Pure or hybrid

[ad36]

As I understand there are three colours within this family of hamsters, Normal, Sapphire and Pearl, all with black eyes. Therefore would a litter from a normal mother (father unknown) resulting in babies that are red-eyed, cream to tan in colour but with a prominent brown dorsal stripe and body ticks(difficult without a picture I know) be a result of inter-species breeding along the line somewhere?

[Holly]

Hmmm....I don't know a huge amount about this but do know that there are only the following recognised Standard colours in winter whites:

Normal
Sapphire
Pearl

I also think you can get a Sapphire Pearl as well.

I also know of a "marbled" version of the ww - I don't think it's a standard colour (yet) but nor do I think it's a hybrid, though I may be wrong. See pophammy's thread about her new winter whites - the school hamster is a marbled winter white.

I also remember reading a lot about a "new type" of winter white called the Mandarin - I believe this turned out to be a winter white/Campbells hybrid. Not sure if they had red eyes but as far I know there are no winter whites with red eyes.

Hope this helps - reading it back it probably doesn't much!

[souffle]

Holly is right and there are only the three standard colours and also the recent marbled which is not yet standard. The mushrooms and mandarins were originally thought to be new colour variations however they were then traced back to hybrids with campbells. Anything with a red eye would appear to be quite a close hybrid wth an argente campbells I would say.

[ad36]

Thanks I was just interested, I had seen these for sale classed as WW and was thought they would possibly be a hybrid as I had never heard of red-eyed WW of this colour. Just wanted to check that there was not a variation I didnot know about. Cheers

[Bunsey]

sounds like those babies came from a WW crossed with an argente campbells.

[littlemissdwarfhamster]

Any pictures? That would be helpful but they are hybrids if they have red eyes.