Instructional Breeding Project (Week 7 Info: MEGA!)

[Wendi Lavendel]

Charles, Sanura and I are doing a new project that will help some of the newer breeders understand how the breeding of KittyCats™ works. This is to enhance the wonderful and helpful information you already get in the forums, in-world classes, and in Saga's tutorials and charts - now you can actually see the concepts being put into practice! Note that there is no guarantee that any of this information will work with other SL breedables. Here's the info:

Instructional Breeding Project

~Introduction~

Welcome to The Tiny Canuck's Instructional Breeding Project (IBP)!

Thanks to Charles Courtois for the awesome idea, and thanks also to Sanura Snowpaw for the help and to Saga Felix for providing all of us with her awesome charts and tutorials!

So maybe you've done a couple of breeding classes or started to read some of Saga's awesome tutorials on how KittyCats™ breeding works, but perhaps it's a bit of a jumble of traits and terminology rolling around in your head... maybe you're thinking, what do I do with all of this information and how do I use it? I'm hoping that this new project will help!

Hopefully, this project will help you answer the following questions:

• How do I find out what my new/starter cat is hiding? How do I breed out his/her traits?
• How do I know what I'll get if I breed 2 cats together?
• How do I take a nicely traited kitty and breed his/her traits into a different fur? How do I create a cat with the traits that I want?
  

~How Will it Work?~

I've picked a breeder cat from my cattery and bought a regular “starter cat” (a brand new genesis cat that I have purchased from the KittyCats™ store). Every week we'll see what kitten box they produce and we'll discuss it – what the cats passed to the kitten and how we can use that to find out what the starter kitty is hiding.

Depending on what kittens the kitties give, we might “breed back” (breed a baby with a parent) or breed siblings together... if you've heard the term “kitty-cest”, this is where it comes from LOL. Heck, if a hidden trait seems particularly stubborn we might even bring in a whole different cat, and we'll have a right big cat orgy!

Each week's progress and notes will be available at the IBP (Instructional Breeding Project) location (http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/At.../189/127), and in this forum thread on the KittyCats™ forum. You can also ask questions via notecard at the IBP location (drop them in the green mailbox) or by posting a reply in this thread.

NOTE: Questions and answers will be available in-world and on the forum. For example, if you drop a question in the mailbox in-world, I'll paste your question and answer into the next set of notecards and in the next forum posting, and vice versa. By default I will NOT include anyone's name; if you want me to include your name with your question, say so when you pose your question (e.g. "you have permission to use my name, displayed as Whatever Your Name Is"). Obviously if you make your own reply to this forum thread, we can see your name, but it will NOT be included in the notecards in-world unless you give permission.

~Do I Need to Do Anything?~

Nope, just ask questions and make comments if you have them! I'll take care of the cats and every time a kitten is born, Charles Courtois, Sanura Snowpaw, and I will discuss the results - what traits are showing, what is it likely to be hiding? We'll then write up an explanation about how we figured everything out and post it here and in-world.

It will be helpful to understand a little bit about dominant and recessive traits. I recommend the following:

Video: What are Traits?
(You can stop when they start talking about flowers – this is where they get into complex traits, which doesn't apply to KittyCats™ breedables)

Saga's KittyCats Collection (Google Docs): This has some tutorial information about KittyCats traits, how breeding works, and a collection of charts that show the dominance and recessiveness of the different Kittycats traits:
Saga's KittyCats Collection

Saga has a couple of tutorial pages there called “Facts About KittyCats Traits” and “KittyCats Basics – for Beginners”. I'd start with those and then have a look at the trait charts. If you need help understanding how to read the trait charts, just post a reply to this message.

In the next post, I'll do a quick summary of the basics with some pedigree examples, then I'll introduce you to our kitties! For now, feel free to ask questions, and visit the site in-world at http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/At...73/189/127

[Sanura Snowpaw]

So looking forward to this project!

[Charles Courtois]

This should be interesting.

[Winter Phoenix]

Can we bring snacks?
If so, when does the show start?

[Wendi Lavendel]

Yummmmm, snacks!! The first kitten will be born on Tuesday so every Wednesday we'll leave out notecards and post in this thread about the kitten (what it's hiding, what this says about the starter cat, etc)... So when those are available, I'll post here and send out notices, and you can just show up whenever you want I'm also working on a sort of presentation/tutorial thing that you can sit and go through.. like a class but it's with slides and chat and runs on its own, you just show up whenever you want and press the "start" button

[Tabbella Resident]

Thank you so much for offering something like this!

[AmoreJade Cyberstar]

Awesome & Thanks, Ill see you guys there!

? Amore

[Nino Heartsdale]

very cool - look forward to it!

[Wendi Lavendel]

The kitties will drop their first box tomorrow!
I'm also finishing off a self-directed tutorial for people who maybe can't get to a class or would rather go through a class on their own, at their own pace!

[Wendi Lavendel]

Two new things have been added to the Instructional Breeding Project!

1. A tutorial!!

This is a self-directed tutorial: Show up whenever you like and navigate the tutorial using the buttons provided. Go at your own pace, review material if you like, come back and do the tutorial again whenever you need to. No class to schedule, no time zones to fuss with. Come and study alone or bring friends!

2. The first kitty!!

The starter cat and her partner have had their first kitten! Come and see what they had and see what we can learn about what the starter cat is hiding! Notecards are available to take with you in case you prefer to learn in your own space in SL, or if you'd like a reference to use for the future. I've also included the info at the end of this post.

Come and visit, feel free to hang out! Ask questions using the mailbox in-world or post to this thread.

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/At...73/189/127

WendiKitteh

================================================
~ Week 1 Kitten Info ~

(This assumes you've read the intro notecard/info and checked out Ricky's pedigree notecard)

It's Week 1 and we have our first kitten from Poppy and Ricky!

Here are the stats of the new kitty:

? New Born Kitten

Fur: Genesis - Diamond III
Eyes: Genesis Water (Shape: Curious | Pupil: Big)
Shade: Natural
Tail: Plush
Ears: Mysterious
Whiskers: White (Shape: Guitar)
Size: Normal

MOM: Poppy
Fur: Genesis - Diamond III
Eyes: Genesis Water (Shape: Curious | Pupil: Big)
Shade: Natural
Tail: Genesis
Ears: Genesis
Whiskers: Silver (Shape: Guitar)

DAD: Ricky
Fur: Russian - Black
Eyes: Gerbera Purple (Shape: Mysterious | Pupil: Small)
Shade: Flair
Tail: Big Boo Boo
Ears: Soft Fold
Whiskers: White (Shape: Curious)

(Ricky's full pedigree information is available by clicking on his sign in-world)

We only pulled 3 traits but these 3 tell us a lot of information about Poppy, already! Let's look:

1. Tail.
The kitten has Plush tail. Check Saga's charts (https://docs.google.com/folder/d/0B0_Wqb33nVpnZWYwNGViMGMtYWU4ZS00ZjAyLTk4OTctMzk2YzljODliMDhm/edit). What is the order of dominance for Plush tail and (Dad's/Ricky's) Big Boo Boo Tail?

Plush tail is the more dominant of the two, so the Plush tail could not have been hiding behind Dad's/Ricky's Big Boo Boo tail. Our kitten's shown Plush tail must have come from Mom/Poppy.

Poppy shows Genesis tail, and we know that didn't pass, or else the kitten would have been showing the dominant Genesis tail. So the Plush tail must have been Poppy's hidden tail.

(If this is making NOOO sense at all, please check out the tutorial in-world http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/At...3/189/127)

2. Ears.
The kitten has Mysterious ears. Check Saga's charts again... Mysterious ears are dominant to Dad's/Ricky's shown Soft Fold ears.

Mom/Poppy shows Genesis ears, and we know those didn't pass, or else the kitten would be showing the dominant Genesis ears. So the Mysterious ears must have been Poppy's hidden ears.

3. Whisker Colour.
Things are interesting with the whisker colour. The kitten has white whiskers, but so does Dad/Ricky! Remember when we examined Ricky's pedigree, we thought he *might* hide Two-Tone or Black whisker colour?

So, there are two possibilities here:

a) The kitten got her shown white whisker from Dad's/Ricky's shown whisker colour.

That means the kitten got Poppy's hidden whisker colour as her hidden whisker colour (she could not have gotten Poppy's shown whisker colour because Poppy shows Silver whiskers, and Silver is more dominant than White - if Poppy had passed the Silver instead, then the kitten would show Silver whiskers, not White whiskers).

b) The kitten got Dad's/Ricky's hidden whisker trait, which *might* be Two-Tone or Black.

This would mean the kitten's shown whisker colour came from Poppy. Since the kitten shows White whiskers, then this would have to be Poppy's hidden whisker colour, because if Mom/Poppy had passed the more dominant Silver whiskers, then they would have shown on the kitten over the White whiskers.

If (a) is true, then this kitten is hiding white whiskers or a colour more recessive than white (every whisker colour discovered so far - as of May 23/13 - is more recessive than white, so that leaves a lot of options).

If (b) is true, then Poppy is hiding white whiskers, which this kitty got as her shown whisker, and her hidden whisker is Dad's/Ricky's hidden whisker (which could be white, two-tone, or black).

How do we find out if it's (a) or (b)? We have some options:

i Wait for a boy kitty with white whiskers and breed these two siblings together.

If both kitties are hiding Mom's or Dad's hidden whisker, we've got a 25% chance of finding it every time they have a kitten. Of course, if (b) is true then both kittens could hide two-tone or black whiskers, and that will not help us because how will we know if the two-tone or black came from Dad/Ricky or Mom/Poppy?

Also, if Poppy is hiding white whiskers, then it's possible the kittens have pure white whiskers (recall this means the shown and hidden whisker trait are the same): the kittens got Dad's/Ricky's shown White whisker colour and Mom's/Poppy's hidden White whisker colour.

In this case, the sibling kittens would always give us white whiskers and we would not know if it was just back luck or if Poppy was really hiding white whiskers.

If we get any other whisker colour back though (not white, black, or two-tone), we'll know that must have come from Poppy.

ii Wait for a boy kitty with white whiskers and breed him to Mom/Poppy.

At some point (25% chance each breeding) Poppy's hidden whisker colour will come up against the boy kitty's hidden whisker colour and something would appear in their baby.

But still, if this produces two-tone or black whiskers, did they come from Mom/Poppy or Dad's/Ricky's hidden whisker colour? And as with option (i), if the boy kitty got his white whiskers from Dad's/Ricky's shown white whiskers, and his hidden whiskers from mom are also white, then breeding him back with Mom/Poppy will just keep producing more white whisker kitties, and we won't know if this is just bad luck or if Mom/Poppy is hiding white whiskers.

iii Breed the Week 1 kitten with a boy kitty that shows a very recessive whisker colour (such as Latte).

The Latte might "pull out" the kitten's hidden whisker colour. If we get Latte back, then this kitten is hiding Latte, or something new and more recessive than Latte.

If we get Two-Tone or Black back, there's still a chance that this is Dad's/Ricky's hidden whisker colour.

If we get White, we won't know if this is the kitten's shown whisker or if she is indeed hiding White whiskers from Poppy As mentioned previously, we won't know if a run of white whiskers is bad luck or if it's because the kitten has pure white whiskers from Ricky and Poppy.

Any other whisker colour would have to have come from Poppy.

iv Breed Poppy with a cat that had a very recessive whisker colour like Latte.

If the kitten has Latte, then we'll know Poppy is hiding Latte or something new and more recessive. Anything else would have to be Poppy's hidden whisker colour!

This will solve the Two-Tone/Black problem and the White problem: none of these whiskers will hide behind Latte, so if they come out of Poppy and a Latte cat, they must be Poppy's hidden whisker colour!

Option (iv) is easiest way to find out Poppy's hidden whisker colour. If we don't eventually figure out the hidden whisker colour from other offspring, we'll breed Poppy with a Latte whisker kitty and see what happens

So, in summary, we have discovered that Poppy hides:
Plush Tail
Mysterious Ears
White or better whisker colour

The next breeding is coming up soon! Maybe we'll find out more information!