Got an email last night from Leslie Freeland. If you breed creams, then check out her fantastic site. She has articles on creams, buffs and saffrons, genetics, comprehensive cream breeder lists, advice from top cream breeders on what to select for, and tons of photos. Millions of photos. If you like looking at pigs, then check her out. Leslie breeds lovely American creams. Someday I hope to have some of my own in that delicate color. I do have a couple of American creams myself, but I'm selling out of them. If I'm going to have enough room for the cream Abbies and Teddies, I need the space.
I am really proud to be included on Leslie's lists, and especially proud that my baby cream abby is there and is, apparently, the first cream abyssinian she's seen. The one on the left is the buff sow. The one on the right is the cream boar.
These little guys are part of a work in progress. But I'm still proud of them.
Because there isn't anyone eles around here, or apparently anywhere, working with this great color in abyssinians, I've had to sort of start from scratch. Fortunately my first raw material initially were abyssinians: a chocolate, buff and white sow; a buff, agouti, and white sow; and a DEW boar. Unfortunately they were all essentially pet quality. I also had for a short time a PEW boar. From these initial breedings, I got a pair of broken cream and white sows, and a lot of other stuff that when right to the pet store. These two sows were close to having all the rosettes and ridges in about the right places. So it was time to start working with a pedigreed boar. The closest I had is my spectacular red roan satin Abyssinian that Claire and Rich Bragonje where kind enough to sell me last year. I bred the older of the two sows to him several times and finally got a fairly good self boar. I knew he had to carry either the "cd" gene or the "cr" gene. Turns out he carries "cd". I bred him to the younger of the two sows this spring and got these two.
Now I have a breeding pen with six red abyssinian sows in various stages of pregnancy. They all carry either the "cd" or "cr" gene. And they are all satin carriers. A very small percentage of the babies will be creams, I hope. And I'll just keep going, breeding back and forth to get the color I want, but also the rosettes and ridges that make a great abby. Check back in a year or two and see how I'm doing. What I would love to find is a great white aby boar. No luck so far.
I also wanted to share a picture of my latest cream teddy litter. These are all boys. The one on the left is a standard teddy cream. The middle one is a satin cream. The one on the right is a pink eyed buff, also known in some countries as a saffron.
–Did I get that right, Leslie? ;-)–
The satin will stay here. The cream boar and the buff will be for sale. If you want to breed creams and have a good white sow, then get this guy. Excellent teddies in PEW and DEW are readily available. He'll breed nothing but creams. A cream boar bred to a white sow will give you half creams and half whites. A cream boar bred to a cream sow will give you 25% buffs, 50% creams and 25% whites. Over time. My last cream to cream breeding with my americans yielded a pair of large, healthy, and hungry PEW boars. By the time they weaned, they were already too big for the pet store. I just don't have room for a lot of white boars. Anyway, my point is that if you want to build up the number of creams you have to work with, then start with a buff and a white. The buff won't be showable, but all his babies will be.
