Need a little guidance

[Elke Banting]

<laughs> For the love of God, what am I doing wrong or am I just having a string of bad luck? I'm fairly new to this thus what follows may be considered as stupid questions.
I've got a couple of Chateau Tawny/White girls I'm trying to breed. I initially chose a Cream Tabby to breed them with because of his traits. <sigh> Between the 2 girls I now have 12 offspring which are 7 Cream Tabbies, 2 Siamese Flame, 2 Oci Chocolate and 1 Oci Cin. Silver. I know that the hidden fur is the Tawny from the mom but I am just not having any luck. Should I have bred the girls with something like an Aby BS? Or am I just having a string or bad luck with kitties being stubborn? Should I be breeding the offspring in hopes they throw the hidden mom fur? (Sorry, I should mention that I'm breeding both girls to their first born male offspring.)

I have a tendency to overthink things which ends up serving no purpose other than to get myself confused...so my next question is...When trying to get a starter to throw its hidden traits, fur in particular (which I know can be an exercise in patience), which is the best route to take with that? Mate the starter to something like an Ocicat Chocolate/more recessive fur?

Any suggestions/advice offered would be greatly appreciated.

[dakillakm Resident]

As far as the starters go, from what I have learned (more experienced breeders correct me if I'm wrong) it's best to go with a) a retired fur - this is so that you know if that fur is showing it could NOT be hiding in the starter because they are not available in the starters any more and b) a more recessive retired fur, like bengal snow, just because it give you more flexibility because you know if you get a Bengal Snow kitten then the hidden from the starter is something from the bottom end of the recessive furs. Same general idea for other traits you want to discover in your starter.

The breeding kitties do seem to be a little all over the place. The Cream tabbies and Oci Cin Silver I understand because they are both more dominant than the tawny/white girls so they must have come from the daddy. Is there more than one breeding male in the equation? Someone somewhere is obviously hiding something pretty recessive if they are giving you flame and Oci Choco....

[Elke Banting]

<facepalm> I wouldn't have thought of that but it makes perfect sense. Thank you very much for the tip on the Bengal Snow.

I'm using 2 different boys - 1 for each Tawny girl. One Tawny girl is spitting out the Ocicats & Cream Tabbies and the other is spitting out the Siamese Flames & Cream Tabbies. Okay, so it's not my imagination that the breeding seems to be a little 'off course'. So both girls must be hiding something other than what they appear to be since the Flame and Ocicat is coming from the mothers. Well, dang. Nothing is ever as simple as it appears to be.

[dakillakm Resident]

Kitty Kottage has classes on Sundays and now Thursdays I think? You can even bring your kitties and set out a pedigree giver so everyone can perv their pedigrees and see if they can help figure it out!

[Elke Banting]

Thank you! Someone else had mentioned classes and I wondered about them. Thank you again for the information! I think I definitely need classes.

[anna Acanthus]

Hi Elke,
What you are trying to do here is technically a pain in the whatsit even for seasoned breeders, and i find even more complicated than getting more recessive traits to throw.
There are basically 2 ways to go about it but i think as Dakilla says your best bet is to get along to the Kitty College classes where there is no such thing as a dumb question and the solutions will be explained to you as simply as possible, and also if one tries explaining the ins and outs to you here it may be more confusing than helpfull.
This will also be a very useful subject for others to learn from.
Also Dakilla has a good point about maybe something pretty recessive hiding somewhere so this could be well worth exploring too.

Good luck anyhow

[Bea Shamrock]

I'm afraid I'm getting a bit confused -it seems to me you're asking two different questions; is that right?

You say you have two Tawny&White girls you're breeding -that's their shown fur? If it is, then The Tawny&White is lost in the two Siamese Flame babies and the 2 Oci Chocolate ones too, as both furs are more recessive (have a look at Saga's chart There's a 50/50 chance that it's hiding in the Cream babies, as mum can have thrown her shown or hidden fur. You'll only know after you've bred them. The Oci Cinn Silver is a dubious case, as the Tawny's place hasn't been completely established yet, and may be more recessive than it or not. It'd be clearer to see what happened if we had the fathers' stats as well.

Are the girls starters? Then how do you know they're hiding Tawny?

I'd love to help if I can , but I can't picture your situation clearly. Perhaps you could clarify some of the things I asked for me please?

(08-31-2012 02:24 PM)Elke Banting Wrote:  <laughs> For the love of God, what am I doing wrong or am I just having a string of bad luck? I'm fairly new to this thus what follows may be considered as stupid questions.
I've got a couple of Chateau Tawny/White girls I'm trying to breed. I initially chose a Cream Tabby to breed them with because of his traits. <sigh> Between the 2 girls I now have 12 offspring which are 7 Cream Tabbies, 2 Siamese Flame, 2 Oci Chocolate and 1 Oci Cin. Silver. I know that the hidden fur is the Tawny from the mom but I am just not having any luck. Should I have bred the girls with something like an Aby BS? Or am I just having a string or bad luck with kitties being stubborn? Should I be breeding the offspring in hopes they throw the hidden mom fur? (Sorry, I should mention that I'm breeding both girls to their first born male offspring.)

I have a tendency to overthink things which ends up serving no purpose other than to get myself confused...so my next question is...When trying to get a starter to throw its hidden traits, fur in particular (which I know can be an exercise in patience), which is the best route to take with that? Mate the starter to something like an Ocicat Chocolate/more recessive fur?

Any suggestions/advice offered would be greatly appreciated.

[Elke Banting]

Both moms have their shown fur as Tawny (none of the cats involved are starters). Dakill's post started me thinking and I realized that yes, I wasn't going to get a Tawny & White because of the Ocicat Chocolate and Siamese Flame. So I figured I'd unpack a couple of the Cream Tabbies because even though they possibly carry the Ocicat and Siamese, they do carry the hidden fur from mom and at some point I may luck out and have them throw the hidden Tawny fur.

As far back as I can see, neither the mothers nor the fathers carry Ocicat Cinnamon Silver so I have no idea where that came from but somebody must have it in their family tree. As far back as I can see in both fathers' lineage, they carry Cream Tabby and Burmese Sable only.

@ Bea - yes, I was asking two different questions. One was about the breeding of my Chateau Tawny and White girls and the other was about the best way to breed starter cats. I've unpacked a pair of the Collabor88 Kitties and was looking for hints about the best way to mate them to get their hidden traits to show. Sorry I wasn't clearer on that.

And thanks, Anna. Yes, after viewing the posts in this thread I think I'll have to see what's lurking under kitty's fur.
<runs off to find a pen and note pad for class....>