True Silver?

[chinchillalover0927]

Tara,
What are you meaning by "regular white gene " I undersyand that some Mosiac who have the tov are heavily veiled and show the tov. Then on the other hand they have the whites who carry the tov that you don't see it in tbem at all. what makes the tov hidden Is what I'm curious to understand ? Like i said the sire I had to me was an obvious tov at a young age but if he was seen as an adult you would never notice the tov expressed in him. I only knew because of him throwing a black velvet kit who was actually the white kits brother . I know that the black and white hide tov good but why do they hide it so well ?

Nice baby! I agree with thinking you've got the white gene running [B][/B]around there.

Just for kicks - I had a Tov Pinkwhite with a white tail. No way they'd let her into the white class though.

For those who don't see a lot of chins, the general rule of mosaics is that they lighten with age. This is the case for 85% of them. Any coloration change is due to the veiling coming in and them losing their baby fur over several primes. When you introduce Tov it can darken them as it comes in over their lifetime, then fade again if you have that regular white gene.

There is another line of white that always darkens with age and allows the base color to show through, this is the line I work with. You'll know if you've got one, they're usually very strikingly marked and the babies darken or retain dark markings with age.

Does anyone else work with a darkening line?

 

[Spoof]

what makes the tov hidden Is what I'm curious to understand

The type of white you're using. White is white for all intents and purposes on the show table, but in breeding there are different varieties of it.

There are strains that throw consistent pure white chins without a mark on them. There are strains that throw markings - granted feint ones, and there are strains that allow the chin to show the base color over the greater part of it's body very darkly. Almost to the point of not showing white at all.

I've always wondered where the classification for silver came from and if it wasn't the result of a line that someone had that threw a lot of silver*looking chins and if it wasn't a gene unto itself at that point that has been lost. Generally to warrant a separate classification there needs to be enough to provide competition in a class and I've never seen enough at a show to provide that. Heck, I've seen more viophires/crosses at one show than I've seen silvers over all the shows I've attended. Viophires still don't have their own classification yet unless Mark worked that one out and they do not match up to violets or sapphires.

Does anyone have any of the old breeder mags that talk about it?

 

[mishalaa]

The Wilson white gene is an incomplete dominant. How much TOV/beige/standard/whathaveyou comes through depends on how "incomplete" the white is. The only difference between a predominantly white and a silver is how much the white is expressed. This is how you get TOV whites that show their TOV, and those that hide it. The genetic factors that determine how much white is expressed have not been determined, but they work as modifiers to the Wilson white gene.

 

[chinchillalover0927]

Ok I understand a good bit better now. I was aware that all white was white at a show but the breeding is what confused me to understand the whites and there tov issues lol

 

[bchins]

This a a 'light ebony-looking' male out of a medium ebony sire and a white mosaic dam. He doesn't look right to be an ebony though. I can just see the white/silver color coming. The pics don't do him much justice- took them at 1:30am last night and used the flash

 

[Spoof]

That baby looks to have the cinnamon baby effect, once he sheds out my guess is he'll be a normal light ebony or standard. But, you never know! That's the fun of working with whites.

 

[Riven]

This is what I was told of true silvers by some of the old timers once at Nationals.

A true silver is born COMPLETELY standard, no white tail or anywhere else. Then by the time they are weaned they fade out to a solid silver color. These are out of a white and a standard with no ebony in the lines, because ebonies lack a bar anyway they would not necessarily pass the bar gene onto any white offspring.

It's sad that a lot of things are lost from what they used to be because the elders didn't think it would be lost, so they didn't record it. So really unless you can find someone who remembers what originally was considered a silver, no one is really sure.

 

[mishalaa]

because ebonies lack a bar anyway they would not necessarily pass the bar gene onto any white offspring.

Ebonies still have the bar gene (aka the agouti gene) and still pass it on. I have confirmed this under microscope. The ebony mutations mask the effect a bit, but the agouti protein is still present and active on the cellular level. There is no non-agouti mutation in chinchilla yet.

So really unless you can find someone who remembers what originally was considered a silver, no one is really sure.

I am very sure what a silver is. It is spelled out in the MCBA show manual. I can't confirm if whites with non white-tipped tails were ever universally agreed upon to be called a silver, but I know what is considered a silver today. If what you say is true and the definition of silver has changed, I don't think it sad. I just think the definition changed to better suit the purpose of the classes. Tails don't make one bit of difference when it comes to pelts (or shows), so it doesn't matter if a silver has a white-tipped tail or not.

Don't get me wrong, I love whites without white-tipped tails, because they're not that common. I keep pointing them out when I see them at shows, but I'm met with shrugs. To me, they're a curiosity. But I wouldn't call them a silver unless they met the criteria in the show manual. All the MCBA classed silvers I have seen so far have had white-tipped tails, but it's possible for them to have a solid tail. I'm sure they're out there, but so are mosaics and whites with dark guard hairs that have solid tails.

 

[Riven]

MCBA and ECBC don't have the same rules and standards though.

I don't think it's sad that it's changed, I think it's sad that there are not more records, everything is passed down by word of mouth, and as we all know, things get forgotten or mixed up after time. Not just with silvers, but with many things that used to be.

 

[Jaina_Organasolo]

I have seen a couple of silvers in my time through a couple of different uk breeders. They are quite striking to look at although I prefer Mosaics.

It's been interesting to read about how TOV can be hidden, I was wondering about that as I have a sweet little Mosaic here who has a TOV white mum; so I know it's 50/50 as to whether he's a 'regular' white or a TOV. Impossible to say as there's no definite indicators on him and bizarrely he has 3 out of 4 feet with spats.

 

[Riven]

Finally, I took the camera out and took a pic of the girl. This is her and her sister, they were both completely standard when born. No white tipped tail. I'm excited to see her grow because this pair produces very nice large animals, I actually put this pair back together after a break from each other to produce light standards females to use with my blue diamond male. I was thrilled to have two std. females born first litter... but I guess that's not what I got!

 

[mishalaa]

Funny, I took an updated pic of my two whites yesterday as well. The female is definitely white, and oddly enough, slightly lighter than her brother with the white-tipped tail. Here they are now at 5 weeks old: