Myth Busting

[anna Acanthus]

I thought of creating this thread the other day after a conversation with Liri and now with Nyna's thread : http://kittycats.biz/forum/showthread.php?tid=4973.

As some of us often observe in PMs and the KC chat, there are quite a few totally incorrect ideas about breeding flying around which can mislead and confuse new and also not so new breeders, well heck it's a steep learning curve for anyone so lets try get things ironed out.
So i thought it could be a good idea to group and hack out these myths in one thread that we can refer people back to in and when needed.

This is a contribution thread, i'm not sure if it'll catch on and could get messy if it does but we'll see.

[Bea Shamrock]

I think it's a good idea. One of the things that struck me the most -because it was a preconceived idea, not because anyone had told me- is that each parent gives a trait for each slot independently of what the other parent gives. Which actually has a lot to do with what Nyn and Liri were saying. But it was a hard concept for me. Especially when analysing pedigrees. And when choosing mates for my starters.

I know there are different preferences when it comes to mating starters, and some people prefer to explore fur and eyes first and if they're not happy with those maybe they don't keep breeding the starter. For quite some time a bengal snow with prism or ody rainbow seemed to me the only way to go with starters. Now I prefer perhaps less recessive traits but more highly traited kitties. I like ears and whiskers as well as fur and eyes, and I like almost all furs and eyes anyway. Later I learned that what they meant by using a snow with ody rainbow or prism also included a rather highly traited kitty. But I didn't get that for quite some time. As a result, quite a few of my starters, and also genesis furred kitties, could have been better mated.

One other thing that's in my mind, and it's not really a myth but a widely spread topic is "duds". I think if you chose your partner well, then you don't have "duds" you have kitties with potential that may require more patience and work, but everything their other parent, the one whose traits aren't showing, are still hiding in your "dud". So if my starters have an all or mostly genesis baby, that box is still valuable to me, and wait for the right moment to birth it and pair them and hope they'll be kind enough to throw some of their cool hidden traits I carefully chose for their "hidden" parent.

I hope this makes sense

[anna Acanthus]

All makes sense to me bea

The only thing about this kind of "dud" you re talking about is that even though it may be hiding 9 traits, they are likely to be traits you already have, so as you already have these traits shown then there's not much point going in to dig them out once again.

Also Bengal Snow now being a retired fur, it's even more useful now as if it shows on a starter then if it shows then the worst that will be hiding on your starter is Oci Tawny.
Another mistake many of us make is to underestimate the usefulness of the more dominant traits when traiting up a kitty with good hiddens you already know are there ; e.g. : i have a Tiger OS showing 6 and hiding 9. the hidden tail is Tiger Curl and the ear is Ody Booboo, and it's showing Curious and Rounded, which are relatively recessive. So now i needed to put the Tiger with different tail and ear pure ( if poss) traits as if i have 2 OS showing Curious/Rounded and i put them together and obtain the same i can't know if the Curl and the Ody Boo is there whereas if Cur/Rounded shows up when paired with a lower tail and ears OS i can be practically sure that Curl and Ody Boo are there ; I rummaged through my boxes and found i had nothing lower with 9 that would do really so off i went to try find the right partner with Myst/Curious pure if poss, ended up with Stubby and Myst as i could'nt find lower in a hurry. Lesson ; wish i'd hung onto some of those more dom traited boxes now.
Lol i hope this makes sense too

[Charles Courtois]

Anna's point about the usefulness of dominant traits is a very good one. When I want to work a very recessive trait, my favourite sort of cat to use as a partner is one with a very dominant trait hiding a mid-range trait. For example, when I wanted to breed Ocicat Blues, the partner I chose for the Ocicat Blue I had was a 9-traited Chateau Black & White No. 2 (fairly dominant fur) hiding Snowshoe Bluepoint (a relatively mid-range fur), with other nice traits along for the ride. When I bred the resulting kittens, if I didn't have an Oci Blue to breed them with, I'd pair the Black & White No.2's hiding Oci Blue with the Bluepoints hiding Oci Blue. That way, any of the kittens of the B&W 2-Bluepoint pairings that had Snowshoe Bluepoint showing would be guaranteed to have Oci Blue as their hidden fur, so I had a clearer idea of what was happening (of course, I had no idea whether the ones showing B&W 2 hid Bluepoint or Oci Blue, but that can't be helped hehe). Kind of makes me want to build an army of Red Tabbies hiding Bengal Snow lol.

[Kayleigh McMillan]

Yes true while recessive furs/ traits have their benefits for certain purposes it helps greatly to use a more dominant cat with nice traits to dare a starter to make sure the new traits once uncovered are more sticky than if the final breed had a more recessive hidden.
I like to use in first instance a very recessive on my starter after which I hopefully know more and find a partner for it which meets the project better.

[Liriel Garnet]

I'm afraid we've hijacked Anna's thread with this topic, but I have to say I completely concur with not hiding super-recessives behind other super-recessives. I recently acquired a little girl with Ody Kaleidoscope eyes. The partner I chose for her was a 9T Siam Blue (she's Siam Seal hiding Aby Black/Silver) with Grass Eyes (hiding Key Lime), Twinkle, and a few other goodies. She's still breeding, because I want to get a few more boxes from her, but I've popped her first box, which shows the Siam Seal and Perfect Grass eyes, and that little girl will be mating with a 9t boy with Key Lime. Not only am I making it so that I can tell with a glance whether the box hides the Ody K (key lime shows), I'm also giving the new girl the opportunity to throw some of those lovely hiddens from her dad, so I'm getting more traits shown and still preserving the hidden eye. Once I can get some boxes from this new pair, I still have the option of using another 9T partner with a more recessive eye if I'm not getting the hidden traits out, but I also give myself the opportunity for some sibling breeds to pull the Ody K eye back out when the second generation gives me some nicely traited boxes hiding the Ody K eye.

To Anna - Nyn and I are currently working on a google docs-based document that contains more of these 'myth buster' sort of thing. So feel free to send us anything you wish to see included as well. Once we have a good start, we'll see about making the link public.

[anna Acanthus]

Lol i think i already hijacked it myself really Liri, anyhow it's all good info.
Well i guess you'll be keeping most of your busters for your doc but do i hope you post here as well so we can have a good old (polite) scrap about some maybe .

[Liriel Garnet]

(08-29-2012 09:08 AM)anna acanthus Wrote:  Lol i think i already hijacked it myself really Liri, anyhow it's all good info.
Well i guess you'll be keeping most of your busters for your doc but do i hope you post here as well so we can have a good old (polite) scrap about some maybe .

Not at all, actually (keeping them) I mean. I just think it's a good idea to collect them separate from any discussions so one doesn't have to wade thru pages of discussions to get to the 'good parts' LOL. I'm more than happy to share, and more than happy to take info from this thread to update that document as well. I'm all for sharing and collaboration to enrich the entire community *smiles*.

[Devilness Chant]

As strange as this sounds, I was kinda disappointed when I got a new fur right off. On the one hand it's exciting and wonderful to get something right off. But on the other hand, to me she is a bengal snow, bali seal.
Back breeding for traits, inbreeding, all these things will probably pull the more recessive furs out.
Long ago when I was fairly new, I worked on putting traits into oci lavenders and had a breeding pair. They were gorgeous to me and I wanted to make more. I kept ending up with Bengal silvers. They were gorgeous to me too, but not what I was trying to do.
I had a breeding pair hiding bali choco, but they both also hid bali lilac. So my end results were always bali lilacs.
The nice thing is now I know what I have, and an idea how to work it so I can get a pure fur without having to worry about another fur popping out.
Recessive can be a good way to find out faster what another kitty hides. Or like I"m working on stubbies so I can get the tiger curl and fussy working threw my kitties.
But never underestimate the more dom traits and their places in the food chain. The more you work at getting your kitty, the more frustrating it can be, but the end result is rewarding.

[Serena Stroikavskoi]

I certainly appreciate the "faq's" so to speak. When I first started and would ask questions, the answers I got didn't seem to go with what I remember of biology and what had been stated with the dominance and recessive genetic traits. So after awhile I became leery about who I asked anything of and drew my own conclusion. Which I'm still finding out things that are wrong.

My frustration comes that I want to stick with the few furs I like and suddenly I had all these other furs. Now I try to keep a few recessive and time it right to pair the ones I want to breed with a ones that are a lot more recessive on the first run to see what pulls. So now I can more judge what I may end up with and I still do get surprises sometimes.