Breeding hidden true recessives.

[Aisling MacMoragh]

It absolutely does make the a difference, because you have more choices to breed with your hider in which you will definitively be able to determine the hidden fur. Telling breeders it doesn't make a difference is dangerous. If you understand the difference and still choose to breed that way so be it, but telling people that there is no difference or that it in fact has a higher success rate if you breed with more recessives is completely misleading and damages the community overall. I will try to give another pair of examples that will help illustrate the different approaches.

Part 1 - A Siamese Seal, which definitely hides Snowshoe Cream because at the time it was bread the one parent was a Snowshoe Cream when it is know to be the most recessive trait on the grid or when it has been bread back from a starter, is bred with a Burmese Champagne with a hidden trait that is not Snowshoe Cream, for example sake lets say it hides Bengal Snow. There are four possible OS results - Siamese Seal hiding Burmese Champagne, Siamese Seal hiding Bengal Snow, Burmese Champagne hiding Snowshoe Cream, and Bengal Snow hiding Snowshoe Cream. These later two OS options are definitively hiding Snowshoe Cream so continuing to work with them is not a gamble, we know we have a shot at getting Snowshoe cream when breeding them.

Part 2 - Say we got one of each of the latter two options in our previous breeding and bred them together. If we breed a Burmese Champagne hiding Snowshoe Cream and Bengal Snow hiding Snowshoe Cream together the possible results are - Burmese Champagne hiding Snowshoe Cream, Burmese Champagne hiding Bengal Snow, Bengal Snow hiding Snowshoe Cream and solid Snowshoe Cream. The first two can't be know which you get but the latter two are definitive as to what is shown and hidden. The two Burmese Champagnes are a risk to breed with if you want to get Snowshoe cream because you can only guess at whether you got the Snowshoe Cream and you could breed them for all cycles and never find out for sure, so for most of us the first to boxes, the Burmese Champagne boxes, are now really duds and not worth pursuing. With this method 1 in 2 breeds gives you something of high value for your goals. Personally I would keep breeding the first two until I either go a male and a female Snowshoe Cream or a male and female where one is a Snowshoe Cream and one is a Bengal Snow.

Part 3 - With the desired male female option acquired by the end of part 2, I either have a solid pair of Snowshoe Creams to breed OR I have a pair which on average will give me 3 Snowshoe Creams for every 1 Bengal Snow which hides Snowshoe Cream.

Now a second example, in which the starting breeders are Foxie Salt and Pepper that is known to hide Snowshoe Cream and Foxie Salt and Pepper that is known to be solid Foxie Salt and Pepper.

Part 1 - breed the two together. There are 2 possible OS results - Foxie Salt and Pepper solid Foxie Salt and Pepper hiding Snowshoe Cream. I can't tell for sure which option I have with any OS until I breed them, and then I can only know an OS hides the Snowshoe Cream once I risk breeding and eventually get an OS that is pure Snowshoe Cream which could potentially never happen from those parents. At this point it is too big a risk unless I am willing to have a cattery full of nothing but Foxie Salt and Peppers with only a possibility of hiding Snowshoe cream. There is no reason to go on to Part 2 or 3 because they are too high and likely will take too long and cost too much to risk.

Hope this explains why starting with a much more dominant fur pure or not gives you much more wiggle room to be able to tell for sure what your OS will hide and thus increasing the probability you would want to breed them and be able to have measurable results.

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(02-11-2014 01:29 PM)Barbara Collazo Wrote:  Well--this is all really helpful, but not germane to the question I asked, which was, when bringing out a hidden recessive, why is it more useful to use a more dominant trait than to use one that's only a step or two away? The post that prompted my question said that it was harder to get Snowshoe Cream out from under a Foxie S&P than from under Siamese Seal, for example. I don't see why it's harder--the probabilities are the same.

Actually, these are all answers to your question. I am sorry we haven't been clear enough in how they answer it and what that answer is but they do directly address the question and explain the answer.

Answer: It is because of the ability to get predictable known results that you cannot get as easily with the most recessive option. with the Foxie S&P you have no way to know which box hides the SS Cream and which does not. With the Seal there are very clear ways to know if your OS hide the cream or don't.