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Ok, I finally was able to get soem photos uploaded
of the gerbils. I will also respond in one post my replies as I had
several people email me with similar questions:
The background of the line is as
follows:
The foundign father was FRANKIE, a solid coloured
nutmeg and
the founding female was JOANIE, a spotted black
female.
Photos of Frankie and Joanie are here:
and
You can see, frankie isnt spotted. Joanie is-
so I assume joanie is passing on a SP (it did appear about half her offspring
were spotted, in agreement with her spotting being dominant, SP).
Interestingly, the spotted babies of hers were all more spotted then she was-
they all had white flecking on the rumps and larger headspots. They looked
vbetween pied and mottled, but not that good for mottled but I saw a tendancy so
I began to select for it. One observation here- many of their offspring
had notably kinked tails- all of which were spotted. So it was tricky to
find non-kinked, highly spotted babies in her litters- but I was able to find 4
good ones, 1 males, 2 females (Splatter, Splash and Speckle) Joanie and
frankie prduced a total of 3 litters, half solid, half spotted, approx.
a quarter tail-kninked (all kinked being spotted).
Speckle, Splatter and Splash were paired up -
one in a brother-sister pair and the other being bred back to Joanie.... and
these produced 8 litters between them. I expected to get More highly
spotted from the backcross to joanie, but not so! Both litters the
maternal backcross and the sibling cross resulted in pretty much identical in
the statistical results of what was produced.
About 75% of the babies were spotted to soem
degree. Interestingly, NO nutmegs were born at all in any of these litters
(the 6 that is born to the siblings, both who carried nutmeg from
frankie) even though you'd expect with litters, averaging about 6 each,
that you'd have a few pop up. Spotting varied from spotted (as joanie was)
to "more mottled" then these 4 parents. This time I had only one kinked
tail and that was from the backcross to joanie.
Out of the offspring produced by the above
brother-sister crosses, I kept 2 of the best males and 2 of the best females.
(best meaning overall health/condition and most white spotting). These all
named Stormy, Starry, Mica and Sparkle. They were paired up to
borther-sister (stormy x starry; mica x sparkle) and produced now 5 litters
between them, still of normal litter sizes... no tail kinks in any of them ...
No stillborns. and so far EVERY one has been spotted. Most
with LOTS of white, but theres the occassional "throwback" to Joanie's plain
little spot. I just had a litter born too this week and there is ONE count
it ONE nutmeg in there (I thought i had lost it seeing it never occured in
any of the other litters where I KNEW the parents had to carry
nutmeg...) and gues what? Its not spotted. Coincidence... or
clue? Hm.
Now, here are photos of the latest
generation:
Sparkle
and
Mica and Sparkle (mica looks pied in the
photo but he does have white hairs throughout the black parts of his body, just
not in as a great a number as his make has.
Typical Babies from Stormy and Starry (Mica and
Sparkle's litters look this way too):
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