# learning genes, back cross?



## gingerdragon (Nov 11, 2014)

I'm learning a lot and managed a few test crosses and this is what I've found. Please feel free to correct me since I'm kind of new to this. 
I figured out that even though 2 of my males are black and white that the white spotting is recessive or mostly so. 100% of the offspring from an agouti female and a pew are agouti. With the pew female the pups have just a little pink on the tips of the tails. I am waiting to try the f2 generation back cross to get more of the recessive traits. I wonder if I should mate a son of pew back to mom or if that's too close. I know that incest usually results in a higher chance of problems with the offspring. I could also mate two of the offspring, not brother and sister, but I'm afraid that I'll accidentally take a dominant homozygous and a heterozygous and end up with 50% dom **** and 50% het again since I can't do any dna testing. I would be happy to get two heterozygous parents to produce 25/50/25 but I don't want to cull so I could end up with a lot of unneeded offspring without thinking this through.

Edit: also I was wondering about the long hair gene that one of my males displays, none of his offspring to either female has it.


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## PPVallhunds (Jul 26, 2010)

Inbreeding does not create problems it only makes it more likely to bring them to the frount, which means you can then work to breed them out. It also fixes type and helps you to know what is in the line as the more you outcross the more ressive genes you will be unknowingly breeding in. Breeders often do mother/son, farther/daughter, bother/sister maitings.

Longhair is ressive to short hair, so all the short haired babies from your lh buck will be carriers so breed his daughters back to him to get 50% chance of longhair.


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## gingerdragon (Nov 11, 2014)

Thanks, I did just that, father/daughter, and got the results I was hoping for. I tried to upload an image but it seems the file is too big. I'll try to post one of the babies soon


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## PPVallhunds (Jul 26, 2010)

Good news


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## gingerdragon (Nov 11, 2014)




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## Miceandmore64 (Jul 16, 2013)

Cute young!
Alot of variation!


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## gingerdragon (Nov 11, 2014)

Snickers was the winner here. I was looking for more long hair. I was hoping to get a female with long hair but I guess that's just going to have to wait for the next time around. Josephine is just gorgeous. She's so sweet and tame too! 

I think those will be two out of three I'm keeping from this litter.
Unfortunately, Nugget became a cat snack this evening. Somehow the cat snuck in and I actually turned the lights off and shut the door for the night. Half an hour later I hear meows from my mouse room. The cat is happy, I am not happy with the cat. }:-(


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