Hey everyone,

I have a brown rosetted 4 month old female who I intend to breed around a year old, or older, depending on her heat cycle of course. I am looking at purchasing a stud to breed with her and have some questions about what color male to get.

My female is a carrier of the snow gene. So I've been thinking that I will get a silver male who is also a carrier of the snow gene. Would this allow for brown, silver and snow kittens? Would breeding brown and silver together cause tarnish on the silver kittens?

I purchased my female from Belarus so I don't have the best communication with the breeder as she uses google translator just to understand my messages, then translates her response and sends it back. So I'm really hoping someone here will help!

Thanks!!

The whole "this bengal carries -- fill in blank of color" is confusing. Just because they carry for snow or silver, doesn't always mean there will be one in the litter. A breeder friend just had a litter and there was one snow with the four others brown spotted. You just honestly never know what will come out as a result of a paring. You can only hope! Here is something written by Carol with Eriador Bengals and I doubt you can understand much of it. I cannot, but it may bring some light to your situation:

http://www.beautifulbengals.com/Bengal_Genetics.html

See, Ontario, I didn't understand a thing you wrote! LOL. It's amazing that breeders understand all of this. Thank you for your post!

You have to understand the basics of genetics and you are right that what I wrote is probably too complicated.

Let me try it this way.

There are two genes that impact Silver, Brown and Snow.
Each gene has 2 values - one from each parent.

Most people are aware of Dominant / Recessive but as a quick note there. If you have something Dominant it always is used. If you have something recessive it's only used if there are no dominant.

Let's look at the Colour Gene (I'll simplify).

Two of the values are Brown and Snow. Brown is dominant over Snow. If one of the parents provides brown then the baby is always brown. if both parents provide Snow then you get Snow. There are only 2 options each time as each parent has one of two values.

If Female is Brown / Snow then she'll pass Brown or Snow to the child. If she passes Brown then the child is always Brown, regardless of the father. If she passes Snow then we look at the father.
If the Father is Brown / Snow then if he passes Brown the child is always Brown. If he passes Snow then the child is Snow is the Female passes Snow.

So we write it out like this:
Mother: B b(s) (this means Brown / Snow - B = Brown and b(s) = Snow. The capital letter means dominant).

If that makes sense then I can try to add the Silver piece of it too which adds another gene into it.

I forgot I wrote this a while ago - this may help explain:

https://www.ontariobengals.com/2017/01/ ... -genetics/

It really is a fairly simple system when you write it out like that. Which is why if you put a brown spotted with a snow, you may not always get a snow -- or there may be one in the entire liter. Litters are always a gamble. It's crazy, but one breeder I know had two melanistic kittens in with a litter and both parents are brown. And her last litter had 4 browns and 1 snow. The picture of the litter is super cute with this little white kitten standing out from all the brown.

It does not matter what type of stud you breed your queen with -- you may or may not get a snow or silver or brown rosetted or melanistic. Litters are complete surprises. Heck, you may even get a marble in there as most bengals have marbles back in the pedigree. You need to just mate the cats and be surprised when your girl delivers -- that's all I can say. LOL Recessive genes can pop up anytime.

Yeah, as far as I understand it, brown v snow is a basic Punnet square like you do in school... But when there are more variables, they get more complicated. But if you know the genetics of the breeding pair there won't be any surprises. My boy's parents just had another litter with a surprise snow in it, but that just means that my breeder did t k now both her cats carried for Snow. My boy may or may not carry for it l, though.