Question for Breeders

OK, here's something I've been thinking about while I add more females to my collection (of currently one! LOL). But thinking about where I'd like to go as a hobbyist in breeding.

When you are breeding say a het or co-dom to a normal female - is a normal is a normal is a normal, or do you pick your normal girls based on their looks? For example, coloring and/or pattern type?

For example, the new girl I'm getting is reduced pattern, dark with lovely chocolate blushing. I'd be thrilled if she gave me normal offspring that resembled her. BUT, would she combine better with a particular morph? Would a het pied bred to a lighter female and then their offspring bred back to him result in nicer pieds, or the same situation with your het bred to a darker, reduced pattern girl and their offspring bred back to daddy result in better quality.

Or does it matter?

Thanks for starting this thread Robin! This is exactly what Mike and I have been talking about lately as our normal females run the range of Ri who is pretty yellow/black to Orlah who is all chocolate tones to Kyna whose sort of oddly green in tone and everything in between LOL.

So how much influence does the normal female's look have in the breedings whether they be normal x normal or normal x recessive, co-dom or dom?


~~Jo~~

i'm not the voice of experience or anything here, but i believe that it can have some effect. for instance, i have a really high blushing girl and i am going to eventually breed her with the high blushing pastel i am getting from adam in hopes of producing more high blushing babies. since its high blushing pastels i want i wouldn't put a girl with no blushing with that particular male. i believe that that is how some pastels came to have their blushing--by selectively breeding them with high blushing normals, and that that is how some albinos came to be high contrast--by selectively breeding them with high contrast normals, etc.