I agree that if you are going to go for 100% from a reliable source (of course), then you don't need to worry about signs.



I’ve heard there is question that someone may have been picking out captive hatched with this pied sign and selling them as hets. Of course that is unacceptable. However, I wouldn’t be surprised if some of them where actually hets as several wild piebalds have been collected so the gene might well be fairly widely distributed. If distribution where completely random, then 1 in 200 het rate would result in 1 in 160,000 homozygous (perhaps one a year from Africa). However, it would also result in 750 hets a year from Africa if they export 150,000. I guess it comes down to how common is it for non-hets to show this marker as to what your chances are of a ch with it being a true het.



Back to captive bred possible hets, I think possible hets are the place to start if money is tight, not something to wait to move onto later. Of course they may not be a good investment in time if that is a more important consideration than money.



What have you heard about the caramel eyes? I remember Skip Nelson posted pics of some babies and it took a while for me to figure out what he was talking about and then I posted a question but didn't really hear any more. Have you heard of this from other sources? If I remember right, Mr. Nelson's where double hets and it would be nice to have more evidence anyway.



It's not out of the realm of possibility. Het for Anophthalmic White Syrian hamsters can be identified by looking for a little ruby color when shinning a bright light into their eyes.



Also, is there a correlation between black back and Jolliff and/or VPI axanthic? I’ve heard that there might be and seem to see a lot of blackback VPI hets but maybe it’s just other genes in the line. But then there are Corey Wood’s line where it looks like all the hets are black back. Maybe the pattern and the color are connected some way.

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