JimGERcream
German efficiency
In 2008, a german breeder noticed some odd looking „butter stripeds“ from a caramel striped line he bought from the german breeder Thomas Schauß. He called these odd butter stripeds „Auratum“. These weirdos popped out in another german breeders place. Sabine Bergmann, who got her Caramel Striped pair also from Thomas Schauß in 2006, noticed some odd butters and butter stripeds, when she paired this „Caramel Striped“ to Caramel Bloodred and Butter Striped.
Here are pics,
one of Auratum Striped (= Amel Toffee Striped)
and one of Toffee Striped, sadly just a juvenile one
This is offspring from Toffee Striped het Amel x Caramelbloodred het Amel:
father: http://s1.directupload.net/images/110625/fvjgskuw.jpg
mother: http://s7.directupload.net/images/110625/ppew2cld.jpg
1.0 Toffee het Amel Anery Caramel Bloodred Striped, proven NOT hom. Caramel!
1.0 Auratum het Anery Caramel Bloodred Striped
Since then, these weird darker coloured butters were called „Auratum“, because the breeders wanted to make sure, that others don’t think these are regular butters. In the past 3 years, a lot of breeders crossed their "Auratums" into other lines, some of them used lines without caramel. But when clutches hatch, there were again „caramels“ in the clutches! There were other breedings, for example „Caramel“ het amel blood striped x Butter Snow Motley, which produced normal looking animals instead of 100% caramels. Toffee x Toffee parings produced partly normals, beside those caramel lookalikes. Some breeders had the idea, there has to be some kind of dominant trait in this lineage, which produces a nice chocolate brown phenotype. Most of the Auratums were bred to Caramels in the past, so this fact wasn’t clearly evident.
This year the german breeder Thorsten Grassner bred an Toffee het Anery Caramel Amel Blood Striped“ to a Jasper County locality female without any hets. He got 9 Toffees and 11 Normals.
comparison of Toffee and Normal from Toffee x Normal (Jasper Co. locality) breeding
The breeders Marcel Woyack, Benjamin Blum and Sabine Bergmann had the same experience: There are strange caramel lookalikes in EVERY pairing with Auratum line „Caramels“, no matter if the counterpart had caramel in it or not. So it became more and more clear, that these odd „Butter“ Stripeds were in fact the amelanistic version of this suspected, now isolated dominant trait.
All german breeders with „Auratum“ experience decided together to call the trait „Toffee“. We already chose the name „Toffee“ for our lineage because we have an established name for the amel version here in germany for years and don‘t want to speak of „auratum without amel“ when we talk about that gene.
There’s a possibility, this gene already exists for 10 years in the netherlands. The dutch breeder Jan Notté discovered a dominant trait, called „Buf“, which showes similarites to our german „Toffees“. Such as both are dominant, both are VERY similar as hatchlings, some of the adults look pretty similar, but there are also other Bufs, which look pretty different. These two genes might be one and the same, but this is unproven until now. Testbreedings are necessary. Until it's proven, we split both lineages in the dutch "Buf" lineage and the german "Toffee" lineage.
Here are pics,
one of Auratum Striped (= Amel Toffee Striped)
and one of Toffee Striped, sadly just a juvenile one
This is offspring from Toffee Striped het Amel x Caramelbloodred het Amel:
father: http://s1.directupload.net/images/110625/fvjgskuw.jpg
mother: http://s7.directupload.net/images/110625/ppew2cld.jpg
1.0 Toffee het Amel Anery Caramel Bloodred Striped, proven NOT hom. Caramel!
1.0 Auratum het Anery Caramel Bloodred Striped
Since then, these weird darker coloured butters were called „Auratum“, because the breeders wanted to make sure, that others don’t think these are regular butters. In the past 3 years, a lot of breeders crossed their "Auratums" into other lines, some of them used lines without caramel. But when clutches hatch, there were again „caramels“ in the clutches! There were other breedings, for example „Caramel“ het amel blood striped x Butter Snow Motley, which produced normal looking animals instead of 100% caramels. Toffee x Toffee parings produced partly normals, beside those caramel lookalikes. Some breeders had the idea, there has to be some kind of dominant trait in this lineage, which produces a nice chocolate brown phenotype. Most of the Auratums were bred to Caramels in the past, so this fact wasn’t clearly evident.
This year the german breeder Thorsten Grassner bred an Toffee het Anery Caramel Amel Blood Striped“ to a Jasper County locality female without any hets. He got 9 Toffees and 11 Normals.
comparison of Toffee and Normal from Toffee x Normal (Jasper Co. locality) breeding
The breeders Marcel Woyack, Benjamin Blum and Sabine Bergmann had the same experience: There are strange caramel lookalikes in EVERY pairing with Auratum line „Caramels“, no matter if the counterpart had caramel in it or not. So it became more and more clear, that these odd „Butter“ Stripeds were in fact the amelanistic version of this suspected, now isolated dominant trait.
All german breeders with „Auratum“ experience decided together to call the trait „Toffee“. We already chose the name „Toffee“ for our lineage because we have an established name for the amel version here in germany for years and don‘t want to speak of „auratum without amel“ when we talk about that gene.
There’s a possibility, this gene already exists for 10 years in the netherlands. The dutch breeder Jan Notté discovered a dominant trait, called „Buf“, which showes similarites to our german „Toffees“. Such as both are dominant, both are VERY similar as hatchlings, some of the adults look pretty similar, but there are also other Bufs, which look pretty different. These two genes might be one and the same, but this is unproven until now. Testbreedings are necessary. Until it's proven, we split both lineages in the dutch "Buf" lineage and the german "Toffee" lineage.
