Retired Traits? Any Interest out there?

[Ivy Norsk]

Generally speaking I do not pay much attention to whether a trait is retired or not. Traits are like a paintbox to me and I breed with what I want to breed, which includes a lot of old and retired traits as well as new ones.

Speaking more specifically though: THERE IS NO VIRTUE IN BREEDING WITH MYSTERIOUS WHISKERS.
For YEARS now people have been breeding white mysterious whiskers in order to get their cats to that vaunted 9T sales point. Probably half the whiskers on the grid are white mysterious, maybe more than 50%. It is going to take YEARS of hard weeding by dedicated breeders all across the grid to eliminate mysterious as a trait to levels where it will be valuable and useful.

Yes, I know that in a recent thread, Tad talked about using GM and Mx traits (that's guitar-hiding-mysterious and mysterious-hiding-unknown) in order to pull pure traits. Yes, mysterious can be used that way - but that technique is a mere grace note amidst a sea of white mysterious cats being bumped willy nilly to little purpose.

Whiskers are the wow factor on a cat that shows the really good breeding. There are no good reasonably recessive retired whiskers. Nor are any whiskers other than mysterious in general use, though plush and guitar are quite common of course. 9T - when that 9T is achieved by white mysterious whiskers is not only not meaningful - it is shoddy.

Yes, I have cats with white mysterious whiskers in my stores. I am working hard to correct that deficiency. They are so endemic on so many cats. Of course white is a legitimate color and I wouldn't put anything else on my pinks and they really pop on the charcoal bengals (versus 2 tone which blends, but also looks great). But mysterious - burn it.

/rant