Instructional Breeding Project (Week 7 Info: MEGA!)

[Liriel Garnet]

May I offer one suggestion when it comes to dealing with the interesting whiskers, etc? If the most recessive she's shown so far is curious, i would try to find siblings in the offspring with Myst or Plush whiskers (anything dominant to the most recessive she's shown) to breed together to pull the whisker out if at all possible, because of the case you mentioned where the starter might hide curious.

If you breed two showing myst together (or better yet one showing myst and one showing plush) and pull curious, you'll know for sure that it IS curious the starter hides. If they toss something more recessive instead of the curious, you'll know the ones showing curious hide that as well.

If there is something more recessive hiding, and you breed two showing curious, it *is* possible for one or the other to toss their curious every time and you'll never see it. At least if that happens with the myst showing, you'll know it because they both hide *at least* curious.

I hope my explanation makes sense, if it doesn't, feel free to IM me in world and I'll try to explain further.

[Sanura Snowpaw]

So exciting! I can't wait to see what else little Miss Poppy has to show us. As this is only her second kitten either way it seems we will be waiting for the RIGHT sex to either sibling breed or breed back to Poppy but I am excited about the mysteries there find and solve!

[Wendi Lavendel]

Yesh, I think I should send her some boy vibes!!

[Charles Courtois]

Given that Poppy's partner for the first 2 breedings, Ricky, shows Curious whiskers and hides Frazzled, Curious whiskers are actually the least interesting non-Guitar whisker shape this pair is capable of producing.

Switching her partner to one with Mysterious or Plush whiskers (preferably not having any chance of hiding Curious) is definitely a sensible option to consider, but it is still early (only 2 breedings so far), we've already learned quite a lot for 2 breedings (4 hiddens determined with certainty (eye colour, pupil size, tail & ears), minimum recessiveness levels established for fur & whisker shape, plus getting the hidden whisker colour hiding on both offspring), and this pairing has already given a real potential trait-bomb if the fur, whisker shape and/or whisker colour turns out to be something of high value. I think that for now, it is fine to stick with the same partner for a few more breedings at least, wait for a boy, & maybe get more info about the fur & whisker shape along the way (if Poppy happens to hide Stubby whiskers, we may even get the whisker shape question answered directly without having to switch partners).

[Tad Carlucci]

If you switch Poppy's mate to be a more recessive Whisker shape, be sure it appears with a more recessive Whisker color.

You do not want her to make with Silver or White color, or Guitar, Mysterious, Plush or Curious. The next step down is 2 Tone Black and White and Stubby, but I'd go a step or two lower if you have it available (or can find and afford it). Something like Black/Frazzled, Black/Boo Boo, or Blonde Streaked/Boo Boo would do for a next test if you don't want to go straight to Latte/Fussy. These could be put against the boxes if Poppy is not available.

[Wendi Lavendel]

(05-30-2013 07:34 PM)Tad Carlucci Wrote:  If you switch Poppy's mate to be a more recessive Whisker shape, be sure it appears with a more recessive Whisker color.

You do not want her to make with Silver or White color, or Guitar, Mysterious, Plush or Curious. The next step down is 2 Tone Black and White and Stubby, but I'd go a step or two lower if you have it available (or can find and afford it). Something like Black/Frazzled, Black/Boo Boo, or Blonde Streaked/Boo Boo would do for a next test if you don't want to go straight to Latte/Fussy. These could be put against the boxes if Poppy is not available.

Thanks for clarifying what we explained earlier: we will likely try her with one of my Latte/Frazzled or Blonde/Wavy kitties, depending on what else is a "mystery" (e.g. if she didn't give up the eye, I might have used a Prismatic/Latte/Frazzled; if she doesn't give up a fur I would try one of my Seal Lynx/Blonde/Wavy kitties, etc.)

Also, Liriel's technique is a good one we might end up using for the whisker shape alone: offspring would easily show the dominant whisker and hide the recessive, and when you breed them together you'd know *exactly* what came from where with no mystery.

[Tad Carlucci]

The main difference between Liriel's suggestion of using a more dominant trait to pick up the recessive and expose it has the advantage of giving a provably pure trait (shown and hidden will be Poppy's recessive). The odds, per box, is 1-in-4.

Using a more recessive yields a hybrid (hiding the recessive) but has odds, per box, of 1-in-2.

So, it's a judgement call, get a pure trait, slower, or get a hybrid, sooner.

My bend is to go for the hybrid because, if you go for the discovery first, you minimize resource expenses (food, prims, your time) during the discovery phase.

[Liriel Garnet]

(05-30-2013 10:24 PM)Tad Carlucci Wrote:  The main difference between Liriel's suggestion of using a more dominant trait to pick up the recessive and expose it has the advantage of giving a provably pure trait (shown and hidden will be Poppy's recessive). The odds, per box, is 1-in-4.

Using a more recessive yields a hybrid (hiding the recessive) but has odds, per box, of 1-in-2.

So, it's a judgement call, get a pure trait, slower, or get a hybrid, sooner.

My bend is to go for the hybrid because, if you go for the discovery first, you minimize resource expenses (food, prims, your time) during the discovery phase.

I'm actually a fan of both techniques and use a combination myself when I can. If you have something even more recessive, by all means go for it. If you don't have anything more recessive on hand (and don't want to go buy it), or if, for example, you get a return of whatever the current known most-recessive is, then that's when I back down and use the more dominant in that slot to sibling breed.

I had a pair of whiskered offspring from a Christmas cat and I finally birthed the pair a three weeks ago (because I had my cattery size under control by then LOL) that were myst and plush because the most recessive whisker i had on a 9t cat at the time was curious and the Christmas starter had thrown curious with curious. They popped me a box showing wavy earlier tonight and the parents are now safely tucked away into my inventory on their way to kitty playground. The box I can just hold until I decide whether or not I want to breed that whisker into a line. In my case, I was forced to use this route simply by virtue of having nothing with which to test, and decided to do this rather than go purchase a cat with a more recessive whisker.

I probably misread what the original intentions were, because I thought she was talking about breeding the curious together to pull out the hidden whisker. That's why I spoke up to offer the advice that I did. I apologize for misunderstanding, but on the bright side, it's gotten some very good points raised for discussion in exploring the different techniques.

[Tad Carlucci]

The important points I'd say a reader should take away from all this discussion (so far):

Beyond the basics of how the genetics work, and using that and your breeding results to infer the genetics of your stock, you should:

* have a working understanding of the probabilities of success, to better inform your decision making

* realize that you need to have some sort of goal and criteria, to better inform your decision making

* recognize there are resource involved (time, money, etc) and your decisions can effect those

KittyCatS is a game of chance. But your decision-making process can eliminate chance.

One goal, when designing a breeding a breeding program is to discover the unknowns.

But simply knowing what is hidden from view does not eliminate chance. So, another goal, when designing a breeding program, is to eliminate the effects of randomness.

All the while you should be working toward some larger goal (say, a specific [or sets of] combination of traits; whether for sale, as a collectible, or for future breeding programs).

Since KittyCatS is also a pay-to-play game, a sub-goal should be to control resource expenditures; and this should be a factor in your decision-making process.

Whether your ultimate goal is "that perfect cat", or simply "a good cat to sell", a good breeding program will get you there sooner and at less expense. And that, if you're into selling cats, means a better profit margin.

[Charles Courtois]

At this point, I think it is a good time to discuss the challenge of choosing a good cat to put with a starter (especially since many will have RFL starters reaching breeding age within the next week or so).

The main goals you should be focusing on are gathering information about what your starters are hiding, and getting cats that are useful, either for starting a new line, or enhancing other lines that you have already.

The first thing to remember about picking partners for starters is that, unless there is a special collection kitten to be had (e.g. the Deviled Egg/ Wild Child kitties of the spring collection) do not breed a starter to another starter! There are at least 2 good reasons why you shouldn't breed starters together. For one thing, starters have no shown traits, so there is a very good chance you will get a very low-traited kitty back. Also, even when the resulting kitty does show traits, you have no idea which parent provided the shown trait, & which provided the hidden one. So putting a starter doesn't do well either in providing you with information, or with giving you useful breeding stock.

So what sort of cats make good choices for breeding with a starter? There are 3 things I look for in a partner for a starter, & they all tie in to our 2 goals of information gathering & getting quality.

First of all, the more traits, the better. You'll notice Poppy's partner at the start, Ricky, is a 9-traiter. The choice of a 9-traiter was intentional. Using a traity cat with a starter gives a better chance at a traity offspring, as well as guaranteeing that certain traits will be hiding in the offspring. Look at the second kitten Poppy produced. She is showing 6 traits, but her father has also hid traits in the places where no traits are showing, so that 6-traiter is capable of producing 9-traited kittens with the right partner. Also, traity partners can help you learn more about your starters, such as whether they hide a shade, Mysterious eye shape, or Small pupil.

Second of all, retired traits can be very useful to use when breeding with a starter, because if you get that trait back, you know that it came from the starter's partner and not from the starter, since a new starter can't hide a retired trait (if you're working with an older starter, keep in mind that a trait that is currently retired may not have been retired when the starter was originally produced). (When I say "retired" trait in this case, I am also including limited edition traits (e.g. Gerbera eyes), as well as traits from special starters, assuming you're not working with that type of special (for example, Blush Quartz eyes if you're not working with a White or Disco tiger, or Fancie eyes if you're not working with that type of Fancie)). This can help you in your information gathering. It may also come in handy if you need to backbreed or sibling breed later.

Third, using recessive traits can help with information gathering, and can also help improve the quality of your starter offspring. For example, suppose I pair a starter with a partner with Odyssey Bellini eyes (the most recessive eyes currently known), and get a nicely-traited offspring with Pink Ice eyes. You might not be happy with such a dominant eye showing (unless you happen to like it ), but you can also be sure that the Ody Bellini is hiding in the offspring, so you can breed that out. The one caveat with using recessive traits is that you can run into what I call "the recessiveness wall"; if you had got Ody Bellini showing with the above partnership instead of Pink Ice, you would not know for certain if the starter hides Ody Bellini or some new as-yet-undiscovered eye, and backbreeding in this case may give you confusing results (you may just keep getting Ody Bellini back, even if a different eye is hiding, if randomness is being unkind hehe). In this case, what I would do is switch the starter's partner to a partner with a more dominant eye, wait for an offspring carrying the starter's hidden eye, & use that to backbreed or sibling breed.

Different breeders will weigh these 3 qualities a bit differently, depending on their approaches & goals, but in general, these are good qualities to look for.