Welcome To The Instructional Breeding Project II

[Charles Courtois]

Time to look at the kittens that we got in Week 9, to see if we can finally discover what Arti’s hidden ear trait is (remember, we have discovered exactly what Arti is hiding for the other 5 traits that a KittyCatS starter is guaranteed to hide). Here is the result of her second breeding with Jonas (her ninth breeding overall):



Arti continues to be a difficult starter! In Arti’s 9 breedings, she has never passed more than 3 traits at once, and has never passed a non-Genesis eye shape, pupil size, or shade (I’m guessing she isn’t carrying a non-Genesis version of any of those traits, since those are the 3 traits that starters are not guaranteed to hide). She passed 3 this time (fur, eye colour and whisker shape), so this could be considered one of her better results. However, it tells us nothing about Arti that we didn’t already know, since we already know that Arti hides Siamese – Lilac fur, 18 –carat Gold eyes, and Wavy whiskers (we learned her hidden eye in her first breeding, and her hidden fur and whisker shape in her seventh breeding). So the shown fur and eye colour of Week 9 Kitten comes from Arti, as does the hidden whisker shape, while the hidden fur, hidden eye colour and shown Curious whisker shape came from Jonas (Jonas may well hide Pandie Brown & White fur and Odyssey Kaleidoscope eye colour, so Week 9 Kitten may hide one of these or Jonas’ shown fur or eye colour). The main thing to note about this kitten is that he doesn’t carry Arti’s hidden ear trait, which is what we are trying to discover. I will keep this kitten in the box.

Since Arti didn’t pass her hidden ear this week, and since Week 1 Kitten is unpacked and hides Arti’s hidden ear, I decided to breed Week 1 Kitten with a cat with a recessive ear trait named Buckley. Here is the result of that breeding:



Week 9a Kitten is a pretty decent 6-traited kitten, probably the best kitten of the entire project (her picture looks pretty cute too).

Exercise: For each trait of Week 9a Kitten, identify which parent the shown trait came from, and which parent the hidden trait came from. Hint: Grandfather Sydney has pure Curious whiskers (this question is easier than it sounds).Answer to follow shortly.

The main thing to notice about this kitten is that her shown ears are Rounded Fold. Dad Buckley’s shown ear trait is Odyssey Rounded Fold, which is recessive to Rounded Fold. Therefore, Rounded Fold must have been passed to Week 9a Kitten by Mom (Week 1 Kitten), and since Week 1 Kitten shows Rounded ears, Rounded Fold must be Week 1 Kitten’s hidden ear. But, as we stated earlier, Week 1 Kitten hides Arti’s hidden ear. Therefore, Rounded Fold has to be Arti’s hidden ear. The final unknown trait of the 6 traits that Arti as a starter is guaranteed to hide has been discovered!

In summary, after the Week 9 breedings, we now know that Arti hides:
Siamese – Lilac fur,
18-carat Gold eye colour,
Chop Chop tail,
Rounded Fold ears,
2-Tone Black and White whisker colour, and
Wavy whisker shape.

I have decided to end the breeding part of the project here (we have discovered what the 6 traits are that Arti is guaranteed to hide, and the traits Arti is hiding don’t really merit the extra resources for me to carry on breeding Arti and/or any of her offspring). However, there are still a few points relating to working with starters that I would like to cover, so I will continue to add a few posts to this thread as time permits over the next few weeks (after I catch up on my Christmas shopping lol). Wendi and I will also leave the cats/ boxes set up at her parcel in Athetis (slurl posted earlier in this thread) until sometime early in the New Year. As always, feel free to add questions /comments to this thread, and good luck with your kittehs!

Exercise Answer: Both Mom and Dad likely passed Curious whiskers to Week 9a Kitten, so she probably has pure Curious whiskers (if they aren’t pure Curious, the hidden whisker will have come from Dad, since Mom has Guitar whiskers showing (which came from Arti) and hides Curious whiskers (which came from Sydney)). For all of the other traits, the shown came from Mom, and the hidden from Dad, since every shown trait on Week 9a Kitten, except for the whisker shape, is dominant to the corresponding trait on Dad.

At this point, I would like to reply to a comment made earlier in the thread that it was understandable that a cat like Jonas might be too good to use on a starter right away. Jonas, as well as Oliver and Buckley (the other two Balinese Cream Lynxes I’ve used in this project over the past month) are all very nice cats that were unpacked specifically for the purpose of using with my Falloween starters. In fact, half of my Falloween starter partners were like Oliver, and the other half were like Jonas and Buckley. I didn’t want to use cats like these for the start of this project, though, partially because many people don’t have access to cats like these to put with starters (a cat roughly of Sydney’s calibre shouldn’t be too hard to find relatively cheaply), and partially because, if Arti had been more forthcoming with traits, a cat like Jonas could well have ended the project within a month (as it turned out, the only one of Arti’s hidden traits (whisker shape) would have been too recessive for us to have bred out with Jonas), which would have been too quick. Besides, I didn’t want the thrust of the education to be “put your starters with a bunch of super-cats and wait”.