what next? recessive whisker color from starter

[Vrem Vaniva]

I'd like to ask your advice on what to do next with a starter that finally showed me a recessive whisker color hiding. This starter was unpacked after the Halloween 2014 kittens came out (I got his box in the summer but it was never rezzed until his unpack day, so he should have all the halloween trait potentials).

It was the last of his traits to be identified, but since he came out with Latte, I think I have to test him for possible flame whisker color (*gasp!*).

As I see it, the options are:
(1) unpack the Latte-whiskered kitten and breed it to Dad (backbreed, with 1/4 chances of getting the hidden whisker color )
(2) unpack the latte-whiskered kitten and breed it to a white-whiskered sibling from the same Dad (sibling breed, with 1/4 chances of getting the hidden whisker from both at the same time, but maybe a better chance of having a fur/eye)
(3) buy a flame-whiskered kitty and breed it to the latte-whiskered one, and/or to Dad (expensive option!! but yummm)
(4) unpack the best non-silver whiskered-kittens from Dad and start manufacturing Blue Tabbies in hope that some of them will have good whisker colors

Here's the starter with his discovered traits and the latte-whiskered kitten:
http://gyazo.com/915787700a9b76bad39c0f928ac897e6

and here are his babies:
http://gyazo.com/e7a7b13805bdfd47f5b701385ed43b4e

all of the Moms are pretty good.

So I'm wondering: what would you as breeder do? Can you think of options other than the 4 i listed above?

What would you consider the most economical way to go?

The most satisfying way ? (I know, I'd like to be able to use either Latte or Flame whiskers that originated in my very own starter ... for satisfaction's sake.)

and The Way to the Best Outcome Kitty? (e.g., breed the latte-whiskered kitty to the world's finest Kittycat, then take siblings and hopefully come out with flame-or-better-whiskered world's finest kittycats?)

(I'm sorry I can't figure out how to show the pedigree images! They are on Gyazo though.)

Thanks in advance for your advice

[Tad Carlucci]

I'd suggest:

1) Open 3 boxes: the one from Queenie and the pair from Panache.
2) Put Queenie and Even together for one more box.
3) Next week, cross the two from Panache with each other and breed the Queenie box to Evan,

If you have nothing better to do with Queenie, next week, you could open the box from Azelie for her mate next week. My suggestion here though is to find something better for her to do.

Running Queenie against Evan gives you one more dip at the well while waiting.
The Panache pair both show Queenie's whisker, so, yes, the odds are 1-in-4, per box, that pairing will unambiguously show Evan's whisker.
Back breeding Queenie box to Evan is currently ambiguous, but if a box appears which is not Silver and not Latte, again at 1-in-4 odds, if possible at all, that must also be Evan's hidden.
The net odds, per week, then are 1-in-2 per week of success.

[Malayaa Resident]

Hi,

I can only see one of the Gyazos, not the one showing all the babies. This round of Halloweens, I luckily wound up with 2 starters hiding "the most recessive", one with flame and one with blue marble. It was really hard with the flame hiding offspring to ever use the OS's with other cats because they were all behind latte, and then I wound up with a bunch of 50-50 boxes latte or flame. So I paired my starter hiding flame with a nicely traited kitty (blonde hiding known chocolate whiskers), and now I have a chocolate "hiding flame" OS that is easier to work with. I named him Hot Chocolate If you pop the flame using Tad's plan which looks solid, have some nice "we don't have no latte whisker lurking" kitties pre planned and make some awesome hider babies!

[Vrem Vaniva]

Wow, thank you both! This will really help me solve the mystery. It could be that Evan's hidden whisker is actually Latte, but I gotta know
I understand what each of you is saying, I think.
So follow Tad's plan to find out if flame is really there, and then also , make some beautiful hider kittens that are NOT hiding Latte (because there's currently nothing in between latte and flame, I get that, so any latte babies would be ambiguous.)
Thanks for helping me think through this puzzle.

It's true, I didn't want to use Queenie to analyze this rather dudder-ish starter, but finally was forced to because the only thing left was whisker color, hehe. Maybe one more go with Queenie and Evan, and then I'll "find something better for her to do," for sure!

[Vrem Vaniva]

Update: it worked! I would maybe not have unpacked the blue tabbies had it not been for your advice.
Flame whiskers, woot:
http://gyazo.com/23c16cb44662aca1479db800611be31a

on a 7T cat

[Malayaa Resident]

Congrats on the cute flame! And seven traits is a wonderful start it's so exciting when you finally discover what lurks beneath!!

[Kayla Woodrunner]

Very cute baby. Congrats on the use of the stategies. Love the Flame!

[Vrem Vaniva]

Thank you so much, so much! i was maybe not going to try hard to see what the starter hid. But you got me to care. From the moment I saw your Flame Whisker baby, Malayaa, I wanted that color! Hehee how could I guess that it would happen with my own really rather bland starter? Thanks Kayla, Malayaa, and Tad!

I did unpack the flame whisker baby and my first thought was to give it a mate with fur and eyes that flame whiskers would co-ordinate with (I put him with a Bali Flame but there are other furs it would look better with). The truth is, flame whiskers don't really look right with blue tabby, in my opinion. I guess it takes a couple of generations to move traits over onto kitties with the other desired complementary traits.

Mostly I'm just happy to get something fun, wanted, and new-ish from my starters. I love how the starters appear to be "tabula rasa," just a blank canvas. In fact, each one of them has a specific cat underneath. In the case of this starter I had, that specific cat was

American Shorthair Blue Tabby
Grape Ice Eyes (Mysterious / Big or Small unknown)
probably No Shade
Big Boo Boo Tail
Rounded Ears
Booo Boo Whisker Shape / Flame Whisker Color

So, not half bad! Or rather ... three quarters bad, one quarter nice The challenges make it continue to be interesting.

[Kayla Woodrunner]

Great job, Vrem!