Bringing the Red out of the Agoutis

[aussiegirl]

Id keep breeding the Thriantra to the NZWhites and picking out the biggest and best reds, male or female, for your NZRed project

Cross these Th x NZW to the NZW to increase size and again keep the biggest and best reds, crossing back to Thiantra when the Rufus starts to fade out

I would never add NZRed or white genes to your purebred Thriantra line UNLESS you eliminate all undesirable recessives AND your NZReds develop the same rich red colour AND you must increase the purebred T's size or improve a production quality like litter size or milk production

Here are some pictures of one of my Thrianta does, I didn't want to disturb the other Thrianta doe as she is heavily pregnant. I have also included a picture of the 1st Thrianta x New Zealand white replacement doe (photo taken at 8 wks old).

Dood, do you think the colour on the replacement is suitable?

 

[Dood]

They've got the right colour genes - agouti, non extension and wideband and their amount of Rufus looks better than many "purebred" NZReds I've seen on this side of the pond - now you just need to weed out REW and work up their adult size to 10 pounds :mrgreen:

 

[EnglishSpot]

Ooo! They're beautifully colored!! Love them Aussiegirl! Ironically, I'm trying to get my NZR cross line down to 8lbs!

 

[aussiegirl]

They've got the right colour genes - agouti, non extension and wideband and their amount of Rufus looks better than many "purebred" NZReds I've seen on this side of the pond - now you just need to weed out REW and work up their adult size to 10 pounds :mrgreen:

Thanks Dood that just made my day. :lol:

So just to recap, I keep breeding the Thrianta x replacements to my New Zealand Whites (to produce the size) and ONLY breed back to Thrianta if the colour starts to fade out.

I know this will be a little further down the track as it will take time to get the size we want - but how will I weed out the REW in the replacements while keeping the size & colour?.

 

[Dood]

Once you've got the size you can start breeding red to red and keep track of who has white kits and both parents must be REW carriers and replace them with those that dont