My plans!

[Emma]

Well, after over a year of thinking about things, learning, reading up, visiting shows..........I've finally worked out my plans for the start of perhaps what might be a small hamstery (see how things go!)



With moving to the new place (a barn conversion, if you please!) I have my own room to be my study-cum-hamster room. It's not huge, but it is classed as a single bedroom and the current tenants have a single bed, wardrobe, desk and other stuff in there, so it's not too teensy. It has to house my desk with computer and things, and one tall bookcase with all my files of notes and textbooks, but apart from that it can be given over to the hamsters :) so I've worked out how many more cages I can have!!!



My plan is to do a similar thing to what souffle and pophammy have done - obtain one good quality male from an established quality breeder, and one good quality female from another, and have one litter in the forseeable future. This is all over the next year - at the moment I'm thinking of getting my 'posh' boy at some point over the summer, my 'posh' girl in the autumn time, so she's mature enough to mate in the new year. After that, it's going to depend on how exams/graduation/jobhunting/househunting go, so whilst this might be the *start* of something it's going to be very small for a good while yet.



I'm thinking of possible aiming to work mainly with Sables.....I've always loved Sables and ever since I saw pendragon's Silver Sable *thud!!!* I'd love the idea of working with that colour one day! I'm thinking for my first pair being a Cream and a Sable, perhaps incorporating the p gene if I could (just for interest for me for my first litter) - if I could get a p-carrying Sable and a Red-eyed Cream perhaps, that would give a good mix in the litter of Black-eyed & RE Creams, Sable & Mink, hopefully.



Anyway, I just wanted to post about my plans, as I'm excited about them and at the moment, all I do all day is study, it's nice to dream as well!!

[SnuggleHam]

Awesome Emma! I’m jealous! I wish I had the room to do something like that. I have all these gerbil bins right now, so no more rodents for me until some pass away. Lately I’ve been really interested in dwarf hamsters, and someday I’d like to try my hand at breeding some breed of dwarf. They are just so cute with their little pink feets! O:)



Well I hope your plans go well, and I have a feeling they will, you seem to have everything worked out, and I know you’ll be responsible about it :)



Please keep us updated!

[Emma]

I have all these gerbil bins right now, so no more rodents for me until some pass away.



Goodness, I know, it's awful isn't it! I love having the Robos, but I must admit I do have plans for when they've passed on - Chinese hamsters & gerbils. I do love having the Robos though, especially the pair of girls - I'd definitely have them again in the future.

[Pendragon]

I'm thinking of possible aiming to work mainly with sables.....I've always loved sables and ever since I saw pendragon's silver sable *thud!!!* I'd love the idea of working with that colour one day!



Ahhh..... Thank you Emma. He's so far not named himself; I've been thinking of all kinds of names but none have stuck. I don't think Thud will suit him, but it has made me think of Thunder! (Being kind of stormcloud coloured, you see. 'Nimbus' was one thought but that didn't work either).



We'll see if Thunder sticks - and it may end up being quite ironic since he's terribly cute looking and I don't think he'll be a big hamster when fully grown. I already have Albert Einstein, so naming a hamster Thunder appeals to my sense of humour ;)



Just waiting for him to realise what girls are for, and then he can be mated to Tamari... fingers crossed for more silver sables.

[souffle]

It's good to have a plan and you seem to be on track there. Maybe you could jump right in with the Silver Sable from Pen's babies litters in the summer when she breeds him. We like Creams and our aim was, as we can't have too many hams to breed so that we could have animals to enter in a few classes. Bailey (Cinnamon Satin) we knew was carrying Cream and mated to Nelson (Black-Eyed Cream) we got 2 Short-Haired BE Cream Satins, 2 SH Goldens, 1 SH BE Cream, 1 SH Cinnamon, 1 Red-Eyed LH Cream Satin, 1 RE LH Cream. A nice selection! We are keeping a male BE Cream Satin, a female RE LH Cream and a Golden so knowing the genitics of these gives us a good start. We did not know that both parents carried LH but we were suspicious due to the slightly tuffty bits behind their ears which we had been told carriers often showed. So now we have 4 classes to enter, Cream, LH Cream, Golden and two in Satin! The pleasure of raising a litter is both worrying and immeasurable. I'm sure you will enjoy it. Best of luck when you do get going anyway. If you do want to show though I don't think Silver Sable is a standard colour yet is it Pen?

[Emma]

No Silver Sable isn't standard yet, unfortunately neither is Mink I don't think :( which is the main reason I'm thinking of concentrating around Sable, as then they can be shown in the main classes. Once I'm happy with that then maybe I can play more with the Sable combinations like Mink or Silver Sable (I'm thinking about in years time here, not really forseeable future), perhaps even work with other people to get them standardised, I'd love to see that. I can't believe Mink isn't standardised, but I can't find it listed!

[babyboos]

there haven't been any new colours standardised for a while which is a real shame - there are so many colours which are gorgeous and needing standardisation too that I hope something happens soon. A number of hamster breeders are saying this which is hopefully a good thing.

[Pendragon]

The problem with developing new varieties and getting them up to standard is that it takes such a long time, and needs a lot of dedication.



New breeders are encouraged to take on established varieties, which is fair enough - to breed new colours you need space, a clear vision, genetic knowledge (and experience! you need a certain eye for colour that comes with a lot of breeding experience and can't be taught from books), patience and willingness not to win at shows although you still have to get them out there in the Non Standard class. And even then, some judges may not know what they're looking at and mark them down for the wrong thing.



It always helps to become established in a standard variety before taking on anything new, as by then you will have become known in the fancy and not dismissed as a maverick fly-by-night with wild delusions *grin*



Having imported and developed new rat varieties, I gravitated towards the non-standards, although the LBJs were accidental as I thought Elderberry was a dark chocolate for quite some time until I saw genuine chocolate, and originally planned to breed Torts & T&W only... lol



It's odd (or fortunate) that Silver Greys also took my fancy - this was at the time I thought LBJ was chocolate - and coincidentally found out later it was linked to LBJ.



And then the Silver Sable turned up...! At least I know where to go with that and I'm lucky in that some of my existing hamsters can help me to breed more, otherwise I'd be looking at a lot more cages or non-showable hamsters. I've already got some of those as I've done some outcrossing with my SGs - even established breeders have to do that sometimes - as part of creating my own line. However... Silver Sable will need cream and possibly also sable again (though not essential) so at some point I may need to send out for some cream genes.



Tamari will need to be mated very soon, as she's now 4 months and so I am merely waiting for young Thunder to find his, uh.... Thunderballs. So by the summer I may have something better still if Emma wanted a SS then - even one for "just a pet" ;)

[Emma]

I am merely waiting for young Thunder to find his, uh.... Thunderballs.



Lol!!!! His thunderballs, I love it! Oh you've got to stick with Thunder for him now :)



Is Tamari one of your LBJs?

[Pendragon]

Yes..... she's his Auntie, as I posted some time ago. I am just hoping she also carries Cream as her brother (Hoi Sin, Thunder's dad) does.



If not she will still give me some very pretty babies and I will at least know they carry the right combination for more SSables. It goes like that sometimes, but a generation plus before I get more means extra opportunity to improve size and type.



But - as I hope I explained in my earlier post - if you are focussed on winning at shows, this isn't the way to go. You will have many unshowable hams, and many that you probably only needed to have a litter from once and will then be pensioned off. But I also know it's too hard to part with them by then!

[Emma]

Ah yes, I remember.



No, I know, as much as I would love to play with Silver Sables it simply isn't a sensible or practical thing to do. Besides, I think plain old Sables are really rather attractive in their own right! Sables and Cream for me :)



Sue, a question, do you think it makes a difference to a Sable whether it is UU or Uu? (Morag I'd appreciate your thoughts too!) It's something I've chatted to various people at shows about. All the literature says Umbrous is completely dominant, so it shouldn't make any difference, but then some people still insist that you get better Sables when breeding Sable x Sable, suggesting that UU gives a superior sable. What do you guys think?

[Pendragon]

Not that I have seen proven, Emma... But maybe all it may take is someone sensible to experiment and see what happens?

[Emma]

I was mulling this over whilst driving yesterday. It does make sense in a way......in any litter of hamsters you will have better individuals than others (in terms of type & quality), even crossing two huge typey hamsters can produce a poor runt.



So if you're mating sable x sable, you get 100% sable (ish.....depending on what recessives you've got), you've got a better chance of the best individuals in that litter being sables.



Wheras if you mate sable x cream, you only get 50% sable (usually, if you've got a Uu sable parent), so you've only got half the chance of the best individuals being sable. You might get some nice creams out of it though!



Something I might experiment with to satisfy myself though!

[souffle]

The laws of genetics never quite seem to work out the way you want them Emma. The best laid plans of hams and men eh! You want a boy you get 10 girls etc, etc. Its always fun to look into and experiment though but at the end of te day sorry but you will love them all from runt to champion!

[Emma]

You've only got a 0.0005% chance of getting a litter of 10 with no boys in it though :wink: gotta love probability!! Have you read the river road site souffle?

[Pendragon]

You've only got a 0.0005% chance of getting a litter of 10 with no boys in it though :wink: gotta love probability!!



It happened to me with Maple's last litter! 10 babies - all girls.



They ended up well-handled though... I kept picking them all up to check, re-check, double-check and triple-check every day in disbelief!

[babyboos]

Yeah great site Emma though I have had litters where only one sexed survived on more than one occassion - and also times when mating two Sables together produced some Mink babies (both parents carried the pgene)

I haven't found any colour difference when mating UU or Uu, and have been working with Cream, Sable, and Mink at the base of my Syrians for many years, these colours I find offer good choice for rehoming as they epitomise something for everyone - red eyes or not, pale coats or not. Throw in the addition of some long or short hair in future plans and you should never have major problems with rehoming.

I love my Roan Sables and one day soon will hopefully show you pictures of Silver Sable Roan....

[souffle]

Never seen that site before. Thanks for that Emma. I will need some time to read and digest it all.

[babyboos]

River Road is amazing and so good for anyone who hasn't studied biology ever or for a few years and hasn't much of a clue about genetics - after going through the tutorials you will have picked up so much. I wish someone could take it a bit further and do similiar studies for the other hamster colours.