It's great that this week we managed to learn about Poppy's hidden whisker traits, and as a bonus, almost totally determining the recessiveness of Balinese Blue Lynx! Hopefully Poppy passes her hidden fur next week with Adalbert, and then maybe we'll know exactly where Bali Blue is!
I want to make a few points this week about the challenge of dealing with starters (and breeding KittyCatS in general, for that matter). I consider the luck that we have had with learning Poppy's traits to be quite a bit above average. In 5 weeks, we have managed to determine 7 of Poppy's 9 hidden traits, including all 6 of the traits she is guaranteed to hide. Part of that is due to the quality of cats we have been using, and switching cats when the time was right, but quite a bit of it was simply due to luck.
I may talk in more detail about randomness in a future post, but for now, I just want to emphasize that as breeders, we need to understand what we can & can't control when it comes to breeding KittyCatS.
We have NO control out of how many hidden traits a cat passes, though by choosing their partners wisely, we can have better knowledge of how many traits they pass, and what sort of quality those traits are. Sometimes, we get lucky , and a starter will toss 7, 8 or even 9 traits. Sometimes, they won't pass any. There is nothing we can do about that, though using 9-traiters with starters will certainly relay when the starter passes traits.
When I started training for my first marathon, I was told that the most important thing was patience. The same is true for working with starters, and one of the main reasons that many people give up on working with starters is impatience. There will be runs of good luck, & runs of bad luck, and it is important to ride out the bad so that you can benefit from the good. One of my 2011 Hallowe'en kitties went 8 breedings without passing her hidden fur; when she finally did, it was American Shorthair-Red Tabby, the most dominant non-genesis fur there is lol. I've also had starters pass 8 traits in a single breeding. That doesn't mean there was anything wrong with the partner I used for the aforementioned 2011 Hallowee'en starter, or that, other than the fact that I use 9-traited partners with my starters, anything unusually right about the times when my starters coughed up 8 traits.
We can't control our luck; what we can do is create situations where we can recognize & benefit from good luck, and also get the best quality of information possible so we can know when to change our approach. That is why I use 9-traiters with my starters, and generally use ones with decently recessive traits (and retired ones when possible). It enables me to learn as much as I can, as fast as I can, and get quality offspring I can use.
Another point is that it is important to re-assess as much as possible, ideally after every breeding, so you can see what is relatively unimportant, what may be special, and when to change approaches. After every breeding, take a look at the starters pedigree page, and look at the offspring. Look for the most recessive traits in the offspring, and compare them to what their non-starter parents carry, as Wendi has been doing with Poppy in this thread. Then you should be able to determine if your approach is correct, and decide what changes (if any) need to be made. Every once in a while you may make a mistake and realize later that you took a wrong turn, or missed an opportunity; if that happens, shrug your shoulders, learn from your mistake, and make whatever adjustments you need to make. Don't get too bothered by mistakes; we all make them.
Finally, remember that you can do everything right and not get great results, simply due to bad luck. Just evaluate if your approach is sound, and if it is, simply accept that you can't control luck.
Good luck! If you have any questions or comments, go ahead!
Instructional Breeding Project (Week 7 Info: MEGA!)
