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Care Pages » Breeding Black-Eyed White »

Black Eyed White gerbils are bee-yoo-tiful! One of my personal favs! The AGS Show standard says the following about BEW: "The coat shall be pure white down to the roots, evenly colored throughout, with no shading or markings." Nails must be neutral (clear) and the ears "as light as possible and covered in white fur". Faults include color in the tail, incorrect nail color, and flaws to the coat color such as a color cast, ticking etc. Breeding for a show-quality BEW with optimal color is one of my pet projects. :) A lot of BEW varieties will have a cast to the coat as the gerbil matures or a very faint ticking, i.e. like a "frosting" of another color, so tweaking the coat color to "just right" is a fun, interesting project.

BEW Varieties

Lots of gene combinations will produce a basically BEW gerbil, some less perfect colorwise than others... :) But you can bring in a lot of factors to tweak color. Below are examples of BEW gerbils and the genotype behind.

CP DEH - A c(chm)c(chm) ee Uw P
LCP DEH - A c(chm)c(h) ee Uw P
» Colorpoint DEHs will sometimes get a slight color cast to coat and off-colored tail; anything LCP is going to have cleaner white. :) Both CP/LCP DEHs have colored (dark) nails though...not clear like standard calls for. CPPF (below) = clear nails...

CP Polar Fox - A c(chm)c(chm) ee uw(d)uw(d) P
LCP Polar Fox - A c(chm)c(h) ee uw(d)uw(d) P

Spotted CP or LCP DEH - A c(chm)c(chm)/c(h) ee Uw P Sp+
Spotted Polar Fox "eef" - A C eef uw(d)uw(d) P Sp+
» Spotted gerbils have clear nails and spotting will always wash a white coat whiter... i.e. I had a spotted Cch eef PF who was nice BEW when young, though he got faint frosting of ticks and minor color to tail when mature adult :)

LCP Nutmeg "eef" - aa c(chm)c(h) eef Uw P
LCP Silver Nutmeg "eef" - aa c(chm)c(h) eef uw(d)uw(d) P
» LCP NM or SNM with one "ef" is technically a silver point but very beautiful...and they are BEW as pups. In my experience the LCP "eef" NM will have pigment in nails (which is not correct for show in AGS i.e. as a silver point), soft silvery tail and pretty, silver nose. LCP "eef" SNM looks like a BEW into young adulthood, but does silver over on points, though less than LCPNM, and has very light nails as one would expect on a "uw(d)uw(d)" (which is "gg")

Silver Schimmel - ** C efef uw(d)uw(d) P
CP Schimmel - ** c(chm)c(chm) efef Uw P
LCP Schimmel - ** c(chm)c(h) efef Uw P
» My personal "fav" is to put schimmel ef in the mix. :D I've found CP schimmels to be GORGEOUS clean colored babies and the body-color seems to stay very "milky-white"...just beautiful. Tail can get a slight cast.

Below is where I am with this project...

~ GL's Ocean Waves, CP Schimmel, aa c(chm)c(chm) efef GG P (possibly LCP...c(chm)c(h) ~

Have fun breeding black-eyed whites! :)