What color is this pup?

[TJ's Rodent Ranch]

Hi there, 
My female, Poppy, recently had a litter who's eyes are just starting to open. 
Poppy is a black female, who's parents were black and CP silver nutmeg, her siblings were all black with one Burmese. The dad is Patrick, who is a black pied (I don't know who his parents were).
Anyway, here it is. 

 



There's also this other pup (about five weeks old) from a different litter, who I was also wondering about. Her dad is honey cream, and her mom is black. 





Apologies for the poor image quality.

[betty]

First one looks likes a spotted nutmeg - but I haven't done the genetics yet - I'll get back to you on that with an explanation after dinner...

**So, Poppy (black aa Cc* Ee P* Uuwd) to a Black male would only guarantee black pups really - so what were this pups siblings as that could help narrow it down?

The e would allow for any fox/nutmeg combo if the dad carried it, and the gingery colour of the pup (plus both parents being aa) would narrow it down to only nutmeg and saffron combos - however, with no sign of red eyes in the family so far - saffron is less likely. The uwd and the unknown c could all cause lightening of the coat - along with the spotting.




Second one is very small - and I can't see clearly enough - does she have red eyes?

[TJ's Rodent Ranch]

thank you! That really helps.
The siblings of the first pup were black, black pied, and another one like this. (though its coat was slightly lighter, if that is of any importance).

I'll try to re-attach another, large photo of the second pup, although I'm fairly sure I chose the largest option, I'll try again anyway.
No, she has black eyes. Both pups do (in case you didn't see that regarding the first one).


Alright... lets see if its bigger this time.



Edit: Hmm, didn't seem to work.

[betty]

There are many ways to make a coat appear lighter, including spotting and colorpoint genes (when as a single hidden gene) Also as colorpoint is a temperature-affected gene - sometimes the same gene appears different shades in different individual gerbils due to various environmental factors.

It is also possible that there is an e^f in the mix which can also change the intensity of a ginger coat.

We haven't even mentioned the dilute gene itself (d) - mainly because it isn't everywhere and I haven't worked with it yet - so I don't know it's actual effects on the phenotype of e genes. Hopefully someone else can step in here for that.

As you said - black eyes in Holly will certainly be only a nutmeg series colour.

[TJ's Rodent Ranch]

I'll see if I can get a better picture of her tomorrow. Hopefully it'll come in bigger.
I didn't know colorpoint was temperature effected, that's very interesting.

When she was younger, I thought for a while she might have been honey cream. I've only had one, and his markings weren't entirely clear. I was sort of hoping that she would be a honey cream like her dad, since I'm not quite sure how to get a honey cream from him.

[betty]

According to Shooting Stars website a Honey Cream is just a spotted Honey - so if your 'dad' is a Honey Cream (a Dark-Eyed Honey (DEH) genetically) then he can produce more dark-eyed honeys if paired with a female of any colour carrying the e gene. That is all it requires.

Obviously you can increase your chances of getting another DEH by ruling out other genes that are 'in the way' - so only breeding with a female on the agouti-side of colours (as this will increase the numbers of agouti-side colours in a litter). You can also avoid any colourpoint females - and any grey females - as these choices will also help to increase the chances of your pups expressing only the A*ee colours.

[TJ's Rodent Ranch]

Hmm, okay.
So would the black female I already have paired with him be a good choice?
Is it possible that the second female is a DEH?

I was curious of that, but I wasn't sure if they had pied markings.

[betty]

Totally missed this -I assume you went ahead with the black female anyway - or is that in your other thread anyway?

[TJ's Rodent Ranch]

Yes, they're currently in a divider.

As for the first pup: Their siblings have all gone to different homes (of course paired up) but I kept the sister and brother of this coloring. They've developed black ticking on their noses and backs that is getting more prominent by the day (at first I wondered how in the world they got so dirty, haha!) so I'm pretty sure they're nutmeg.

As for the second, I think she's honeycream after all.

So, it appears the mystery is solved!

[betty]

Phew. Finally.

If you are keeping these two - perhaps we can pull together their nomenclatures to help you going forward with their breeding?

We know their mum's (Poppy) genes, and we can write theirs and also dads (Patrick) based on the litter colors working backwards.

Wanna give it a go?

[TJ's Rodent Ranch]

Yes, I am keeping them. There are actually two nutmegs, a male and a female, both of which I'm keeping (as well as the Honeycream girl). they all have names now (all of which you can blame on my family, haha) so it might be easier to refer to them. The Honeycream female is Zit, the Nutmeg male is D'man, and the nutmeg female is D'babe.
Zit is actually of different parents. I don't think I properly showed them. Her mom is black (Skittle), and her dad is honeycream (Keefe). I don't know who either of their parents were. Her siblings came out Agouti, pied agouti, black, and black pied.

I'm still not very good with genetics, so you might have to walk me through their nomenclatures.
If you're okay with that I would love to.

[betty]

Absolutely. Although I have run out of time tonight now.

Watch this space...

[betty]

Actually - for the genes - how do you best learn? What do you know already about how they work (the whole Mendelian punnet squares) and how to write them? Then we can build on that, rather than me just launching in?

There are a few posts on here explaining them - and Shooting Stars website is extremely helpful too.

Writing them is the easiest way to work out future pup combos - and essential if you are going to be working on certain colors in your lines, or you are hoping to produce rainbow litters - as otherwise you can end up with all your pups the same colour all the time. Imagine 10 pups all the exact same color- as it can happen for sure.

There are two ways of writing genes down you will come across:

1) Determiners: only showing those letters that change the coat color (so [ A*pp ] would = Argente Golden)
2) Full: always showing what is at all loci with letters (so [ A*C*D*E*ppUw* ] would = Argente Golden)

In both these examples - the * means not only that we don't know it but that we don't NEED it for that color.

so [ A*pp ] would = Argente Golden
and [ Aapp ] would = Argente Golden as well (it's just that you can't put the little a there unless you know it is actually there in that individual). Unless you have proved it with breeding - you always put the * in.


On FB join the Gerbil Genetics group too - just to see how the different letters (genes) are used when people are discussing colors and try to figure out the different combinations for yourself on there - then bring your thoughts and questions back here to check and get explanations for. It is quite addictive once you get started.

[betty]

Perhaps though, we could start by writing down the starter letters for Poppy, and we can build it up the more we know to show you the process we use to 'guess' the genes.

So Poppy is Black:

aa C* D* E* P* Uw* - a plain run of the mill Black gerbil gene list


If we know she had a cp silver nutmeg parent - she will certainly inherit a single copy of any double-recessive genes - because there is nothing else to inherit. So being a nutmeg - her dad has 2 tiny e genes - so she will get one of those:

aa C* D* Ee P* Uw* - a black gerbil with any type of nutmeg for a parent.


Her dad would also have had two uw^d genes too (which make him a silver nutmeg rather than just a normal nutmeg). So we know she will also inherit one of those:

aa C* D* Ee P* Uwuw^d - a black gerbil with any greyed nutmeg-type gerbil for a parent.


We also know that her dad was a colorpoint gerbil on top of this - so she will inherit a colorpoint (cp) gene for sure. Sometimes you can't tell which cp gene it is so you would just put c*, but we know that he was just a CP Silver Nutmeg (not a Light CP Silver Nutmeg) and so BOTH of his cp genes will be the c^chm version - so this is the one she will inherit from him:

aa Cc^chm D* Ee P* Uwuw^d - a black gerbil with any colourpoint nutmeg-type greyed gerbil for a parent. This Black gerbil (Poppy) has the potential to create almost all the common dark-eyed gerbil colors (with the right partner).


Although both parents can contribute somthing useful, sadly her mum was just Black too (no double recessives) - so we don't get anything directly from her to add.

You can sometimes draw something off the siblings too - but seeing as they were only Black or Burmese (both genes we already know about) we can't add anything extra just now. However had one of them been a Lilac or a Saffron it would have been very useful.


Does that even remotely make sense, the layering up?? 

[TJ's Rodent Ranch]

Wow, thank you for such detail!

There are definitely parts I understand. So adding the * instead of the lowercase letter makes a lot of sense. I think I might have mislearned that, because I was under the assumption that every gerbil has two letters of the gene, it just depends on whether they're dominant or not. So (according to what I used to think) you could automatically determine that whatever genes are not dominant, can be filled with recessive. So instead of A* it would be Aa.
Now that I know that's not true, what does the recessive a change in this circumstance? Is it still true that a dominant always cancels out a recessive in what can be seen in the coat?

I have worked with punnet squares before but that was a while ago. I'll look into them again and see if I can re-learn that. I'm not on FB, but is there another group you'd recommend?

I feel like I'm lacking the foundation of the genes. Could you explain a little more about what these genes actually are, and how they effect the gerbil? For instance, you spoke of the E, A, D, and C genes. What do these genes represent, and how does it affect the coat of the gerbil?

Thanks so much, I hope I'm not boring you with basic questions