Day Seven
The harsh 2010 winter proved hard for me as one day while OH and I were at work the electricity went out for I am not sure how long. I came home around 6PM to a house at 40 degrees Fahrenheit, and several in Torpor Hamsters. It was so horrible as I quickly restarted the heat via our natural fire place and then took every bin and cage of all the hamsters and placed them each side by side on the floor near enough to warm the hamsters slowly but in large amounts. Some of the younger ones were still moving but like they were drunken. Two adults were gone already Christian, and Sniff Angel. Tribble was in full torpor and didn't recover. three of the Poohbear line which hadn't found a pet home were also gone even with all the things done and used to save them. All of the Hillcrest Hamstery gang seemed unaffected at all and just looked up at me as if to say why did you wake me up and uncover me I was nice and warm. Tynan and Hadiya were in a warmer room upstairs and also were not affected. All I could do is cry as I watched so many pass away at once.
However one has to move on and there was nothing I could do for those lost. In late September 2010 when I met up with the breeder in New York and she sold me a very orange tone Golden SH female whose Dam was Tynan's, and Hadiya's Sister. She was supposed to be for Christian but he was gone. The sire of the litter was a complete outcross bloodlines so my Mentor suggested we use Shreya with Tynan. This was to get some Rex coats for my Mentor to use.
This was Shreya
The results showed that Tynan didn't like sharing his Rex genes or Shreya didn't as both had one Rex parent but the whole litter of 7 were not rex coated. One pup was lost before eyes opened but the remaining 6 pups were weaned and because of the Rex coat chances most ended up with my Mentor.
I don't have a group shot but here are a few of some of the litter.
Two of the Umbrous Golden Long Hair males
My fav Female who ended up in Wisconsin to a great friend I had met on a different Yahoo Hamster group. 16 hours drive round trip she went and didn't even skip a beat.
The whole litter ended up Umbrous Golden with both Long and Short hair coats.
One of my Goals set for 2011 was to continue forward with breeding a Dove Tort Band pup using the Golden and Black pedigreed hamsters and introducing in a few Yellow or Yellow Combination Hamsters from Hillcrest hamstery.
Here are the 4 Hamsters bought from them.
Black Tort Band girl Rogenbogen(Rainbow in some language) who carried Cinnamon and unfortunately cream.
Lh Satin Dove Band Romeo, and Satin Honeyblack Band Madhukar
and Long Hair Honeyblack Band Girl Juliette
We'll never know what caused the two males to go to bed one night and never awake the next day when they were just barely 7 months old, but whatever it was it was genetic as this sudden nest syndrome would prove to be passed on in males, even great great grand pups. Even the other two breeders that got pups at the same time I did had this occur always in Males and always before age 8 months. Stow-A-Way was found died in his nest at 7 1/2 months old and his only pup died in his nest at just 5 months old. I didn't have to scratch out my whole yellow line this time but it had a harsh blow to my goals of a Dove Tort Band from pedigreed lines.
However long before we became aware of the obvious genetic problem I had bred Tynan to Juliette in hopes of beginning a new Yellow line with all pedigreed Hamsters. We knew Ty was Umbrous but only had one umbrous gene so had potential to produce normal colors as well.
The Julinans were actually born in 2010 in November. I was expecting Black Tort, and Melanistic Yellows with all carrying Cinnamon(what I would need to reach my goal of a Dove Tort Band). From his breeding with Angel I knew Tynan was cream free. I had no idea that Juliette held a secret that even her breeder didn't know about her.
The litter had 12 pups in it. five females and seven males.
Here are the seven males
The five Females
Now does anyone notice something VERY odd about these pups? Here's a Hint Juliette could not produce any non yellow or Yellow combination colors but wait where did those sables come from? Turns out they are NOT true sables but Umbrous Ee Melanistic Yellows. Every Female you see above is a Black Tort with or without a band. For weeks my Mentor and other well known hobby breeders puzzled at this litter. It wasn't until I was showing off old photos of Poohbear while we discussed the sudden death situation that a lightbulb went off in all our heads. An Ee Yellow often looks like a BEC until it matures and some very sparse amounts of brown ticking comes in to show the truth of the BEC actually being Ee Yellow/Mel Yellow. Now if Umbrous were applied to that Ee Yellow/Mel Yellow we concluded it would look sable.
Through a gal who purchased one of the Umbrous Ee Black Torts, and breeding her to a normal Black band it gave us the proof positive that this whole litter was Black Torts and Melanistic Yellows with 3 males being EE Melanistic Yellow(the three lighter pups), and 4 being Ee and Umbrous(1 with a band), and with the girls it was 1 EE Black Tort(the obvious Tort), 2 being Ee Black Tort Umbrous(the two that LOOK black, but had eye rings), and two Ee Umbrous Black Tort band( the ones which appear to be Black Band).
My friend's litter was 13 pups with Blacks, Black Torts, and Umbrous Ee Black Torts, and Umbrous Ee Melanistic Yellows. ALL Melanistic Yellows looked sable. I was give one of those Umbrous Ee Mel Yellows and named him Nazeer. He was beautiful but was dead in his nest at 8 months like every male from this line had happen.
Nazeer at 5 months old in all his handsome fluffiness.
Well when given lemons make Lemonade is what my Grand ma used to say to my Sister and I when we were kids. I pet homed all the female pups from this line and buried all the males I had kept when they were found dead after a happy day the day before. If any were wondering if this line had any connection to Poohbear, it was way later found that they very well could have, as the breeder had started her whole hamstery using a pedigreed male to a red bouncing ball on the sign store bought female almost 7 generations back.
Re: Hamster Photo of the Month of March
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