Hello, I have another noobish breeding question!!

Let's say you have a pet which has all the genes/mutations that you want for a certain breeding project but the colors are different...so if you use dyes to change its colors and breed it with your project pets, will the offspring have the right colors or will they be tainted by the colors of the grandparents/great grandparents, etc?

I suppose the main question would be, do the grandparents' colors come through in the grandchildren even if you change the parents' colors?

I am 90% sure the colors of the babies are decided by the parent's current colors. That being said, I have never actually bred a pet that has been dyed. However since it is not noted on the pet's page that it has been dyed, it would not make much sense to ignore the dye during breeding without some type of warning.

Thanks for the reply! Hmm, maybe I will try it and see what happens. I was just wondering if anyone had already tried it and found out the answer!

It seems to me that if the baby's colors are determined solely by the parents without other influences, it would be easier to just use whatever random caught/purchased pets you want and dye them the desired colors than to generate a bunch of pets with the colors you want, wait for them to grow up and play genetic roulette trying to get the traits you want, then wait for them to grow up.... It would certainly give you a larger breeding pool to get the traits you want and save on essences.

colors and genes do not carry from the grandparents.

For this first part I highly suggest you open up a second page with the preview generator for a zolnixi so you can refer to it

1) Genes are carried by the parents. There is a thing called recessive/dominant. If you look in the generator you'll see the drop down lists for a specific gene. For example, I will use zolnixis.

For Gene one in the generator, Banded stripes is listed first ad cross fox is listed last. Being said, banded stripes is the most dominant trait for the gene one slot and cross fox is the least dominant (meaning it is completely recessive). It goes in order.

So if you breed a zolnixi with vis. banded stripes to one with vis cross fox, the baby will most likely show banded stripes but will have a chance to show any trait listed between banded stripes and cross fox. There is also a chance the baby will carry the gene for any other trait in the gene one category which it can pass down to it's offspring.

Now just to clarify, say you bred a zolnixi with banded stripes to a zolnixi with paint. The baby will have a chance to show or carry any trait between banded stripes and paint. (so tribal is listed before paint, therefore, it will have a chance to show or carry banded stripes, tribal, or paint) Most likely the pet will show banded stripes but have a hidden carry for tribal stripes or paint and can pass that on to future offspring. But because paint was the most recessive gene bred in, there is no possibility of the baby possessing any trait listed in the gene one slot under paint.

Hopefully that clears up gene breeding confusion, if not, please ping me with your questions.

2) As for color, once again, babies do not inherit from grandparents, only their parents. So if you dye a pet then breed it, all offspring will posses similar color patterns to the colors you dyed the parents and will not inherit any colors before you bred the pet or colors from grandparents.

Now if you breed a pet before you dye it, the baby will of course posses the original colors.

Again, if you have any questions, please ping me.

Thank you so much, Darkwingedangel, for the info!!! I had no idea breeding worked like you just said...I was always wondering why weird traits were popping up in my pets when the parents didn't display them.

So basically what you are saying is that if I take bred pets and dye them for my breeding projects, I run the risk of getting unwanted genes/mutations popping up, whereas if I generated them with only the genes/mutations I wanted, it eliminates this risk?

Yes, there is a chance of un-wanted genes popping up if you just breed random pets or use captured pets, but if you really wanted to do it, you could go back through the pet's lineages that you are using (usually you just need to look at the parents and grandparents) to see if there is a possibility of it.

Now why I say usually just the parents and grandparents is because even though grandparents don't pass down traits to grand kids, they do pass them to the parents so there is the chance the parents are carrying a hidden recessive and that they can pass that to their kids.

Tracking lineages can become disorganized and time consuming so most people don't bother with it.

Remember though, random genes popping up is fairly uncommon so if you don't want to generate pets, then you could just randomly breed and sell any offspring with genes you don't want.

However, if you generate and you don't give them the same traits in the same slots, (so one zolnixi with banded stripes and one with paint) There is a chance that somewhere along the line of your project you end up with one with tribal stripes

--- on a side note:-----

I do go back and track every pet related to my patriotic breeding pets to make sure they are captured before breeding. You really have to be careful or else you'll be clicking the same pet over and over again.

And related to my patriotic breeders, I am breeding for lots of different traits. All pets bred can trace their original origins back to both an original captured male and female. I am working on 4 different breeds and have only had one random gene pop up this whole time from two captured parents. Both the zolnixis were captured with carried talismans but had a baby with visible bandana. (I don't do that gene so I sold the baby and the male) Haven't had any other issues with bandana despite keeping the female.

On the other hand, I have had several genes pop up from bred babies who's's parents didn't show or carry certain traits, but when I checked the grandparents, they are the ones with the traits. It works for me since I am trying to get very large gene pools for pure bred pats, but if your working on a project, it may be easiest for you to generate the parents.