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Post by michaeljack on Feb 12, 2021 18:41:38 GMT -8
I'm assuming rex has shown up in my projects. I was given five black double rex females and likewise three males. Four siblings, 2:2, were weak and died before maturity. I understand that double is frequently lethal and have, myself, never paired rexes. The current females have produced several litters, all nearly 50% rex in a few colors. I've read here in the Forum about wavy, too; however, until my recent litters, neither wavy nor rex had interested me. Below are pics of four agoutis: imgur.com/wckzg7simgur.com/iM6wKfEimgur.com/17D0TObimgur.com/1YJJVhVI addition, this light colored rex showed up as one of only two born in the litter: imgur.com/tqPcRtvimgur.com/a2MHYL0imgur.com/eor6bD1imgur.com/giqtfm9I'm not interested in promoting the rexes within my projects except the light one. |
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Post by betty on Feb 12, 2021 19:48:36 GMT -8
Rex is dominant - so breeding a rex gerbil will always produce rex pups? On average - 50% rex young - so looks like that is all going to plan with yours.
Wavy as far as I know was recessive - so won't always be passed on visually (but will be hidden in the genes) and will only pop up in a quarter of pups if neither parent are wavy themselves. There is nothing on Shooting Star genetics page I can see right now about it - so not sure where it is found?
RE: 'promoting': Are you saying you don't want to have rexes at all moving forward? Seems strange to buy them for breeding and then not breeed them again - or am I misunderstanding you? I love the look of my rexes - when you really look closely at them they are beautiful (I wish one of mine was ginger - but I wouldn't ever tell them that...)
As for your pups - I can never normaly tell normal-coated gray colours just from images - let alone a rex )!) - but most likely CP Agouti from the shown parent and sibling - beautiful. Others will know straight away without even blinking...
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Post by michaeljack on Feb 14, 2021 13:01:41 GMT -8
RE: 'promoting': Are you saying you don't want to have rexes at all moving forward? Seems strange to buy them for breeding and then not breeed them again - or am I misunderstanding you? I love the look of my rexes - when you really look closely at them they are beautiful (I wish one of mine was ginger - but I wouldn't ever tell them that...) The rexes were given to me. They were not originally part of my color projects...however, circumstances changed. Not promoting = it's not my objective to produce rex; but again, I'm going to keep the light (polar?) rex youngster as a future breeder. If rex are produced, that's incidental to my plans. I'm not planning to use the other rexes as breeders unless color changes catch my fancy. |
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Post by betty on Feb 14, 2021 14:27:13 GMT -8
I know - I was quite dissappointed to find my rexes were schimmels - and soon lost their ginger. But they are still beautiful really...
Can't wait to hear how it all turns out for him!
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Post by Shooting Star on Feb 14, 2021 15:08:07 GMT -8
Oh joy, more of Matt's double-rex nonsense. Keep an eye out for Dilutes coming from those lines though; some of the imports carried it, and it's a valuable source of diversity, considering the Dilute gene pool was quite concentrated prior to that import.
Wavy isn't present in the US. It was very limited in the UK and has likely died out there.
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Post by michaeljack on Feb 20, 2021 23:43:36 GMT -8
I know - I was quite dissappointed to find my rexes were schimmels - and soon lost their ginger. But they are still beautiful really... Can't wait to hear how it all turns out for him! Hi betty, could you explain more what you mean? Particularly "lost their ginger"? I'm not familiar with the term schimmel. And I'm not sure what is meant by Shooting Star's term dilute. I've raised many gerbils, but have not been savvy about color nomenclature. |
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Post by michaeljack on Feb 20, 2021 23:45:54 GMT -8
Oh joy, more of Matt's double-rex nonsense. Keep an eye out for Dilutes coming from those lines though; some of the imports carried it, and it's a valuable source of diversity, considering the Dilute gene pool was quite concentrated prior to that import. Wavy isn't present in the US. It was very limited in the UK and has likely died out there. Ahhhh...you guessed the source. Meanwhile, I'm not familiar with dilute. |
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Post by betty on Feb 21, 2021 8:04:14 GMT -8
Ah no worries michaeljack - if you are just breeding for fun you don't need to know all the genetic things - but if you are breeding for certain colours and looking at trying to streamline your litters (only get the colours you want) - then it really is something you should learn more about. So, Schimmel and Dilute are the names of two genes that affect colour (mainly). Schimmel (or mold) is a seperate allele on the e gene locus - e f. The little f stands for 'fading' in the simplest terms. You can only have one or the other at each point in your pair. Normal e is found in Honeys and Nutmeg/Saffron - but sometimes they can have this different gene instead (so rather than ee they have e fe f). So, they look like Honeys and Nutmegs at first but then the action of the gene runs over time - and so gradually they fade and fade until they turn completely white - except for their 'points' (nose, ears and tail). There are some great images online of them at their best. Obviously if they only have one e f gene, they do get some type of fading but nowhere near completely. This schimmel gene is only found in the ee colours as it is only found at the ee locus. You can't have an Agouti Schimmel or Lilac Schimmel. Dilute is different in that it is whole new loci (like 'the pink-eye gene' or the 'underwhite gene') so it acts independantly of other colours and on its own. So, it has its own 'letter' - D or d. So just like the pink-eyed gene can be 'P' (without pink-eyes) or 'pp' (with pink eyes); the Dilute gene works the same. So an animal with a single D will not be diluted (will be normal colour) and a gerbil with dd will be a diluted version of whatever colour its other genes tell it to be. Therefore, if the other genes make a gerbil Black - when the dd is added it will be a 'diluted black' (people called this a blue), but on other colours it isn't different enough to be given its own colour name as so is just called a 'diluted agouti' or a 'diluted argente' etc. Adding the word dilute to it lets people know that it has this gene (the same way we often add 'light' to a colour to identify its partially hidden cp genes). Cool,eh? |
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Post by michaeljack on Feb 22, 2021 7:53:05 GMT -8
betty, Outstanding! Indeed, I'm belatedly working on colors, and various websites don't entirely provide equivalent pictorial evidence. Your explanation is good intellectual fodder for my inquiries.
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Post by betty on Feb 22, 2021 10:08:34 GMT -8
I wish I knew more myself - I just read about what OTHER people have already discovered.
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