A couple of years ago I loaned one of my black boys to Hamster Mischief hamstery who was trying to breed dilute, or blue. I'd gotten a boy back, Proteus, but hadn't had the room to start a new colour then. Last year I was given the opportunity to have females also thought to be carrying the gene from Norwood Ham Stars and North Star hamstery. I paired both girls with Proteus with some surprising results.
The first litter, out of Ula, was a bit of a disaster. Mum culled the initial pile down to 4 and then 1. She then decided to reject baby at 3 and a bit weeks old forcing me to split her out earlier than I'd like. She's remained healthy but remains the smallest girl I'd be happy to breed from. She's also very shouty about life, largely due to being thoroughly beaten up by mum. Ula herself is a lovely girl but obviously decided she didn't like being a mum. This was a blow as it meant I couldn't risk trying her again. Although initially thinking the baby was a self blue (dilute black), I now think she is umbrous blue.
Baby isn't a baby anymore and is name Leucothea.
My second litter was even more interesting! Once the litter was born it became clear that mum was umbrous (possibly silver) black tort, carrying recessive dappled and cream.
Here were the results:-
In that pile, you can see hamsters with eye rings. These are thought to be a silver sable, blue sable (dilute sable) and silver blue sable. From dark through to very very light. The silver blue sable, Lotan looked like this:-
Also in the mix is a black carrying recessive dappled, which you can see from the dusty effect on the ears, umbrous black, silver black, umbrous blue and self blue. The self blue girl is Brizo and I hope to get some fresh pics of all the litter soon.
I kept all the babies and have grown them on here. The purpose of that is to document colour changes accurately and make sure that all remain healthy. Six months later they certainly are doing well and are a lot bigger than the first litter.
I hope I haven't bored anyone yet! My next goal is breed to golden in order to produce the agouti version of dilute, dilute golden or blue golden. I stress this gene is very much in its infancy here and needs a lot of work. It's not recognised yet and we need to show it isn't attached, or works as a result of, silver grey.
If I cross to golden and it is a silver grey thing, I'll get silvers out. If it is indeed a stand alone gene....dilute or dd...then I should get plain goldens carrying the gene as we have already shown it's recessive.
I hope that all makes sense and I haven't mucked up that explanation! I think this colour is gorgeous and I hope to breed more blue sables but my main hope it that it gets recognised and then standardised soon. At the moment there are two hamsteries actively working on this as far as I know (and I don't know everyone!) but hopefully once recognised it will be taken on by more people.
Happy to answer questions but genetic stuff does hurt my brain a little I warn you
The blues - a dilute project
Re: The blues - a dilute project
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