| The four colours - topaz, mink, buff and
cinnamon.
Why these colours? Lolly is Havana, which means she is mink, but with
ruby eyes (and probably some mysterious other things), causing her colour
to be lighter and with more of a brown tinge. This means we'd write her
genetic make up as aa mm Rr
Nico is cinnamon - and must be carrying ruby eyes for us to get the topaz
and buff. Cinnamon is mink but with an agouti base. We know from his family
history that Nico also carries black (he only has one Agouti gene, but
it is dominant), so with the ruby eyes it would be written Aa
mm Rr
So, as each baby gets one of each pair of genes from each parent, this
allows us to have...
Topaz: Aa mm rr
Buff: aa mm rr
Mink: aa mm rr (and some are likely to carry ruby eyes
- aa mm Rr - which may cause them to turn out to be havana, depending
on other modifiers)
Cinnamon: Aa mm rr (some are likely to carry ruby eyes
- Aa mm Rr)
Because both Lolly and Nico have mink bases (mm), all
babies will have mink based colours - but a double dose of ruby eyes over-rides
this to turn the coat topaz and buff. Some colours, such as Havana, sometimes
don't show up until the babies have had their first moult.
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