Introducing Peaches

[Mollz]

She's a real beauty! I'm sure she'll be very happy with you

[jayne]

She is beautiful, love her colour!
And i love her name too, she suits it
I can see why you gave in to her :P

[DonnaB]

Awwww what a beautiful girl..... my first hammie was called Peach and the same colour.

[Jane]

Awww, she's gorgeous

I thought you shouldn't breed hamsters from pet shops though? Just curious really because I'm confused now I'm probably wrong too :P

[Basia]

Originally Posted by Jane

Awww, she's gorgeous

I thought you shouldn't breed hamsters from pet shops though? Just curious really because I'm confused now I'm probably wrong too :P

Your right Jane, sensible people don't but I may take a chance seeing as I know the genetic background of the father. I think the worst that will happen is that Peaches is carrying lots of colours other than cream and although she is typey herself she may not throw babies like herself. Chunky isn't carrying any semi-lethal genes so even if Peaches is the babies will be okay. I wouldn't imagine she is though, she barely has a speck of white on her anywhere.

[I_am_plankton]

Originally Posted by Jane

Awww, she's gorgeous

I thought you shouldn't breed hamsters from pet shops though? Just curious really because I'm confused now I'm probably wrong too :P

Also that's a general thing told to inexperienced people who don't know about colours, what to put with what or whatever who just breed for fun. Many breeders throw in the odd pet shop hamster to mix their lines up a little since, as Jean Tye says, there are only ever so many lines between her and other breeders that they need new lineage sometimes

Given she has a nice type, lovely colouring and is a satin and a LH it suggests that she didn't just come from anywhere if you see what I mean.

I would go with it Gill, at the very least you might get some non showers but I highly doubt it!

[Catja]

She's beautiful, absolutely beautiful And if you got her from our local pets@home then I am really jealous too

[Holly]

I think it's very important that inexperienced hamster people take away the idea that they shouldn't breed pet shop hamsters as there are a million pitfalls in breeding two hamsters with unknown genetics - as well as the sad fact that the hamster breeding mills are already breeding far too many "pet quality" hamsters than there are lifelong homes for.

If you breed to show - and are, therefore, breeding to improve type/colour etc in your lines (as well as the all important temperament of your hamsters) then having the odd totally unrelated hamster to throw into the mix is desirable. Most show hamsters are fairly inbred (I've only got to look at my pedigrees and compare them with Gill and Teresa - we've all got related hamsters, some related a couple of times over!). As Gill also says, she'll be breeding to a hamster with a full history and she knows (as well as it's possible to) that he doesn't have any dodgy recessive genes so, even if Peaches does, it won't matter as two are needed to cause problems.

At the end of the day I wouldn't think using lots of petshop hamsters if you only breed a few litters is a brilliant idea - Tristar and the other breeders who regularly visit petshops for new hamster are extremely experienced and know what they are looking for - they also breed a LOT of litters and have outlets for those babies who aren't show quality in the end - whereas the small timers like those of us here don't do that.

Having said all of that I'm not (really!) planning on breeding Aero, my very own petshop baby. However, if she ends up being an unusual colour and and she grows and shows really well then I'd be stupid not to, wouldn't I?

[Jane]

Ah right, thanks for clearing that up guys I knew you wouldn't do anything "bad" Basia, I was just curious

[Basia]

Peaches has been with us for 5 days now. Her taming is coming along really well and she is bright and curious and as you will see from her photo below she has really GROWN.

Valentine Peaches:

[img][/img]