Can someone explain violet and saphire mutations to me?

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naturegirl240

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 4, 2009
Messages
282
Location
Western NY
I am not a breeder, but I have three cute chins. I am and idiot when it come to genetics. Violet is a recessive gene right? So how could you tell if the violet produced a standard baby that it is a violet carrier? I really know nothing at all about saphire. Which parent is responsible for passing the trait on? Could someone please explain the mutations to me? Sorry if I sound stupid.



Thanks
 
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Chins generally carry two genes that affect color (not getting into the TOV). A recessive gene only appears when it is in homozygous form, meaning that the animal ONLY carries that color gene. So, a violet chinchilla ONLY has two violet genes. The same with sapphire, the animal ONLY has sapphire genes. So, since the animal ONLY has violet genes, they can only pass violet genes to their kits. ANY offspring from this animal will automatically be a violet carrier, because they will carry a violet gene from the violet parent.
 
If you google silverfall chinchillas they have a calculator on there that will show the different combinations and the results.
Read the first page at least twice to help understand the results are NOT 100%.
You can have a lot of fun with it, too!
 
I am never getting into breeding..that is too much confusion for me..lol!
 
To put it basically, look at it like this.

Every chin has two "color genes".

To get a : You need:
Standard=============atleast one standard gene
Beige================atleast one beige gene
**** Beige============two beige genes
Dominant White ( what you normally see)===at least one white gene
Pink White=============One beige gene, one white gene
Black Velvet============One standard gene, one TOV gene
Violet=================two violet genes
stadard violet carrier======One standard gene, one violet gene
Sapphire===============Two sapphire genes

This is extremely simplified and not necessarily "correct" because some of these are a lot more complex and accumulative, etc, but it's a good way to look at it for someone just starting to learn about colors/genes etc.
 
In high school bio classes, you learn how to use Punnet squares. You can use this to figure out the probabilities of offspring by writing in the alleles of the parents and their combinations. This is what the Silverfall calculator does. For a violet, I would use VV. For a violet carrier, I would use Vv. For a standard (does not carry violet), I would use vv.
 
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