quick winter white question..

[Gizmodo ^_^]

Originally Posted by SnickersTheFirst

really pretty "mandarin" hamsters from Holland

Here's a thread. Unfortunately, they are hybrids so it's impossible for them to ever be pure.

Thought so lol , i was sure pure breeds would never have that colour :L

[Hope]

Once you have one campbells xing in the line - that WW line is no longer pure. Even many generations down the line, there will still be campbells in the line, as part of their genes will always be carried on to any offspring.

I do adore the madarin colour though, so pretty, would love to own one, one day!

[Hamtastic]

Yeah, no matter how you manipulate labels, crossing two different kinds of hamsters would logically yield a 'hybrid'. Even if the progeny is then only bred with one kind only, the genetic contribution from the other would still be there.

Perhaps the new Winter White varieties are considered "pure" W.W. only in the sense that they are extremely close to true W.W. but with small variations induced by cross breeding.

[Inuk]

Originally Posted by Hamtastic

Perhaps the new Winter White varieties are considered "pure" W.W. only in the sense that they are extremely close to true W.W. but with small variations induced by cross breeding.

Exactly ! That's what I was trying to explain. Thanks !

But mandarins are not hybrids, the color is a WW's mutation. Campbells don't have this color.
The last contributor to the thread is very clear about that :

I am sure that it originally is a mutation in the Winter Whites.

I have now up till 4. generation of them and can say that the colour has nothing to do with argente. None of them have red eyes. Neither in colour or in the genes (I breed Campbell argente, so I know how they look).

If you mix normal wild and mandarin you will get half of each in the litter (statistically speaking). That means that the gene is a mutation and not due to hybrid-breeding.

I Hope that you understand more about the mandarins and I hope that someday they will be acknowledged for shows etc., as a new mutation.

[SnickersTheFirst]

I'm no genetics expert so I'm not sure what to think but everyone else inc. the breeder herself has said that they are hybrids. I guess it could be a mutation but I wouldn't have the knowledge to know if it was or not.

Although I find this person's post quite confusing?:

Noy the only hybrids I have is the mandarins and only because I did not know better in the begining and made hybrids.

People that come here to buy dwarfs simply love the colour and this is the colour that I sell first when people see the youngs.
I always tell them that they are hybrids.

[Inuk]

From what I have understood, the breeder cruised in the first place his two mandarins males (pure WW) with two Campbell females, cause he didn't know their breed (it was a mistake). Then he had hybrids, but from them he determined that mandarin was indeed a WW mutation, and not a gene carried by the Campbells.

[Jaybee]

To the best of my knowledge, this is how the orange WW/RCs came about;
The mutation originally occurred in a hamstery of a breeder in Holland over a decade ago. It is uncertain if it occurred in pure bred or hybrids. They were also bred with the red eyed argente, which is a known hybrid. If it was originally pure, it is no longer.

[laura]

I want to believe there are mandarin hamsters out there, but I feel that saying there are encourages breeders to hybridise their stock for the pretty 'rare' colours and I know that this can cause such health problems

However if the hamsters don't appear to be affected by being slightly hybrid I guess that this is fine, but I do feel that all of this mandarin hamsters business seems to confuse some 'breeders' into thinking an argente campbells is a mandarin winter white.

I've even seen people advertising 'RARE black winter whites' for sale lately, which I can't believe for a second to be black winter whites, as you can see they have campbells ears and features. They sell them for more than twice the price as well. Really annoys me to see it.

Sorry guys I'm going on a rant, but I have had two hybrid hamsters which I bought from 'breeders' and as much as I've loved/love them as my irreplaceable pets it angers me to think that with a bit more research into what they were breeding they might have lived longer and not have had such ailments. One of them was the gorgeous argente red eyed 'cream/mandarin WW'.

[mangoandmimi]

haha ive seen those on gumtree too, even with white campbells with pink eyes advertised as pearl winter whites :/