Welcome To The Instructional Breeding Project II

[Vrem Vaniva]

Wow, Jonas is fabulous. i can see why you wouldn't want to "waste his time on a starter" until you have specific things you want to identify. If ARti cooperates, he'll surely be 'the man for the job" to help discover her ears and tail. Looking forward to the next installment.

[Charles Courtois]

Let’s take a look at what happened with the week 8 breedings. First of all, Arti’s 8th breeding, her first with Jonas! Here are the results:



Arti has continued being a difficult starter! This time the only one of her hidden traits she passed was her hidden eye colour, which we learned about in Week 1. In short, Week 8 Kitten shows 18-carat Gold eyes, which she got from Arti, and 18-carat Gold is quite a bit more dominant than Jonas’ shown Strawberry Bellini, so the 18-carat Gold eye ends up showing, and the hidden eye will be from Jonas, and will be Strawberry Bellini or something more recessive.

This kitten isn’t hiding any mystery traits from Arti, so we will keep the kitten in the box for now.

Now, let’s take a look at the 4th breeding of Week 1 Kitten and Week 3 Kitten, which is definitely the more interesting breeding of the two breedings this week! Remember, these siblings are being bred together in an attempt to learn more about Arti’s hidden tail trait. Here is the pedigree of their kitten this time, which I named Week 8a Kitten:



This time we got 5 traits from this pairing. Most importantly, we got an answer about Arti’s hidden tail trait! Let’s take a closer look:

1. Eye Colour
This kitten shows 18-carat Gold eye colour. Week 1 Kitten (Mom) also shows 18-carat Gold, which came from Arti, while Week 3 Kitten (Dad) shows Genesis Meadow, which also came from Arti. Since Sydney’s eye colour is known to be pure Mercury, both parents hide Mercury from Sydney. Since Genesis Meadow is dominant to 18-carat Gold, which in turn is dominant to Mercury, Week 6a Kitten must have received 18-carat Gold eye colour from Mom, and Mercury from Dad, which is her hidden eye colour.

2. Eye Shape
This kitten shows Mysterious eye shape. Both parents received Curious eye shape from Arti, and Mysterious eye shape) from Sydney, which they are hiding. Since Week 8a is showing Mysterious eye shape, both parents must have passed their hidden Mysterious eye shape, since their shown Curious eye shape is dominant to Mysterious.

3. Tail
This time, the sibling breed worked! Week 8a Kitten shows Chop Chop Tail. Both parents show Curious tail, which they got from Sydney, and hide Arti’s hidden tail trait (I had to double-check that Sydney's tail is pure Curious (it is)...more on this later). Since the shown Chop Chop tail on Week 8a Kitten is recessive to the Curious tail showing on both parents, and since both parents hide Arti’s hidden tail trait, Arti’s hidden tail trait must be Chop Chop. I will discuss this result a bit more later (and even give an exercise based on it), but let’s look at Week 8a kitten’s other shown non-Genesis traits first.

4. Ears
Week 8a Kitten shows Rounded ears. Week 1 Kitten shows Rounded ears, which she got from Sydney, and hides Arti’s unknown as yet hidden ear trait, while Week 3 Kitten shows Genesis, which he got from Arti, and hides Rounded ears, which came from Sydney (Sydney’s ears are pure Rounded). Week 3 must have passed his hidden Rounded ears to Week 8a Kitten, since Rounded ears are showing, and Week 3 Kitten’s Genesis ears would be showing if he had passed them instead. Week 1 Kitten could have passed either her shown or her hidden ear to Week 8a Kitten; we don’t know which.

5. Whisker Shape
This kitten shows Curious whiskers. Mom shows Guitar whiskers from Arti, and hides Curious whiskers from Sydney. Dad shows Curious whiskers from Sydney, and hides Wavy whiskers from Arti (we determined last week that Arti hides Wavy whiskers). Since Guitar is dominant to Curious, Mom passed her hidden Curious whisker shape to Week 6a Kitten; Dad passed either his shown or his hidden whisker shape (we don’t know which). The net result is that Week 6a Kitten shows Curious whisker shape, and hides whatever whisker shape Dad passed to her (which could be Curious or Wavy).

There are a few points that I would like to make about the tail result with Week 8a Kitten. First of all, it is a pretty good example of how a sibling breed can reveal a parent’s unknown hidden trait (get 2 offspring of opposite genders hiding the trait in question, breed them together, and hopefully have both of them pass their hidden in the same breeding).

Secondly, when using a sibling breed to do this, it is a good idea if possible to try to directly reveal the trait as well by breeding the parent with a partner carrying a relatively recessive version of that trait (which we did by breeding Arti with Jonas). If Arti had hidden Curious tail instead of Chop Chop, then if Sydney had a pure Curious tail (he does), both Week 1 Kitten and Week 3 Kitten would have had pure Curious tails (they would have received Curious from both Arti and Sydney), and sibling breeding them would have produced pure Curious tails every breeding! We wouldn’t have known whether they had pure Curious tails, or whether we were simply having a run of bad luck with at least one parent passing their shown tail trait every breeding. We would get the same result every time, and it would continue with no clear answer ever! Breeding Arti with Jonas gave us another way to determine whether or not Arti hid Curious tail (with any kind of decent luck, Arti would have eventually passed her hidden tail during her pairing with Jonas, which would have given offspring with a Curious tail if Arti had been hiding it).

Finally, I mentioned that I had to double-check that Sydney’s tail is pure Curious. I won’t prove it here (it would be long and painful, as is often the case when trying to prove that a trait is pure). However, I do have an exercise related to this.

Exercise: Besides Sydney having pure Curious tail and Arti hiding Chop Chop, there is one other possibility that would have Week 1 Kitten and Week 3 Kitten showing Curious tail and Week 8a Kitten showing Chop Chop tail. What is it? Answer at the end of this post.

By breeding out the Chop Chop tail, the Week 1 Kitten- Week 3 Kitten pairing has accomplished its assigned task. Week 3 Kitten has no real use for the project anymore (we now know the traits of Arti that he carries), so I have decided to turn breeding off for him. However, we still have yet to determine Arti’s hidden ear trait, and Week 1 Kitten hides it! Therefore, what I have decided to wait and see what happens with Arti and Jonas in the next breeding, and do one of 4 things. First of all, if Arti passes her ear trait, and we learn what ear she hides, I will turn Week 1 Kitten’s and Arti’s breeding off and end the breeding part of the project if the ear isn’t that great (I may still add some posts to the thread, because there are a couple of more things I want to cover). Secondly, if Arti has a super-recessive hidden ear that Jonas can’t reveal directly and the kitten is male, I’ll unpack him with the plan to backbreed or sibling breed him. Thirdly, if Arti has a super-recessive hidden ear that Jonas can’t reveal directly and the kitten is female, I’ll look for a new male to breed with Arti and go from there (I haven’t picked one out yet, but I should be able to find one). Finally, if Arti continues to be difficult and fails to pass her ear traits, I have another male set aside to put with Week 1 Kitten, in the hopes that she passes her hidden ear, which is also Arti’s hidden ear, and discover Arti’s hidden ear that way. The male I have set aside for the purpose is Buckley:




To review, after the Week 8 breedings, we now know that Arti hides:
Siamese – Lilac fur,
18-carat Gold eye colour,
Chop Chop tail,
Rounded ears or more recessive,
2-Tone Black and White whisker colour, and
Wavy whisker shape.

Hopefully we’ll learn more next time. Good luck with your kittehs!

Exercise Answer: The other possibility that could give the same results for Week 1 Kitten, Week 3 Kitten and Week 8a Kitten is if Sydney showed Curious tail but hid Chop Chop, and Arti hid Curious. If this were true, and Sydney and Arti both passed their hidden tails in Weeks 1 and 3, Week 1 Kitten and Week 3 Kitten would both have Curious tail hiding Chop Chop, exactly the same as they do with Sydney having pure Curious, Arti hiding Chop Chop, and Arti passing her hidden in Weeks 1 and 3. The only difference would be which parent passed which tail. In the grand scheme of things, it wouldn’t make a big difference (Chop Chop isn’t that much more recessive than Curious), but it is something to think about.

[Icestron Resident]

thank you Charles - I am loving this journey.

[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”.

[Eurydice Barzane]

This project has helped me immensely with my kittens. Thank you so much for taking the time to explain everything so thoroughly and engagingly, Charles.

Would it be possible to add a link to this project from the Saga+Charles&Wendi doc? I'm sure a lot of breeders would find the project incredibly useful.

[Vrem Vaniva]

This has been very instructive, Charles and Wendi! In particular, it illustrates very dramatically the good results of unpacking starter offspring, not only to speed up identification of the hiddens, but also to come out with pretty good kittens at the end of the project! Week 9a kitten is a nice one, a little "daughter of Sydney with cute ears and hiding awesomeness from Buckley."

I think it's interesting, your comment at the end, that putting Arti with Jonas right away might have abbreviated the project too much. Discussing all the steps, all the analyses and decisions that a breeder has to make for each pairing, teaches us a lot more ... I had to think more about "restraint" in watching your choices. (I kept wanting to rush forward and clobber Arti with a trait bomb mate, but I can also see the value now of using moderation).

I'm still thinking ... "the trait bomb mate, even if he's an expensive cat, might be more economical in the long run, considering food cost." What I've been doing though is to start with a well-rounded but not too expensive mate, then zero in on the unidentified traits, using a mate that might not have been bargain-basement Do you think Arti is average or unusually stubborn? Having average or unusually lacking-in-newness hiddens?

After we got the Halloween releases when this project was already moving along, I tried to use some of the principles learned here. I did change their mates when they showed something the original mate couldn't reveal. Also, one of the things I did was to make notes in the starters' pedigree page, each time they revealed a hidden trait -- and noting which traits weren't yet identified. (So it would say something like, "whiskers: black. whisker shape: curious. CHECK HER EARS"). It worked reasonably well ... i got out a new eye from one of them, and then another has now made a kitten with Latte whiskers, which means i have to figure out whether (and how!) to test him and/or the offspring for recessive-to-latte whiskers.

The notes in the pedigree page did save time on re-figuring-out, since i am not organized enough to keep a spreadsheet.

Overall, this has been a real inspiration, and very fun to follow. Thank you so much for doing this!

[Sanura Snowpaw]

It is sorta a good thing she is being stubborn. I know so many who have experienced this and then see others who find everything or a lot on the first breeding and get so frustrated. So it is nice for them to see they aren't alone. Plus with your knowledge and help they can also learn how to fight through it and figure everything out.