Welcome To The Instructional Breeding Project II

[Charles Courtois]

This time, I’d like to discuss randomness and what you can and can’t control when it comes to your kitties.

You can’t control which traits, or how many traits (beyond the 6 that are guaranteed to hide), that a starter hides.

You can’t control which shown traits and which hidden traits a cat passes in any breeding.

You have NO control over the size of the offspring.

Sometimes you will get starters with a bunch of traits that you’re not fond of. Sometimes they will be irritating and not pass some of them for many breedings, so that you won’t know how little use they are to you for a number of weeks.

Sometimes you will get wonderful starters, with a number of desirable traits, which you’ll never have the good fortune to breed out in a group, no matter how much you want to.

Every once in a while though, you’ll get a starter that has solid traits and tosses them in bunches. I’ve heard of people getting all 9 traits from a starter in a single breeding! While I’ve never had that happen, I have had them toss 8 a few times (3 times, I think). I can recall another time when I had a starter that had, in consecutive breedings, a 6-traiter and a 7-traiter, of opposite genders, possessing the most recessive tail and one of the most recessive furs at the time, allowing me to setup a fantastic breeding line within about a month of the first OS. I’ve also had plenty of occasions where starters paired with 9-traiters passed absolutely no traits. That doesn’t mean that I did anything wrong in those breedings; it simply means that I wasn’t lucky at the time.

While you can’t control which/how many hidden traits a starter passes in a particular breeding, you can know which types of hiddens a starter passes by keeping them partnered with 9-traited cats. Also, using more recessive traits will give you a better chance of learning what those traits are. These are things you can control.

Having said that, there are times when breeding dominant traits with your starters can be useful. That’s a topic I hope to get to next time.

The important things to realize are that you will have good luck and bad luck, and that if things don’t work out the way you would like them to, assess your approach; stick with it if it is sound (which it may well be), change it if it isn’t. If you make a mistake (which we all do), don’t be too hard on yourself; learn from it and fix it if you can. If you have bad luck now, try to avoid becoming discouraged, keep at it, and eventually there’s a good chance you’ll have some good luck too!

Speaking of bad luck, let’s look at the latest breeding from Arti and Sydney! Here’s the pedigree:



Arti passed only one hidden trait this week, one which we already learned about in week 2. Arti passed her hidden 2-Tone Black and White whiskers, which are dominant to Sydney’s Black whiskers, which is why this kitten shows 2-Tone Black and White whiskers. This OS isn’t really useful, and will likely be sent to the menagerie once the breeding project is over.

We’ll leave Arti with Sydney for one more week, then I’ll likely switch Sydney with another male.

Good luck with your kitties (but be sure to save some good luck for me)!