baby pictures (and colour query)

[babyboos]

the Umbrous Golden is definitely female?

[nooboo]

yes I am 99.9% sure on that one - which for me is amazing. I even just checked now to make sure and I still go with female

[souffle]

I have been looking at my book of standards and trying to pinpoint your little cuties colours. I am wondering about the two pale ones being red eyed ivory. This colour can be produced by dark or light greys (si?) Are they smaller as they tend to be smaller and weaker when young. The fur can yellow with age. Definatly two like dad silver grey. One golden poss umbrous and the tort well not a show tort as the standard calls for a TRI coloured animal with an even balance of main colour, yellow and white. If you mated this female to a white gene like dom spot male you may get a true standart tort.

The standard reads:

1. A tortoiseshell is a bi-coloured animal. The standard calls for a TRI coloured animal which is produced by combining the tort with a white pattern gene. The coat colour shall consist of a balanced pattern of coloured, yellow and white patches. These patches shall be clear and distinct with no brindling.

2 Eye & ear colour as stipulated by the full colour variety

3 The coloured areas shall conform to the recognised full colour variety whist the yellow shall be a rich apricot yellow when in combination with golden, but shall be present in a diluted form when combined with other recognised colour.

eg golden - rich apricot yellow

dark grey - smoke pearl

cinnamon- honey

If you mated this bi colour tort to a pattern eg dominant spot or banded you might get a show standard tort but do you need anymore hams!!!!!!.

She is possibly the dark grey / smoke pearl type.

I agree the fluffier ones are long haired and yes si is a genetic soup so you could not be sure what you would get off the bi coloured baby as she could carry anything in there!!! Does she have any white? They are lovely but no lovlier than ponders as in my eyes they are all lovely!!!! How is Ponder these days. You never mention her.

[nooboo]

ponder is doing well



still rather small, but i have given up with feeding her up, i havwe to accept she will always be small.



i guess i have not mentioned her as she is the only one behaving her damned self, she has not escaped, no more babies, was not injured, no porblems at all (unless you count learning that you can pouch megazorb and spit it out through the top bars on the rotastak rounds becasue you have decided that peeing on plastic is in...).

[Pendragon]

Originally Posted by babyboos

I think you definitely got your wish and have at least one Tort there nooboo - the darker one is either an Umbrous Golden or Black Tort and the paler one you mention is maybe some sort of Silver Grey / Dove / Tort combination

I've had a good look at the pics too, and I think the dark Tort is a Black... which would make sense as two look Dove. If it was an Umbrous Golden Tort there would be more in the way of cheek flashes and the belly would be lighter.



What mystifies me, Babyboos, is where has the Yellow gene come from? It has to be present in either parent. Shadow's pics aren't great but she doesn't look anything like she might be Tort. So that leaves Si... He must have Yellow.... but if he has then all the females will be Tort.



The other possibility is that Shadow is a "hidden" Tort. These happen all the time in Tort hamsters & cats, and I have had personal experience of it. Sometimes the Tort pattern is so minimal that just a few overlooked yellow/cream hairs exist, and they look normal (non-Tort), but of course they would breed as a Tort.



If the sire is Yellow, and the dam is normal, all the females will be Tort. But if the dam is Tort, and the sire normal, then the boys can be yellow-based OR normal, and the females can be either Tort OR normal. There's only 2 boys in this litter (and only 2 bubs in Si's previous litter) so random chance might have it that none are yellow-based. But if any of the girls are definitely NON-Tort, then Mum has to be a Tort, hidden or otherwise.



I'll refer you to a table of how Tort genetics works:





It seems to me that Si is the culprit - where Yellow is concerned... he is more likely to be a yellow-based colour than Shadow is to be a hidden tort! I wondered if he might be a Dark Grey + Yellow which would normally be Smoke Pearl, but with Umbrous on top. Or even a Silver Grey + Yellow + Umbrous.



It;'s one of those things... somewhere you have picked up the Yellow/Tort gene otherwise you could not possibly have a Tort in the litter. And as it is dominant, ONE parent must have it. Question is... which one!!!



*rubs paws together* I love mysteries like this!

[Pendragon]

Originally Posted by souffle

I have been looking at my book of standards...

/snip/

and the tort well not a show tort as the standard calls for a TRI coloured animal with an even balance of main colour, yellow and white. If you mated this female to a white gene like dom spot male you may get a true standard tort.

Depends which standards you are reading.... straight two-colour Tort is showable and standardised with British Hamster Association. I live down in the south, and most of our shows here are BHA, not NHC.



Torts and Tort & White are what got me into breeding hamsters as I looooove those patterns, in fact I'm a bit obsessed with tortie and tri-coloured animals - although I seem to have ended up with Silver Greys instead! (Watch this space...lol)

[babyboos]

Maybe nooboo will let you have one of her torts if you ask nicely I have a Silver Grey Tort not that it is particularly apparent but I am going to work on it a bit more - I haven't had Silver Grey long.





This is a picture of a banded Dove Tort for you to compare with nooboo







and from another angle:

[Pendragon]

Well I am hankering after the pale dove tort baby, but no idea how to get her down this way.



She would be a nice partner for Albert Einstein, who carries p, so I would get black tort & white, dove tort & white, black tort, dove tort, black banded, dove banded, black, & dove, and maybe a surprise if they both carry something else.

[babyboos]

Oh I think you could safely say the little girl of nooboo would have something else lurking in the background Don't you have many Tort breeders down your way Sue? I must admit I seem to be one of the only people who are dealing with this colour up here anymore. My original stock came from them, and I have slowly been adding as and when I have come across a decent addition. Did you get your Silver Greys from Vanessa Purkiss? If so she has some lovely Yellow too, and one of my Melanistic Yellows

[Pendragon]

There aren't many breeders at all near me, and I don't drive meaning I can't get to many shows. I was going to collect a Melly Yelly from Sue Carter at Andover, but couldn't go. The other Tort breeders here have agouti-based yellows, which I don't really want. So I am just waiting and hoping I can get either a black-based Tort or a melly yelly when one becomes available, whenever that will be!



My SGs came from Sue Carter (well, Sterling did)... I also have a SG girl from Karin Wales on the Isle of Wight (my nearest breeder!) although sadly she has refused to breed (the hammy not Karin!). Then I have 2 girls and a boy SGs I've kept from the Sterling x Elderberry litter.