I've noticed that in the past (I've only been here for a bit over a month) that some times if you breed special kitties together they produce another special kitty that can only been gotten through breeding the two special kitties together. (like the bunny kitties and getting a black bunny kitty)
So I was wondering if anyone has gotten anything special from the RFL kitties? I've breed mine together and all I got was a 2T American Short Hair... not that I was expecting anything else, but I thought I'd mention it. Also it'd be nice to have a thread going of what peoples results are from breeding the RFL kitties.
(I apologies if this thread has been made already, but I couldn't find it.)
(07-19-2014 09:22 AM)Azareth Kohime Wrote: [ -> ]I've noticed that in the past (I've only been here for a bit over a month) that some times if you breed special kitties together they produce another special kitty that can only been gotten through breeding the two special kitties together. (like the bunny kitties and getting a black bunny kitty)
I don't think the RFL kitties are billed as making a special baby when mated together. The winter, Spring, and Halloween collections actually say on the announcement/ad taht they make one special baby when mated.
In my silly opinion, best course of action is to treat them exactly like plain starters and give each one an awesomely beautifully-traited mate, the best you can find/afford.
According to many, a useful choice as "starter mate" would be a 7 to 9 trait foxie salty with recessive eyes (ody bellini?), a fairly recessive tail, and some recessive whiskers. This, because foxie salt & pepper is a very recessive fur, yet great ones can be gotten relatively inexpensively. Using a cat with many recessive traits is not necessary, but it speeds up the process of identifying your Tin Man and Tin Woman's hidden traits. That way, if your cats throw their hidden traits, it is more likely to show on the kitten. (On that first round, they both threw their recessive fur, but you can only see the more dominant one, the American shorthair one, and you can't tell which cat contributed it.)
It's pretty cool that you got Flair on the first round -- it means both your cats are hiding a shade (one is hiding Flair), which starters are not guaranteed to do.
I'd be interested to know what comes from the Tin Man and Woman too! We are overdue fro a new shade ... but IDK if the RFL's are said to be carrying new traits? or not?
No special kittens and no new traits.
Hikari
My recommendation for normal starters, and Specials, like the RFL Cats, which are normal starters with a paint job:
Use a fair-to-mid'lin 9-trait cat and save your deeply-recessive cats for other projects. If you don't have a 9-trait, it's OK to cover the main features: fur, eye color, tail, ears and whiskers color and shape. The other three traits (shade, eye shape and pupil size) have fewer values. Eye shape and pupil size, with only two values each, are easiest to cross into the line later. Shade, while it has several values, is of lesser importance because, for many people, it's problematic because they simply can't see the differences.
Retired trait values are best. They can't be in the starter, so if they appear, you know, right away, that both the starter and the offspring hide something more recessive.
The idea is, all things being equal, normal starters are as likely to hide the more-dominant half of the value list as they are to hide the more-recessive half. By using a mid'lin mate, half the time you'll find out just the same information, in the same time, as if you'd used a deeply-recessive mate .. and your deep mate can be off working on something else like the other half offspring from earlier starters, or crossing traits into other lines.
I could be missing something but i STILL don't get why using a retired fur is still so recommended, apart from the fact that if it shows then the starter's hidden obviously has to be higher and not the same.
It was obviously very useful back when Bengal Snow was first retired as there were only a couple (if i remember rightly) of new more recessive furs.
Use a Ben Snow now and if it shows then all you will know is that your starter will be hiding one of the 25 or so more recessive, so nothing to get excited about.
So the most recessive, which is at the moment Bali Cream, would be the most recommended now, although if it's not pure then this could complicate the affair (i could explain why but it would take yet another paragraph to do so.)
Anyhow, if Cream shows and there's only 7 known furs that could be hidden + maybe a new TR.
Apart from this point, everyone can afford to use a Salty or a Bali Cream these days, in fact i imagine that most catteries, big and small have quite a few of these so i'd say go ahead and use the lesser traited ones on starters if it's the fur that you're going for.
If you get either showing and same gender as the starter so no breed back possible THEN is the time to use a well 7/9 traited more dominant fur on your starter until you get a shown of the opposite gender, as if you hit the jackpot on breed-back you will then have much more scope to develop other traits than if it's hidden behind, let's say, the Salty.
Once again, i wouldn't even look at a 2/3 traited Tortie hiding Aby Dark Choc plus little background, but i'd pounce on one showing for example, Red Tabby, especially if the Tabby parent shows and hides some good traits, but this isn't essential as i now have practically the whole range of furs to pick and choose from to fine tune and get the traits i want into that Dark Choc.
**As the RFL kitties this year do not carry any new traits these points are rather superfluous to the OP but still good to reiterate from time to time.
"apart from the fact" is the exact reason.
"everyone can afford" is a false assumption. Yes, Bali Cream is pretty wide spread. And, yes, a lot of breeders probably have at least half-a-bazzilion of them, but that's ignoring new breeders. And you're assuming everyone has Lindens to spare.
Oh well then, as i thought, it's a hyped up idea thats hung on from the Ben Snow retirement days in 2011 when in fact it really was pretty useful for a short while.
I gave Bali Creams as example as it's the most recessive retired fur, so obviously it would be the best retired fur to use.
Personally when a starter shows me Cream so what ? With my luck it's usually just hiding Soft Black or Salty so i don't go out of my way to use Cream, just if i have it hanging around doing nothing much and i don't have anything better to spare at the time.
And my "assumption" comes from the idea that if one can afford the 750L$ (or 1000 in this case) for a LE then surely one can afford the 300L$ (even less unhappily) for Creams which have been swamping the market for a good while now.
Even with a regular starter thats 298L$ (?) to start with so a partner for the price of one month's food at breeder level will hardly break anyone's bank worse than it already is.
In fact i'm not sure if one could find a 9T Red tabby, the most dominant non-genesis fur, (also retired) for as little as a Cream these days.
Saltys also can be found at this kind of price. I even see both given away regularly in my swappers group.