>From:    Anonymous Poster <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: color curiosity and education
>I am looking for any and all information I can get on color genetics.
 
There isn't much, but still it is too much to put in the FML.  There is
an eGroups list on ferret-genetics.  We'll give some brief answers though.
All are commonly shared beliefs (some though less commonly held) but there
is little accurate "lay person" published material.
 
>Things like, are there any colors that carry a leathel factor?
 
Possibly DEW to DEW can have lethal genes but its not a given.
 
>What colors and or parrens can carry health defects(examply would be
>blazes and deafness)?
 
You are aware then of what is being called Waardenburg Syndrome (though
perhaps incorrectly) in ferrets.  As far as we know there are no genetics
research programs that have proven that is is Waardenburg as it exists in
other species but almost all of the problems associated with the syndrome
in other species are also noted in ferrets.  And perhaps a few more.
 
Other problems that have been tied to colors or patterns are seemingly just
associated with lines and have only a local linking in those lines with any
problems.
 
>And what color combinations produce what colors?
 
First you have to have people agree on what colors exist.
 
Our take is that there are only  a very few true colors.
 
Sable - from brown to near black
Chocolate - a milky chocolate type brown
Black - normally seen only in mitted ferrets
Red - controversial - it may or may not really exist as a genetic color.
 
White is always from a separate gene.  Black might not be a "true color"
but also from a separate gene as well.
 
Sable seems to be dominant to all others.  Red is cited by at least one
author as recessive to the also recessive chocolate.
 
Albino is not always albino.  In ferrets it seems to be a homozygous
diluted.  A heterozygous diluted chocolate is cinnamon/champagne.  A
heterozygous diluted sable is just sable.
 
No author has fully described what makes a ferret a black mitt.
 
Roaning is the misnamed progressive sprinkling of white into the "dark"
areas of a ferrets colors.  There may be different varieties.
 
Blazes (badgers, shetlands), pandas, "wannabes", dark eyed whites (black
eyed whites), mitts (on all non-black and some black ferrets) and several
other oddly marked with white ferrets seem to be the result of the
Waardenburg gene.
 
The DEW/BEW requires the presence of Waardenburg and several other of
these modification genes - perhaps heterozygous dilution and roaning.
 
>I heard or read somewere that cinnamons and angoras have a tendency
>to be more aggressive tempered.
 
Angoras are perhaps more high strung but it is not due to the angora
genetics as the non-angora relatives are of the same temperament.
 
Aggression is certainly not associated with aggressiveness, though in
some lines they might seem linked by chance.
 
>Can anyone tell me or point me to where I can find how color and fur
>type influences behavior?
 
You can not be pointed to such information as it does not exist.  Certainly
some ferrets are more aggressive than others but it is not linked to their
color or whether they are angora or not.
 
Feel free to write directly to us if you wish to discuss aspects of this
not suitable for open discussion on the FML.  We might know some things
that would help.
 
bill and diane killian
zen and the art of ferrets
http://www.zenferret.com
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[Posted in FML issue 3161]