Little Hamsters

Today I removed the young hamsters from the main colony. My particular colony consists of 2 adult females and 1 adult male. The females are a black and a silvered black, the male is a blue fawn. The first litters were just normals, nothing fancy. However with the next set of litters I got a litter of blue fawns from the black female and a litter with an opal and 2 normals from the silvered female. I chose the best of the blue fawn female babies... nice calm demeanor, clear color, robust size... to keep to replace one of the older girls in the colony. I really would have liked to keep the one opal baby except for 2 problems, first it's a male, and second it's a runt that is slightly off in overall type. So no replacing daddy for him. I'll hold out and see if there are any better opals in subsequent litters. At least I know the dilute genes are there!