Silver gray genetics

[vidasmile]

Originally Posted by Nancy's Hamsters

Ahh I do understand just feel it is not really fair for your lovely Creamface as she is so lovely and I love her pattern and to know she would probably not fair as well as she deserves. Here the trend for Torts by inexperienced Novice Hobby breeders is towards adding in Cream to the Black torts cause they like the contrast and since we don't have nation wide showing of Hamsters they don't focus on breeding a correct Black Tort that is cream free. I find it rather interesting in the Cat show world a Calico pattern is better if the Orange patches do NOT have any black in them so a lovely patterned Tabby Calico(orange patches are made up of Orange Tabby patches and not solid Orange) is DQ'd

Also just for curiosity sake Should a Dove Tort have Ticking in the UK? All the Honey Black Hamsters I have seen also carry Cream and they had no ticking at all.

I wanted to ask if the hams in a picture do carry cream (aa Ee Toto)?

[Hekomi]

Originally Posted by vidasmile

I wanted to ask if the hams in a picture do carry cream (aa Ee Toto)?

Yes. The lightest one... aaEeTotoSgsg? Is one of the parents Sg?

[vidasmile]

Originally Posted by Hekomi

Yes. The lightest one... aaEeTotoSgsg? Is one of the parents Sg?

I found a pic in the internet. I dont think they have Sg. Sorry for asking question about torts in Sg topic.

I am still confused about seeing torts with "simple" yellow (as in foto) and melanistic yellow.
Do I understand correctly:
aa Toto Baba are black + melanistic yellow (yellow with dark ticking) + white hamsters;
aa Ee Toto Baba are black + melanistic yellow is paled by cream (yellow without ticking as in foto) + white?

[Hekomi]

Oh, I see. The bottom one looks more like a dingy black tort, with the lighter patches. Nancy will likely know better.

aaTotoBaba is a black tortoiseshell banded.
aaEeTotoBaba is a black tortoiseshell banded, but the patches lack the ticking.

ToTo = Yellow on a female
ToY = Yellow on a male

Compare Arya's patches:



to Pekoe's patches:



First image, Arya is aaEeToto
Second image, Pekoe is aaTotoBaba

[Nancy's Hamsters]

First Photos can be very deceiving. The top Hamster is a bit weird as her Yellow on her head has no obvious ticking where a correct Black Tort should have ticking on all Tort patches and all Yellow patches should look like Melanistic Yellow. The top pup has some ticking in her body patches but not any on her face.

The middle pup has more obvious ticking but is still not properly ticked for Melanistic Yellow. Without a pedigree I would also question if these Torts (Top two at least) have Chocolate in them as Rust tends to make the Ee Black Tort have much darker coloring in the Yellow patches(at least with the Black Torts I've gotten with a Chocolate parent this has been so.)

The bottom pup is most definitely Ee and as light as her Tort patches are I would suspect she has some diluting gene in there as well. BTW it isn't Sg as on Black Torts, Sg turns the yellow patches to and ivory White Yellow. This pup has obvious cream patches but no obvious ticking.

Those three Girls are very lovely will you be getting one of them?

[Nancy's Hamsters]

Originally Posted by vidasmile

I am still confused about seeing torts with "simple" yellow (as in toto) and melanistic yellow.
Do I understand correctly:
aa Toto Baba are black + melanistic yellow (yellow with dark ticking) + white hamsters;
aa Ee Toto Baba are black + melanistic yellow is paled by cream (yellow without ticking as in foto) + white?

Vidasmile the easiest way to tell a Yellow from a Melanistic Yellow is this:
Yellow(ToY for Male, and toto for Female) Is an Agouti patterned Hamster. Agouti is where the cheek area has a Cheek Flash and a Crescent like what you see on a Golden Hamster, and the belly is Ivory Yellow. This is because a Yellow Hamster is a Golden Hamster who also has the Yellow Gene on it's X sex gene.

A Melanistic Yellow hamster is a Yellow hamster who also has two genes for Black so is aaToY for males, and aatoto for females. Black is a self color meaning there are no cheek markings and the whole hamsters coat is the same all over including it's belly.

The Cream gene if carried will dilute the Yellow coloring causing the Yellow hamster to be a very faded cream like Yellow and cause the normally Black ticking to also fade to an orange Brown. You will still be able to see the agouti markings but not as easily as if the Yellow was EE.

With a Melanistic Hamster who carries the Cream Gene(Ee) the deep shade of Yellow with Black Ticking is turned into a Cream like Yellow and as a youngster no ticking will be seen, but as and adult you will see Orange brown like ticking.
Ezekiel is such a Hamster. In his adult photo you can just make out his orange brown ticking.

IF the yellow hamster gains two genes of Cream(ee) the Cream gene will Mask or cover over the Yellow gene as well as any black fur and you end up with a Yellow hamster who looks like a BEC This includes any Black Tort Hamsters as well.

Another gene which will alter the Black Torts Tort patches is the Dark Eared White gene. Carrying the DEW gene will turn the Mel Yellow patches on a Black tort to almost and off white.
This is Joni whose Dam was a sassy DEW and sire was a Ee Mel. Yellow
Joni-8 weeks old-b.JPG

Here are some others that should give you and idea on what occurs when a Cream gene is Carried on both Melanistic Yellow Males, and Black Tort females

This is Poohbear who was my first ever Yellow Gene hamster. Poohbear was an Ee Melanistic Yellow Hamster. He was Satin which does darken the coat coloring quite a lot.
Poohbear indoors-a.JPG

This is Keiko who was an EE Grandson of Poohbear
Keiko-11-20-10-a.JPG

Naavah is a very good example of and Ee Black Tort
Naavah 5-16-15-a.JPG

and this last photo will show you that another gene added to an Ee Black Tort Band can really trick you into thinking it is Cream free but Evia was very much Ee as her sire was a BEC carrying Black, her Dam was an ee Melanistic Yellow Umbrous Banded Roan. I had no idea her dam was Yellow until Evia, an Umbrous Ee Black Tort Roan Band sister, and an Ee Melanistic Yellow band brother were born. Evia is an Umbrous Ee Black Tort Band. Note how her Ee Yellow patches turned into a Sable Yellow color.
Evia 1-21-15-c.JPG

[vidasmile]

Thank you everybody for the answers! I will copy this info to a file, because it is interesting and important to me.

But I will try to ask one more question which is interesting for me. I am sorry English is not my mother language so I am not very clear from my first question.

I am curious of the color of yellow in black tort in particular situation:
Lets assume I have a black banded dam (aa Baba) and a not mellanistic yellow sire who just carries black - like you said with the Agouti markings (Aa ToY). And that no one of them carries any other genes like cinamon, cream, rust etc. (they both are PP EE BB)

So I can get a black tort (aa Toto Baba) with 3 colors in it:
1. black (aa)
2. white (because of Baba)
3. yellow - HERE IS MY QUESTION - Can I get simple yellow not melanistic one as a third color in this situation, or a+a will automatically make the yellow color to mellanistic one with very black top coat on the yellow?

Does "Black tort" by itself mean, that the yellow patches in it must be melanistic yellow, or may they be just yellow?

[vidasmile]

Originally Posted by Nancy's Hamsters

First Photos can be very deceiving. The top Hamster is a bit weird as her Yellow on her head has no obvious ticking where a correct Black Tort should have ticking on all Tort patches and all Yellow patches should look like Melanistic Yellow. The top pup has some ticking in her body patches but not any on her face.

The middle pup has more obvious ticking but is still not properly ticked for Melanistic Yellow. Without a pedigree I would also question if these Torts (Top two at least) have Chocolate in them as Rust tends to make the Ee Black Tort have much darker coloring in the Yellow patches(at least with the Black Torts I've gotten with a Chocolate parent this has been so.)

The bottom pup is most definitely Ee and as light as her Tort patches are I would suspect she has some diluting gene in there as well. BTW it isn't Sg as on Black Torts, Sg turns the yellow patches to and ivory White Yellow. This pup has obvious cream patches but no obvious ticking.

Those three Girls are very lovely will you be getting one of them?

These three girls is the example what kind of hamster I would like to breed by myself. I am not getting one of them because the foto is taken not in my country (I found it in the prairies of internet

I love the contrast of the colors. The question is how to get the yellow areas so bright and clear yellow or orange color (I don't like muddy and dark yellow in torts). If it is not good to mix cream gene for this reason - is it possible to get such an effect with other genes like rust, cinamon etc?

[jemmalg]

(Nancy sorry to be picky but just wanted to correct that yellow is dominant, so yellow females are ToTo and torts are Toto!)

A black banded female aaBaba to a yellow male AaToY:

Half the pups would get mum's banded gene, so half banded half not banded.
The yellow gene from dad would go only to the female pups (his non-yellow Y gene goes to the males). So all female pups would be tortoiseshell.
The black genes would combine to produce half pups black aa, and half non-black Aa.
Assuming there are non shared carried recessives, the non-blacks would revert to golden.

So your combinations would be:
Black males
Golden males
Black tort females
Golden tort females
Half all being banded.

Tort patches on any torts will show the combined yellow+base colour. So black torts will always have melanistic yellow patches, as this is the combined yellow+black colour. This would ideally be heavily ticked with black. And the golden torts would have yellow patches, still ticked but less dark.

Any carried recessives will dilute that yellow. Cream will have the most pronounced effect, I'd imagine cinnamon will also dilute but to less of an extent.

[vidasmile]

Thanks jemalq for the answer!