thinking of breeding oscar

[Bunsey]

i've changed my mind about not breeding oscar, and now i think it would be nice. AOC is a good class to enter as you don't have to get very high points to get placed (oscar won with 72.5), unlike cream or golden or something. When i entered Harvey in creams he got 75 points - enough to win another class, but LAST place in creams :cry:

I need to learn more about genetics as i need to know exactly what is likely to pop out and what female to choose.

I want to get some sables and some creams (just cos i love creams and so do a lot of people, so they'll sell). i guess i'd get the odd mink, too. I don't understand how the mink works, actually.

Also, what about roan, can that skip a generation or does a parent HAVE to be roan for the kids to get it? oscar has a roan parent, so does he carry the gene for it?

also, would he have to be mated with a large female, because he is large? i'm worried about a smaller female carry the genes for such large babies, incase she has trouble with the birth... or are all babies the same size and then they just grow bigger later or quicker or something?

i always feel silly asking these sorts of questions, but everyone has to learn somewhere!

[souffle]

Can you remind us what colour Oscar is (sable LH I think) and also what his parents & gradparents were if you know. It depends if Oscar has two umbrous genes UU or one Uu as to whether he would produce only umbrous babies or some umbrous and some self colours. If you mated him to a pure cream female you would get some sables and some creams if he is Uu. You may get minks if there are any REC in the picture.

I do not think you would need a large female especially but if you were getting a female to breed and show anyway then she is likely to be fairly large. Pups are much the same size when born I think and grow on later!

[Holly]

Oscar is (if I remember correctly) a LH Sable and, as Toby's brother, he has one REC parent and one sable roan parent - which means he's Uuee (I think - or heterozygous for the dominant umbrous gene) meaning you could get cream if you mate him with BEC (you would also get mink if you mate him with a REC). If he was UU all the babies would be sable as souffle says..

As for mink - you should get some minks if you mate him with a REC - if he was homozygous for umbrous they'd be all minks (like one of Teresa's litters).

Roan isn't carried and doesn't skip a generation - if they carry roan they display it - either by being roans (if a self colour) or being whitebellied (if an umbrous colour).

HTH - just to say what you say about AOC isn't necesarily truw - Minnie got 74 points and was unplaced in SH AOC!!!!

[Bunsey]

here's his family tree - same as Toby's ;)

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a371/ ... tree-1.jpg (http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a371/ayms2/Oscarfamilytree-1.jpg)

You know so much about genetics Holly, i don't know hardly anything! :oops:

[souffle]

Holly is right about the points thing. It depends on the hamsters, the entry on the day and the judge. Colours go through phases. For a while there are loads of creams then only a few, then loads of patterns etc etc. Different judges like different colours and vary in their opinion of what it should look like. That is why you can go from Reserve BIS to second bottom in a few months.!

[Holly]

Oscar's Cream dad means that your chances of getting Creams as well as Sables is fairly high - there may be other recessive colours that might pop up - like REC. If he had two Umbrous parents they'd all be sable - as Umbrous is dominant.

Because Toby is a mink, despite having the same parents as Oscar, we could (in theory) get REC's, Minks and even Cinnamons in our litter. This is becasue Mink comes from the REC (or Cinnamon) gene and there is a chance that Smartie carries REC/Cinnamon - as her granny was Bailey (a Cinnamon).


You know so much about genetics Holly, i don't know hardly anything! :oops:

I actually know very little about genetics - compared to someone like souffle :wink:

What I have done is tried to read as much as I can about the colours I'm hoping to produce: BEC's, REC's, Sables, Minks, Cinnamons and Sable/Mink/Cream Roans.

[souffle]

A cinnamon female carrying cream would give you a nice colour mix in theory but genetics dont always work that way and you may get all goldens if the wind blows in the wrong direction :lol: (Not that goldens are not gorgeous but they would be colour paled from this mating) To guarantee creams and sables you should get a BEC female but a cinnamon carrying cream might give you REC, BEC, Sable, Mink, Cinnamons , goldens and umbrous goldens. (Have I got them all :? ) If you choose a female carrying LH you should get half LH and half SH carrying LH, then you could add satin, rex or a pattern and have the ultimate hamster! Have a word with Oscars breeder and see hwat she thinks :lol:
Sheryl knows lots more than me Holly!

[Bunsey]

wow that's complicated, but i think i understand. is it possible to have a BEC carrying cinnamon, or would cinnamon always show itself. I think my best bet is to go with the BEC LH and get BEC LH, BEC SH carrying LH, sable LH and sable SH carrying LH.

I'll definately have a word with Sue if we decide to go ahead with this. We can't do it at the moment, as we are full up with all our 2yr old robos. It's best to start learning the theory in plenty of time though... then of course there's sourcing the female. I don't know where i'd go for that. i love bourne valley hams, but the female can't be related to Oscar. Who breeds good black-eyed creams? i like the deep apricot ones. Harvey's line is excellent, but unfortunately overlaps Oscars. Oscar's father's side is also Harvey's.

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a371/ ... tree-1.jpg (http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a371/ayms2/CopyofHarveyfamilytree-1.jpg)

[Bunsey]

p.s. where did you read about the genetics holly? was it just online or can you recommend books? simple explanations are good :wink:

[Holly]

p.s. where did you read about the genetics holly? was it just online or can you recommend books? simple explanations are good :wink:

Well hamsterlopaedia does a good basic intro to genetics as you probably know - I also like these:

http://hometown.aol.com/theriverrd/genetics.htm

http://www.petwebsite.com/hamsters/syri ... olours.htm (http://www.petwebsite.com/hamsters/syrian_hamsters_combined_colours.htm)

However the main reference I used is the BHA Standards which, sadly, no longer seem to be on-line. However these are what Pete Logsdail plans to publish as leaflets for club members - brought up date for NHC standards of course! They are great as each colour is pictured, the standard described and then the various ways to breed this colour are stated.

[Mollz]

p.s. where did you read about the genetics holly? was it just online or can you recommend books? simple explanations are good :wink:

This is a good place for genetics: http://hometown.aol.com/theriverrd/genetics.htm
I have found a few other good places, but can't think what they were called at the moment!
Sue will probably have an unrelated line, I can't imagine all, or even most, of her hamsters are closely related.

[souffle]

You can get BEC carrying cinnamon. To be cinnamon you need two p genes (pp) as it is recessive. Cream is also a recessive so you need two e genes to be cream. Bailey was a cinnamon carrying cream (ppe) and Nelson was a BE cream carrying cinnamon (eep) so in the litter we had BE creams who would also carry cinny (eep) cinnys carrying cream (ppe) REC eepp and goldens (ep) It is the luck of the draw what the babies get.
A LH BEC female mated to oscar would only give you LH babies.

[Spuds Mum]

Well, just to add my 'tuppenorth' :D if you assume (reasonably from his parentage) that Oscar is eePpUu and you mated him to a red eyed cream eepp you would be likely to get an equal ratio of:

sable carrying cinnamon (eePpUu)
black eyed cream carrying cinnamon (eePpuu)
mink (eeppUu)
red eyed cream (eeppuu)

so a nice mix of pups. You wouldn't expect to get cinnamon as each pup would inherit a cream gene from each parent, meaning that these would combine with any cinnamon to make the REC/mink.

if you mated to a BEC you would likely only get sable and BEC, unless you could be fairly sure from the pedigree that the Mum also carried cinnamon, when again the minks/RECs could appear.

If your Mum was also a satin, 50% of the pups could be expected to be satin, same as if you chose a banded or a cream roan. the only thing I would say about roans, from my last litter, is that some show only slight roaning, some of mine could easily have been mistaken for a normal sable, apart from when I looked at the ears which were lighter, and noticed a sprinkling of white in the coat. From what I remember of Oscar (not that I examined him really really closely) he didnt look roan, but if you are worried I would look for those signs).

Hope that helps somewhat? :D

[Spuds Mum]

Sorry - the edit button has gone again!
I note that we also have related hams = my REC also has Benedictine and Absinthe as her grandparents! 8)

[Holly]

From my BHA standards:

*Mating a pure Sable (UUee) to a BEC (ee) would produce 100% Sable babies (UUee).

*Mating a non-pure Sable (Uuee) to a BEC (ee) would result in 50% Sable and 50% BEC.

Now obviously that doesn't take into consideration if both are carrying the Cinnamon gene (pp)...would the cream (ee) gene then cause the cinnamon to become REC?

Obviously the numbers and proportions are all theoretical - it states in my literature that you need to produce hundreds of litters to see the "correct" proportions - you might get 80% Sable and 20% BEC .... or vice-versa ...what makes it all so interesting!

[Bunsey]

mating him to a SH BEC sounds like a good idea to me, then in theory i'd have 25% SH cream, 25% SH sable, 25% LH cream and 25% LH sable. then i'd have the troublesome job of deciding what to keep! the bigger mixture of colours i had, the more i'd want to keep cos i'd want one of each! i'd probably not keep any LH sables, cos i have oscar.

[souffle]

Just be sure you BEC carries LH to get the LH hamsters. If one of her parents is LH she will carry it.

[Spuds Mum]

well, how I understand it is, both parents are ee so each pup will get an e from each parent. Therefore all pups will have a phenotype that includes the ee gene.
If they also get a cinnamon p gene from each parent, then they will also have a phenotype that includes the pp gene.

Both these genes are recessive so in order for them to show on the animal they must have inherited two copies, one from each parent. In breeding half of all the parents genes on each loci will be given to each pup. At the e loci an ee parent must give e to each pup as she has two of these. or p if she has pp. etc. etc.

So, although the pups could have a pp gene, usually meaning cinnamon, because they also must have ee too, you can't get cinnamon pups.

In Souffle's litter, Bailey was a cinnamon carrying cream, Nelson a cream carrying cinnamon, and so there was a chance (as happened) that the pups could inherit, either 1 x e or 2 x e, and 1 x p or 2 x p. if the pup inherited 2 x p and only 1 x e that would make the cinnamon, but is why, if you start of with 2 animals both showing cream based colour combinations (e.g. BEC/REC/sable/ mink/Ivory) then you will always get a cream combination out!

Hope that makes sense. It does to me, but its hard to explain on a post! :?

[Spuds Mum]

sorry, tried mating Vala and Yowie half way through posting so my post doesnt make any sense as things have moved on - but put it after Holly's and it does :oops:

I agree a BEC LH should give you a nice, non-confusing selection.

Can't wait to hear if it happens Amy, (Arti has just reminded me about concentrating on agoutis for us now - I think he could imagine my little cogs turning lol)

[Holly]

It makes perfect sense to me, Teresa!

It probably means that we won't get any cinnies in our litter (Mink to BEC hopefully carrying REC) but we might get REC and Minks as well as Sables and BECs (all LH and some satin).

Bunsey - if Smarts doesn't carry REC we could have very simillar litters from two brothers!

[Holly]

Aargh I hate this no edit button :oops:

Forgot to say how did Yowie/Vala go, Teresa?

[Bunsey]

i've sent sue a pm about it on hamsterforum, so i'll see what she says. i asked if she might have a suitable lady and said what colours i was planning for :D

where is bourne valley hams based, apart from "south"?

[Holly]

They are in Andover, Hamshire - it's about a 2 hour drive from here (J22 M1) so obviously a fair bit further for you.

However Sue is at a lot (if not all) the Midland shows so she may well be at Alcester :wink:

[Bunsey]

it doesn't sound too bad. i'm just over an hour away from junction 24 of the M1, so it'd be about 3.5 hours, meaning it's get-able to if there's no hams available for Alcester. i'll have to see what mum says - i told her i was thinking for the summertime, when we have less eldery hams

[Bunsey]

also - does anyone want a LH/SH sable/BEC hammy? :lol:

[Spuds Mum]

also - does anyone want a LH/SH sable/BEC hammy? :lol:

lol - so funny - I am sure there will be plenty of takers Amy *Arti ties my hands up so I can't raise mine*


PostPosted: Tue Jan 29, 2008 3:04 am Post subject:
Aargh I hate this no edit button Embarassed

Forgot to say how did Yowie/Vala go, Teresa?


She didnt stand, but we are trying consecutive night mating this time - to make sure that Vala doesn't have chance to 'have a headache' lol. So trying again tonight :shock:

[Holly]

It's too soon for me to definitely say yes, Bunsey, but depending on my numbers and when they are born I may well want one - they will be related to Toby but not actually him which may well be good for my Toby line :)

Also I'd imagine they going to be stunners :wink:

I don't imagine you'll have any difficulty at all homing them. I had several enquiries after my babies were homed (I sent one to Teresa) and I'd be glad to pass on anyone kind and reliable looking for hamster to you if you want me to - as I'm sure would the others here.

[Holly]

She didnt stand, but we are trying consecutive night mating this time - to make sure that Vala doesn't have chance to 'have a headache' lol. So trying again tonight :shock:

Good luck and keep us posted!

All this baby talk is making me vry hamster-broody - and I've got to wait til the end of February to even mate mine. But I do want to enter Smartie into Highworth and I want her to be a full five months old so she's done much of her growing - so I guess I'll just have to wait!