Help Breeding

So, you popped by, perhaps interested in the simultaneously randomized but controlled nature of breeding Them. But now there are all these weird letters... flflAlal, what the heck does that even mean? This guide is here to explain things! At the very end, we will even look at two demons, and what their offspring may look like due to their genes.

KEY

1. Alleles and Gene Types

2.  Hetero and Homo Genes, and How to Combine Them

3. How to Combine Them Part 2

4. Gene vs. Gene Expression

5. 1 Copy of Genes vs. 2 Copy of Genes

6. Secondary and Tertiary Colors 

7. Definition Review

8. Demon Breeding Example

Alleles and Gene Types

" Let's first start with a gene. fl is the gene for 'floppy ears.' This is called an 'allele,' or one part of a pair of alleles. So, flfl is a pair of alleles. Easy! You can even split it up, if it makes it easier to see; fl-fl. All creatures either have one or two alleles of each gene. But we have two parents, not one. That means when breeding for ear type, you're working with four alleles (excluding the gene for ear length. We'll get to that).

Before we get into breeding, here are a few more things you need to know.

There are four kinds of genes: dominant, recessive, co-dominance, and incomplete dominance. A dominant gene needs at least one capital letter to work (such as G for gray). A recessive gene needs two small letters to work (such as aa for black). Co-dominance means two genes share viability (such tt for roan). And with incomplete dominance, there are various outcomes depending on the combinations. Here are examples.

Straight ears are a dominant gene, so Stst and StSt make upward ears. stst makes the default ear. 

Floppy ears are a recessive gene, so only flfl makes droopy downward ears. Flfl and FlFl make the default ear.

These genes are also semi-incomplete dominant genes. Stfl will make upward ears... that are bunny-like, or partially floppy! But stfl and stFl still makes default ears. Incomplete dominance mixes (red + white = pink).

An example of co-dominance is how red + white mix to make pink. On the other side of the coin co-dominance shares, so red + white = red and white spots. "

Hetero and Homo Genes, and How to Combine Them

"Parent one has flfl, parent two has stfl. When alleles have two of the same gene, like fl-fl, it's called homozygous, or same-zygote. Some other homozygous genes are GG, WW, and hoho. And when it's with different alelles, like st-fl, it's called heterozygous, or different-zygote. Some other heterozygous genes are Gg, Ww and hoho^a.

Okay. Now how to we know what the child's ears will look like? Well, we must use something called a punnett square. You likely did these in school! A punnett square is just a little chart that matches the alleles up from each parent to find the probability of what the offspring will have. Each parent will only give away 1 allele. So parent one will either give fl or fl... parent two will either give st or fl. The chart makes this easier to see. 

We'll put parent one on top, and parent two on the left. Look at the top gene first, then the gene on the left, then combine them.This is called a monohybrid cross- a cross between two sets of alleles (four all together)."

So, our square tells us there is a 50/50 chance of the child being flfl, or stfl."

How to Combine Them Part 2

"Let's add a second gene. The gene for ear length is EL. ELEL = short, ELel= medium, elel = long. Parent one is flfl-elel, and parent two is stfl-ELel. How do we cross them together now? Well, you'd still use a punnett square, just bigger. But it's a little different. To find all the combinations, we must first split all the alleles up.

fl(1, 2) fl(3, 4) el(1, 3) el(2, 4) - st(1, 2) fl(3, 4) EL(1, 3) el(2, 4). 

There is an acronym: "FOIL." First, outer, inner, last. So, we combine the first allele, fl, with the third allele, el. Then the first with the fourth, again fl el. Then the second and third, fl el. Then the second and fourth, fl el. I have numbered the alleles to hopefully make it easier- so 1 goes with 1, 2 with 2, and so on. Parent one can only give flel. We do this again with parent two. It comes out as stEL stel flEL flel. They can give more. Now we have eight sets. All four of parent one goes on top, and all four of parent two to the left. 

This is called a dihybrid cross- a cross between two genes (eight alleles). In this case, the ear type and the ear length genes. Try to keep the format up when doing these. When we write the ear and length gene, ear type comes first, then length. We also write capital letters first, and st comes before fl. So, the first cross- flel / stEL, we put the st first, then fl, to make stfl. Then the capital EL, followed by the small el, for ELel. Together its stflELel. 

This dihybrid cross tells us there is a one in four chance of possibility: stflELel - default, medium ears, stflelel - default, long ears, flflELel - floppy medium ears, and flflelel - floppy long ears. So 50/50 chance of default or floppy, and 50/50 chance of medium or long. How do you know what wins? It's random. You can roll a real or virtual 4 sided die to decide, or flip a coin for each gene (coin flips are only for 50/50 chances). Whichever is best for you."

Genes vs. Gene Expression

"Let's say the die tell us the offspring is stflelel. The phrase "stflelel" is the genotype- the genetic code, written out. But the way it actually looks in the flesh is called the phenotype, and things can express differently, even if they have the same genotype. Here are some ways default long ears can express. "

"Babies will sometimes only come out as having 1 copy of a gene. This is because when two animals breed they receive 2 alleles, one from the mother, one from the father. But if mother has "aa," the gene for black, but father does not have any combination of the "a" gene, then the offspring will find itself only receiving 1 allele, from the mother. The father just doesn't have an "a" gene to give! This is how that would look below. There is a 100% chance that the children will all have a single "a" gene, and because the "a" gene is recessive this means mama could have a black coat but baby will never have a black coat.

If the offspring that only has a single "a" gene breeds with another animal that also has no "a" gene, the next babies will have higher probability as coming out with no "a" gene. Looking below, we now see the children only have a 50% chance of having a single "a" gene. This is how genes can be bred out of a lineage.

We learned what a recessive and dominant gene was at the very beginning of this page. Let's get a little more complicated with that, involving the information above about offspring with only 1 copy of a gene. So we know a rec gene needs two copes of a little letter to show, such as the case with flfl. And we know a dom gene only needs one copy of a big letter to show, such as with Stst. 

But what happens if these genes... only get one copy? Well, in ear genes, that's just not possible. But it works the same with any other dom/rec gene, mostly in patterns and color! So, let's use the gene "t", for ticking and roan. Quick lesson on the "t" gene: tt = roan, Tt or TT = ticking, i.e. spots. Easy! 

So we want spots but, uh-oh, an offspring is born with just one copy of "T." What happens? We still succeeded! Because dom genes only require a single capital letter, we only need ONE copy of a capital T to see spots! But now we want roan. Oops, this one came out with just a single "t." We failed. Because recessive genes require TWO copies of a little letter to work- that's why they're called "recessive." So as you can see, dom genes are much easier to achieve, but much harder to breed out of a family line."

Secondary and Tertiary Colors

"You may have already read about these in the genotype guide. The genotype guide covers the basics, but it's best to see some examples of how we mix and match colors! Using our punnett square skills, we can make this super easy!

So we know from the guide that secondary mixes with secondary and tertiary mixes with tertiary. This means R^sr^s can mix with b^sb^s, but R^sr^s couldn't mix with b^tb^t. We also know that only unnatural colors mix. So R^sr^s can mix with b^sb^s, but R^sr^s couldn't mix with a^sa^s. Shouldn't be too hard to follow.

But what happens if parent 1 has R^sr^s / B^sB^s, and parent 2 has only y^sy^s? That's getting more complicated. In this situation, y^sy^s will have to mix with either R^sr^s or B^sb^s. You must choose. You'll be left with a secondary color that has nothing to mix with, but that's fine, because we know that just means parent 1 passes on 1 allele from that gene. So your animal could end up with something like: R^sy^s / B^s.

Easy mode is when parent 1 has something like y^ty^t and parent 2 has something like B^tb^t. You just make one simple square to mix those two tertiaries. And if parent 1 has R^sR^s / Y^ty^t, but parent 2 has no secondary/tert colors, it just means the child gets 1 allele from red and 1 allele from yellow. Just the same as base coat colors! The only difference there is the little superscript letters.

Example of a punnett square with secondary colors."

Review

Allele - one gene, like fl or el

Pair of Alleles - a set like flfl

Dominant gene - a gene that needs a capital letter to work (Stst)

Recessive gene - a gene that needs two lower case letters to work (flfl)

Co-dominance - sharing space, like the pattern roan

Incomplete dominance - mixing, like Stfl being upward floppy ears

Homozygous - same-zygote (flfl)

Heterozygous - different-zygote (stfl)

Punnett square - a grid used to show offspring possibilities

Monohybrid cross - a punnett square with 2 genes (flfl / stfl)

Dibybrid cross - a punnett square with 4 genes (flflelel / stflElel)

Breeding Example

You have all the tools and words you need to breed your demons now, yay! Let's see an actual example to really tie it together, though. We're going to use my two characters: King and Beau. Both can only get other's pregnant, so in the actual canon, they couldn't have biological children. But they're perfect for this!

First step: look at their genes.

King: Body: flfl Elel BSbs Mm Fafa szsz sese HLHL SHSH Nn mlml Tftf Hoho Alal - Color: ee / w^tw^t / R^sR^s / aa - Modifiers: crcr - Patterns: GRGR Eded Awaw.

Beauregard: Body: flfl Elel bsbe MM Fafa Szsz sese HLHL shsh nn MLML TFTF Ho^bHo^b ALAL - Color: EE / Aa /  A^sa^s - Modifiers: crcr - Patterns: Tt spsp grgr

Great. That's a lot. Where to start? Wherever you'd like! I'll start with ears. Using what we learned on this page, we'll make a punnett square.

 FOIL: fl fl El el - fl fl EL el

flEL flel flEL flel / flEL flel flEL flel

100% chance of floppy ears (flfl - 16/16). 25% chance of short ears (ELEL - 4/16). 43% chance of medium ears (ELel - 7/16). 31% chance of long ears (elel -  5/16). 

Let's randomize a number 1-16: number the punnett square from top left to right, like so:

I got 10, So flfl Elel wins this session. Since Elel was just 7% short of 50%, it's not surprising. Our baby will have floppy medium ears, like both parents. Let's do all the colors now, just to see what we'll come out with.

King: ee / w^tw^t / R^sR^s / aa
Beau: EE / Aa /  A^sa^s

So on, so forth. 100% Ee, 50/50 Aa or aa, 100% one R^s, 100% one w^t, 50/50 one A^s or a^s. Whether baby has aa or Aa is a 50/50 shot. Flip a coin. I got heads, which I had chose to be aa. Animal's base coat is still brown though. Flip a coin for A^s or a^s. I got tails, so A^s. 

Baby will be: Ee / aa / R^s / A^s / w^t - reddish brown, with a red secondary that shows if with a pattern (since dom genes only need 1 capital letter to show). Secondary black and tertiary white won't show. Secondary black would have to have two small a's to show, same for tertiary white's w, since both are rec genes.

Looking at this, we can see that any and all of King/Beau's children will be reddish brown based. Literally every single one.

There are way too many genes to calculate here, so let's just move on over to a spread sheet. You can see all my work in the spread sheet here!

Based on the genetic result for baby 1, here are some random phenotypes I've come up with:

What happened is there are only two colors that show: Ee and R^s. So whatever happens, the baby is reddish brown with a red pattern. Rings need a secondary gene or tertiary to show, but gradient doesn't. Ticking, if it doesn't use a secondary or tertiary, is the base color. 

In the first phenotype, I decide R^s interacts with gradient, meaning no rings. So we have a brown base with red gradient and base color ticking.

In the second, R^s still interacts with gradient, but I don't show any ticking (because it's base colored, you can assume here that spots simply aren't on top of the gradient and are hidden within the base color).

In the third, R^s interacts with rings, showing off small rings and full body rings. Ticking is the base color, and dots over some rings. Gradient can still show, but because it has no secondary or tertiary color to use, it becomes the next most dominant color from the base, which is gray. 

And there are still plenty of other ways to make the phenotype (I didn't even show a version where ticking uses R^s), while using both gene rules, and artistic liberties! The three above are allll the same genotype... it just expresses differently. So, now that we've dissected an actual breeding pair, it's your turn... let's see what weird babies you come out with. Have fun!

✦✦ You can use one of the free bases HERE to paint your character references! ✦✦