by “checkered” you meant a true mix of both colors, that is codominance; if you meant an intermediate blended color, some texts would call that incomplete dominance, but the genetics/ratio are the same: 1:2:1.)