Welcome To The Instructional Breeding Project III

[Charles Courtois]

Let's take a look at starter Meridel's 4th kitten with Lin:



This time we were a bit fortunate! Meridel passed 5 of her hidden non-genesis traits. 3 of them (eye colour, ears and whisker colour) are ones she has passed before, so I won't cover them in detail this week. However, she also passed 2 non-genesis traits she hadn't passed previously (tail and whisker shape). Let's examine these results more closely.

Tail: Week 4 Kitten shows Mysterious tail. Lin shows Curious tail and is known to hide Posh tail. Therefore Lin could not have passed Mysterious tail to Week 4 Kitten, so it must have come from Meridel, and so Mysterious must be her hidden tail trait.

Whiskers: Week 4 Kitten shows Curious whiskers. Non-starter Lin also shows Curious whiskers. Therefore, all we know about the hidden whisker shape that Meridel passed is that she hides Curious whiskers or a more recessive whisker shape.

Week 4 Kitten is a rather good offspring to work with, and if we ever get a similar male from Meridel, may be a good candidate for sibling breeding down the line. For the moment though, we will keep her packed up.

Exercise Question: Week 4 Kitten carries both of Meridel's hidden whisker traits. Why not put a cat with recessive whiskers with her and get answers that way? Answer at the end of this post.

An important part of working with starters is re-assessing your approach each week. Up to this point, Lin has been a useful partner for Meridel in learning her hidden traits. We have learned 5 of Meridel's hiddens (the 3 eye traits, tail and ears), and have minimum boundaries for 2 others (the 2 whisker traits). Meridel may or may not hide a non-genesis shade, and shades are generally not as high a priority for most people (especially since the starter may not hide a non-genesis one). So that leaves the hidden fur as the only trait where Lin is likely to give us a definitive answer (we may get more info about the 2 whisker traits if Lin passes his hiddens at the right time, but we may not). Therefore, I've decided that the time to switch away from Lin to another partner for Meridel is coming soon. In fact, Lin will breed with Meridel one more time (maybe we'll get lucky and Meridel will pass her fur this time), and then we will switch Meridel's partner to a cat that is more likely to give us answers on Meridel's unknown hiddens (I think I have another project for Lin hehe).

My preference for a project like this would be to use back breeding or sibling breeding as a way to try and learn more about those whisker traits, as a way to demonstrate more about breeding techniques, but that is not an option here for 2 reasons, one obvious and one less obvious. The less obvious reason ties into the answer to the exercise question, so I will talk about it then. The obvious reason is that starter Meridel is female, and all of her kittens thus far have been female, so it isn't possible to breed any of them together.

To summarize what we know about Meridel's non-genesis hiddens after this week's result: Meridel hides Serenity eyes, Mysterious eye shape, Small pupils, Mysterious tail, Mysterious ears, Black or more recessive whisker colour, and Curious or more recessive whisker shape.

Hopefully we'll find out something about Meridel's hidden fur next breeding!

Exercise Answer: Breeding Week 4 Kitten with a male with very recessive whisker traits is an option in this situation, but it isn't one where I like the odds at this point. We have to consider the possibility that Meridel hides Black and/or Curious whiskers. If she does, then Week 4 Kitten may well have pure whiskers, or may have whisker traits where the shown is actually from Meridel and the hidden is from Lin (Lin is known to hide at least Chocolate and at least Frazzled whiskers). Both of these situations will give confusing results. If Meridel was from the latest release of starters, I might be more willing to gamble on putting Week 4 Kitten with a male with recessive whiskers and see if I can get a previously undiscovered or very new trait out of it, but since Meridel is an older release, it is highly unlikely she hides anything new. If back breeding or sibling breeding had been possible with Meridel and her kittens thus far, I wouldn't have gone that route for the same reasons; there is too much likelihood of a confusing result and not enough potential reward.