# What is this sooty color?



## madmouse

I recently had a litter of babies with "sooty" sort of coats. They are darkest along the topside, fading to a lighter, brighter color on the underside.

Firstly, here is they're mother Enda. Enda's breeder theorizes that she is either recessive yellow or undermarked brindle. When young she had a brownish tint to her back, but with age her coat has lightened up along the topside. Here's what she looks like now:










I bred her to a black self buck, who had a single great-grand parent who carried RY, which means that it's technically possible the babies are RY, but I think that's unlikely because in a litter of 7 there was a blue, two BEWs (who I assume are this yellow color + c-dilutes), two yellows, and two "sooty" mystery colors. This makes me think that the yellow is a dominant gene.

As for the sooty mystery babies, one appears to be a much sootier yellow or yellow brown:



















The other mystery baby appears to be both blue and yellow? Instead of the sootiness on the back being brownish, it's a blueish color fading to pale yellow on the underside:



















So my questions are, what gene is causing the yellow coloration, e/e or A^vy? What gene is causing the darkening of the fur across the back? Is this "sootiness" or something more like umbrous? Is the second baby really blue and yellow, or am I mistaken? The pictures really don't do their colors justice, especially the "blue-yellow" one. I forgot to mention that the "sooty" coloration is only in the top coat- if you rub the sooty fur the wrong way, you see that the undercoat is the same color as the underside of the animal.


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## Seafolly

I'd personally assume sooty RY's (e/e) but what do I know.


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## madmouse

Seafolly: The majority of other posters on another forum have voted for sooty e/e, but I think that only further breeding will entirely settle the matter.


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## TwitchingWhiskers

They look like self e/e to me, as well. They will probably loose most of the soot as they age. Edna is very pretty.


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## Seafolly

Oh really? Yay! I'm glad I'm finally learning something, haha.

I bred a sooty RY who looks umbrous (I'm sure she's not) as her belly is so pale, her sides so golden yellow...I actually really like the look! But yes she did lighten with age. She's 9 months now but still has that dark spine.


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## TwitchingWhiskers

I must admit, the sooty look is actually somewhat appealing to me, as well, _but_ only to a certain extent; recessive yellow mice that look almost agouti are not appealing to me. My recessive yellow line should be beginning soon; I have a RY and RY carrier paired up. Recessive yellow is a really nice color in my opinion, I love how they look with their black eyes.


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## Seafolly

Yes they need the right amount of gold to make up for the dull brown (I love the blue tones in these guys).  The little lady in my avatar is the sooty RY I'm referring to. I should probably get updated photos. But as a baby (pre-10 days), people thought she'd be agouti (though she was never ticked). Black eyed RY's are divine I agree. I was lucky enough to get one in that same litter. But it seems like the really fiery ones often have red eyes. Maybe it's coincidence.


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## TwitchingWhiskers

Yes, if you look at moustress's e/e based fawns, well they look pretty nice. There are lots of pink eyed varieties that I love (exhibition champagne for instance *drools*), but I think black eyes better suit recessive yellow. I've always loved your little avatar picture, it's too cute.


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