(06-04-2013 01:45 PM)Tad Carlucci Wrote: Things are too quiet on the Forums. So here's a breeding question for you to ponder.
You own four cats, one male and three females.
The male shows Soft Fold ears. Since his mother showed Soft Fold and his father showed Mysterious Odyssey Fold, we know that his hidden ear is Mysterious Odyssey Fold (since we don't know of anything more recessive than Mysterious Odyssey Fold).
Your females show:
* Curious ears
* Rounded ears
* Odyssey Boo Boo ears
Your goal is to produce more Mysterious Odyssey Fold ears. You may choose only one female.
Which do you choose? Explain your answer.
I wouldn't use the Curious ears unless there were compelling reasons in the other traits and I had plenty of time to test each box to determine what it hides.
Of the remaining two, either would do the trick. Both are recessive to the Soft Fold so that if their ear shows, you know the Myst Ody Fold is hiding. That said, all other things being equal, I would choose the Rounded ears, at least initially.
By choosing Rounded, you leave yourself far more steps between that and the final Myst Ody Fold destination if you need to work other traits into the cats. By leaving room, I simply mean that you can use other ears (i.e. breed one showing rounded with one showing Vampire, or Ody2, or Ody1...) and when those ears show, you know the Myst Ody Fold is still hiding in the box.
If you're having bad luck and getting all boys from the initial matings with round, you can still use the Ody BooBoo girl to breed with one of those boxes in order to produce more guaranteed to hide the Myst Ody Fold, and hopefully you'll get a girl to backbreed or a boy/girl pair among the offspring to continue breeding.