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You may, but not necessarily. Anything with ebony in it should be marked as so because it can not appear but still be carried then pop up 3-4 generations later. Unless you are trying to improve some non-belly factor of your ebonies there is no point of breeding them to a nice white bellied standard.
 
Ok, confused here. I was told that I needed to breed back to a standard every second generation or there would be serious consequences.
 
Yes. DIRE consequences, like being poo pooo'd on forums and such.

Lol, yes something like that. Good thing for this thread and for others who were able to take me aside and correct that misinformation. I want to be able to improve on what I have now and breed better quality chins, not make errors right at the start like what I was told to do.
The female that I have is an extra dark ebony by Jerry Lee who placed 1A & Reserve CH Color Sec. 2008 West Coast MCBA. She has excellent size (over 860 G)and conformation. She would have done much better at the show had some amateur (moi :) ) not gotten so overenthusiastic when it came to grooming. We will try again next year to see how she does.
We now also have a nice little Mosaic from Rivendell, she can tell me if this will be a good cross and will give us nice colour??
Our other female is a medium ebony, we are hoping to eventually breed her to the mosaic as well.
We have already spoken with the Cramers and will be getting some nice standards down the road and if I am reading this correctly it will be ok to breed the mosaics to them in order to improve on the whiteness of the bellies?? Trying to get this all figured out here. :)
Jerry was also mentioning something about improving the veiling, but it was the end of the day, I was tired and had to rush off to pick up girlchild number 3 from a service project. Girlchild number 4 was with me, was tired and hungry and so I didn't catch all that he said. Oh and I had also just found out that boy child number 1 had just gotten engaged that day only a few days after girl child number 1. So my brain was elsewhere. (that makes 3 weddings for us in 5.5 months) I think I need to change my user name to something else since we are down from 6 kids to 3 kids at home now, no longer am I a woman in a shoe.
 
Reading this is making me rethink some of the plans I have for breeding. We were going to breed Eiffel, our little mosaic from Rivendell to Hayley, (med ebony) and to Gracie (extra dark ebony) and then the next generation to a standard. But from what I am learning that would not work very well, is this correct? I don't want to go to all that work of trying to make improvements and then end up with standards with muddy bellies. So would it be better to breed Eiffel to a standard instead and not introduce the ebonies into that line at all?
 
I personally use a lot of standards in my breeding but focus more on whites, and they can have weaker fur, so don't do a lot of mute to mute breedings. I do try to use standard every other generation with my whites, by that is me. In the case of your ebony you could breed her with a standard eb carrier.
To bad you weren't around when the Craners were at the show in Hermiston he gave a very good lecture on fur, such as silky, woolly, short, long etc. A lot to learn, even here, and still learning!
 
I am sure that I can contact Craner's and ask them about that. Already hoping to stop and visit them if we go to Utah next April.
 
The point to breeding back to standard isn't because your offspring are going to croak if they don't, it's to continue to put the quality of a good standard into your lines to help improve them at least every second generation. Some people think it's okay to breed mute to mute to mute to mute to mute. Most people believe that ends up producing weak chins, in fur, in size, in conformation. Some will swear that they can get just as good of animal with never using a standard. Also, and let's face it, people want to sell chins. The more standards you use, the more standards you get, and nobody wants standards (especially the pet market). They want exotic flavors, not boring gray. Breeders want "pure" standards, so what do you do with all the mutt offspring if you can't use them yourself and nobody wants to buy them? So the answer to that is don't breed to any standards I guess.
 
My concern here is breeding a standard to.an ebony and the result it could have on resulting standard offspring. That if they produce standard babies they would end up with muddy bellies. This would not be an improvement and from.what I am learning could take several generations to breed out. That said I am still planning on getting some standards in the future, Want to do things correctly and so will do what the Cramers recommend.
 
That if they produce standard babies they would end up with muddy bellies.
This is not true. If you have good ebonies and good standards you'll either end up with a light ebony, or a standard with a pure white belly. No in-between. It's when you breed in animals like the BV with ticking that this thread was started about that you get poor standards out of mutes.

Some people think it's okay to breed mute to mute to mute to mute to mute. Most people believe that ends up producing weak chins, in fur, in size, in conformation. Some will swear that they can get just as good of animal with never using a standard.
It's where your quality is. If you have an ebony that is better than any standard you can find, use it to improve your lines. See example pic below from someone I believe everyone agrees is in the "master breeder" group.

The thing to remember is that you really need to know what quality is. To discover that you do what you are doing - go to shows, visit ranchers and learn.

This lineage is all over if you keep records that far back. I've gotten animals from Canada, CA, OR and WA that have this line - first screenshot is from a Standard animal out of the NBWC herd. My chocolate from another breeder also has it starting three generations back, ped is in the second pic.

Obviously he does it with ebonies too. If you want advice in breeding mutes - I'd recommend picking this mute breeder's brain. Craners are very nice but do not breed mutes - in fact they bought the line they showed at the MCBA show because he's regarded to be the best of the best. I imagine this line is all over in those BV's too, several BV's in the NBWC herd have it. :))
 

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