Jumping in the deep end...

[Petronilla Whitfield]

Yes, you can turn off breeding on a new born kitten--or at any time while the cat is young enough to breed.

[Hathor Xaris]

(04-22-2014 11:23 AM)Hathor Xaris Wrote:  and whatever you do if you want to breed them do NOT turn off breed, it will cost more for you then to buy a pet food recovery drink or a week of breeder food if you change your mind.

When breeding overall this is the cheapest choice, unless of course you know for sure you won't be breeding within 7 days.

A week of breeder food + milk cost aproxx 77L
and yes as mentioned your kitty can only breed till age 120 so thats only 4 months or 16 weeks or about 10-20 kittens or so per life cycle of one cat , depending on how you take care of them and how much more you want to spend,

so turning breed off can be a good cheaper idea but only when you really think you are sure you might just like to have a pet, or if you know you wont be able to be breeding that cat anytime soon, but if you want every last lindens worth DO NOT turn breed off, you'll lose out on a kitten and weeks worth of time and food, in the end you have to judge if it's worth it to you. Sometimes certain kitties need all 20 kittens born to get the results you want, or perhaps maybe you know you cant't afford to do a bunch of genesis cats to get one fur showing, I personally never turn off breed but of course i'm a die hard breeder.

[Adana Ember]

Ah... I keep waffling.

I went and bought a starter pack of 2 pairs and got a coco(f), a domino(m), a smokey(f) and a flame(m). I'll pair them with my current kitties and see what pops out. I also went and bought an arsenal of food, milk and treats. It should be good for a start.

I also did a bit of research, though it made my head spin. My two females both have Odyssey Bellini eyes, which is nicely recessive. That should be good for flushing out other eyes, right?

Also, I'm wondering, my two girls each have at least one Foxie Salt & Pepper mask parent. Is there any chance that I could pull that out again? Probably not, huh, because I don't have anything more recessive.

... and pairing my Genesis Coco boy with the new Genesis Coco Girl will probably only yield me another Genesis Coco ... unless the recessives are the same and then I have a 1/4 chance of getting that... whatever it might be... but probably not. I might just try to see what happens and end up with lots of coco.

[Karloff Foehammer]

my breeding skills aren't great, so someone can come along and correct me if i am wrong.

the eyes can be good for pulling out recessive traits. be warned though: anything Genesis is dominant to anything else, so it can take some patience sometimes to get thew new traits.

as for the salt and pepper foxies, there's a chance of pulling it out if you breed one of them with another salt and pepper. most of the time, you will get the dominant fur, but sometimes something random happens and you get something further back in the line. I have a couple lines that are semi-pure going back at least a generation or two on each side and once in a while still get a random fur that i wasn't expecting.

again, if i'm wrong, someone can swoop in and correct me. my info is more based on anecdotal experience than actual science.

[Adana Ember]

My rudimentary understanding is this. My Silver Tabby has one Silver Tabby parent and one Foxie S&P. She obviously inherited her dominant parent, but the other parent should have passed her displayed breed/coat: the Foxie S&P. Same thing with the Chateau. Is there any possibility that either of them would have inherited anything other than the Foxie as her Recessive? Both cat's grandparents on their recessive side are all Foxies as well, so the likely hood of any surprises is less... if that even matters.

Now, of course, I can't mate two girls together. I'm going to have to find a boy with the same mash up, or even a boy Foxie S&P to gain anything... maybe I'll do that.

You can never have too many cats, right?

[anna Acanthus]

(04-24-2014 09:39 AM)Karloff Foehammer Wrote:  I have a couple lines that are semi-pure going back at least a generation or two on each side and once in a while still get a random fur that i wasn't expecting.

What is happening here is that even if both parents may have the same fur on the immediate pedigree, they both are hiding a more recessive fur that has been passed along for several generations.
So you can know that they aren't pure.
Also the surprise fur isn't random; whatever hidden furs there are remain constant but there is just much less chance of these two hiddens "pulling" each other than there is for the shown fur to be produced.
This is in fact why it's a bit dicy to claim any trait as being pure. Unless you've bred the lines from the very beginning or can trace back all the pedigrees then there's no way of knowing for sure.

[Adana Ember]

(04-24-2014 10:47 AM)anna acanthus Wrote:  

(04-24-2014 09:39 AM)Karloff Foehammer Wrote:  I have a couple lines that are semi-pure going back at least a generation or two on each side and once in a while still get a random fur that i wasn't expecting.

What is happening here is that even if both parents may have the same fur on the immediate pedigree, they both are hiding a more recessive fur that has been passed along for several generations.
So you can know that they aren't pure.
Also the surprise fur isn't random; whatever hidden furs there are remain constant but there is just much less chance of these two hiddens "pulling" each other than there is for the shown fur to be produced.
This is in fact why it's a bit dicy to claim any trait as being pure. Unless you've bred the lines from the very beginning or can trace back all the pedigrees then there's no way of knowing for sure.

I don't understand this. ... I thought the only traits that are passed are the dominant trait of each parent. Each kitty gets one trait from the dad and one from the mom and the dominant trait is the one they're wearing and the 'hidden' trait is the dominant trait they got from the other parent ... uh...ok, so maybe the hidden trait is the recessive's hidden trait and that could go back a few generations if they all pass the same hidden trait. But wouldn't that be unlikely because recessive parent would be more likely to pass her dominant trait? ... or am I just making stuff up now...?

[anna Acanthus]

Lol Adana, i don't need to answer really as you seem to have worked it out correctly on your own.
But yes, what has happened in Karloff's case is much less likely, about 25% chance of it happening i think, but someone else can maybe step in with the actual figures - i don't take much notice of these in fact, i just cross my fingers and hope for the best on my long shots.

Sometimes, if i see a couple of strongly traited grandparents each side of a pedigree this will decide me to buy as i know that even if some of them haven't shown in the grandchild or be evident in the two parents they may have been carried through as hidden, so there may be at least one nice plus lurking in there.

[Adana Ember]

Thanks, anna ... and everyone. This is going to be fun, I'm sure. I'll try and keep everyone posted. Thanks

[Easnadh Swansong]

I think us addicts have had our numbers increased by one.