Hedgehog Colouring

     I hope this helps people understand a little about how colouring comes through in hedgehog breeding.  I am a rainbow breeder; this means that I don't select breeders intending them to produce a specific colour or pattern in their hoglets. I choose breeders with a varied background, colouring in a hedgehogs lineage as far back as 8 generations can come through in a hedgehog's babies.
     My first breeder male, Ivan, is albino; his mother was a beige snowflake, and his father a chocolate snowflake. Neither had red eyes or any albino indications, so yes some of Ivan's babies will turn out albino, but this doesn't mean they all will. If I was a colour breeder, I would have chosen an albino male whose lineage was albino several generations back. Personally I love albinos and they make wonderful pets, but I do know some people prefer darker colouring and also darker coloured eyes. Also another important factor to consider is some colours are more dominant than others.  Colouring such as Albino is a recessive traits, it involves breeding for this colour for several generations and possibily a small amount of safe inbreeding to produce recessive traits such as albino.  Other colourings such as dark standard browns and greys are a dominant trait.  If a hedgehog has dark standard in it's lineage, this gives it a high likelyhood of producing young that are dark standards, even if the parents aren't themselves dark standards.  I hope this has educated people a little bit about types of breeders out there, as well as hedgehog genetics.