A genetics laboratory class to analyze early and late feather traits of chicken.

With the implementation of the "Education and Training Program for Outstanding Agricultural and Forestry Talents" in our country, our university established the "Outstanding Class" for students majoring in the animal science. We also carried out a series of educational management and curriculum reforms to cultivate students' systematic model of thinking and the ability of technology innovation. In this paper, we designed a comprehensive experiment that focused on analyzing early and late feather genetic traits of chicken. The students initially observed the phenotype of chickens and gradually were led into genetics analysis. We introduced the breeding practice, and guided the students to use genetic theories to breed chick strains of early and late feather traits. The experiment is not only based on the sex-linkage theory and sex determination mechanism, but also molecular genetics technologies, such as genomic DNA extraction, amplification, enzyme digestion and electrophoresis. Conducting this experiment can enhance students' comprehensive analysis ability and professional skills, as well as be beneficial to cultivate their scientific research interests and curiosity on animal sciences. Thus, we integrated the genetics theories into animal breeding practice that meet the requirement of comprehensive applied talents of animal science specialty. The teaching ideas and methods described in this paper can be applied to other biological experiment teaching practice.