Alex <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote
>I was wondering where I can take my gerbils to find out there genes. I have a
>male and female. The female is an Albino and the male is nutmeg colored.
>
>And I would like to learn how to breed for certain colors and so far all I have
>found are places that tell me the genes of the gerbils that I need to breed to
>get a certain color but I dont know there genes.
>
>Thank you,
>Alex Autrey
If you breed them, the colours you get will help you to work out their
genes. Unless you were given the genotype from the person you got the
gerbils from, or you know a lot about their parents, grandparents and
siblings, you will not be able to work out the genes in any detail.
>From your descriptions all you can be sure of is:
The nutmeg is aaC-eeG-P-
The white could be many things as there is more than one way of getting
pink eyed white. The most likely combination is:
--c[h]c[h]----pp.
If you breed these together you may just get 100 Golden Agoutis. Any
other colours that appear will allow you to make deductions about the
genes the parents carry.
I am sorry if this sounds long-winded, but this is the only way to do
it.
The information on the webpages you have found helps people deduce the
genetics by setting out the colours each genotype produces.
The more records you keep about your gerbils and their offspring, the
better your understanding of their genetics.
There are some programs on the net that will predict the offspring once
you know the genes, but nothing can work out what no-one knows without
breeding.
Now, a little test, if you were to breed your two gerbils together, and
you got a litter of five pups, four golden agouti, and one black, what
would that tell you?
BTW, I am working with a programmer who has a detailed breeding record
program designed for rabbits. He sells this commercially for �75 (over
$100). Currently it will work out the genetics of rabbits just by
entering the colours of the offspring. The programmer would like to make
the program available for other animal breeders and he has asked my help
in producing the relevant genetics data for gerbils.
To find out more about this program (for Windows machines), and to try
out a trial version go to (BTW, I have no commercial interest in this):
http://www.ibreed.ukgateway.net
But as it is time and number limited you might want to wait until the
gerbils data is available.
--
Julian
************************************************************************
* Jackie and Julian *
* [EMAIL PROTECTED] *
* National Gerbil Society *
* http://www.gerbils.co.uk/ *
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