The Development of a Polar Fox
Mary-Eben is the daughter of Adair (black - aaPpCCEeGg) and Danziger (agouti - AaPpCCEeGg). She was born September 21st, 1998 in their first litter. Eventually, I realized she was a polar fox, but not until she was several weeks old. To help out others with pairs similar to Adair & Danziger (that will have polar fox) I've made a kind of growth chart of what they look like.
The first thing I noticed about Mary, when she was about 2 days old, was that she was pink with dark eyes. DEH, nutmeg, polar fox, and silver fox (as well as schimmel and champagne, which aren't possible for this pair) all start out that way. By 6 or so days old she still didn't have her dark points. But then they came in after that. Usually they come in by day 4. However, her regular nutmeg brother did this too so I don't think it's unique to polar fox. Here are pictures of what she looked like as time went on.
At 8 days she looked like she was going to develop into a pure white baby. She looked just like my champagnes, minus the orange blotches. This is when I began to suspect that something was up, so to speak.
Age 10 days (on the left):
When she was 10 days old I took this picture, comparing her to her nutmeg brother. I already knew he was nutmeg, because I've seen DEH babies at Lisa Harrells and knew he wasn't quite orange enough and he just didn't look DEH-ish. As you can see, she is not as orangey as he is, and he wasn't very golden for a nutmeg (I'm assuming it's because he is probably Gg).
Age 11 days:
She still looks white.
Age 13 days:
Still looks white with a touch of offwhite along the top.
Age 16 days:
At this point, I thought she was going to turn into a DEH. She was looking yellower by the day. As she grew up her color fluctuated between white and offwhite. She never got totally orangey-yellow like a DEH, though.
Age 30 days:
Now she looked to be totally white with an offwhite back. Not dark enough at all to be DEH.
Adult (2.5-3mos)
By the time she was nearly 3 mos old Mary was a very pretty girl. Her coat is white at the base, then the middle of the hair is light light cream, and the tip of each hair is grey, making her look ticked.
Here is a good picture of the ticking.
This is Mary and her mate Elan. (see below for a link to their page). Their first litter was born 1/23/99, and included 2 grey agoutis, a yellow fox, and a silver nutmeg or nutmeg. That makes Mary AaPpC*eegg, and her agouti mate is AaPpC*EeGg. Also on 1/16/99 her mother had her 2nd litter which included ANOTHER polar fox (or maybe she's silver nutmeg) named Minerva who I'm also keeping.
Age 4 1/2 months:
Mary-Eben & Elan's Page
 |  |  |