Affiliated to the National Hamster Council
		Home   Email

Red Eyed Cream (eepp)

This is a striking colour produced by the interaction of the Cinnamon gene, (p), and the Black Eyed Cream gene, (e). The coat is a rich, warm, glowing peach colour, and the eyes are a dark red, almost garnet; a beautiful contrast. Both of the "constituent" genes are recessive, and so the animal needs to inherit a copy of each gene from each parent. Red eyed young often crop up in litters bred from Black Eyed Cream parents, if the latter carry Cinnamon, (which a substantial minority do).

When breeding Red Eyed Cream, if a suitable Red Eyed mate is unavailable, the animal can be mated to a Black Eyed Cream to produce a litter of black eyed Cream young which all carry Cinnamon. Mating one of these to it's Red Eyed parent should produce a litter of roughly equal numbers of Red Eyed and Black Eyed Cream. Alternatively, breeding a young female to her brother would be expected to produce a litter of approximately three times as many Black Eyed as Red Eyed babies.

Red Eyed Creams can be mated to Cinnamons, and in this case will produce all Cinnamon pups, since both parents are pure breeding for Cinnamon. However, for showing purposes, the resulting Cinnamons are generally poor, and mating to Black Eyed Cream is more advisable. Red Eyed Creams mated to Mink individuals may produce a mixture of Mink and Red Eyed Cream in the litter. In addition, this colour is an excellent match for breeding to Copper, since Red Eyed Cream is pure breeding for two out of the four genes which make up the extremely rare Copper colour.

NHC Standard