Mottled Campbells Dwarf Hamsters

Mottled Normal

Mottled Blue Fawn

Mottled Normal, Argente, and Opal

Opal Mottled youngsters

Blue Mottled SIlvered

The mottled gene is a dominant gene.  Being dominant means that a hamster only needs one of these genes, and he will have the mottled pattern.  It also means that the gene cannot be carried.

There are two genes in the mottleds:  the regular gene and the ruby-eyed gene.  The ruby eyed gene can occur in hamsters with red eyes (like argentes) and in hamsters with black eyes (like opals).  The only easy way to see this gene is in the black-eyed hamsters.  If you shine a flashlight (torch) in their eyes, you can see the ruby glow.

You need to know if your mottleds have this dominant ruby-eyed gene or not.  If they have it (as mine do), you need to avoid breeding two ruby-eyed mottleds together.  The reason is that the 25% of the babies will receive two ruby-eyed genes (one from each parent).  These babies will be toothless/eyeless whites.  Most die at about two weeks of age since they cannot make the switch from milk to solid food due to their lack of teeth.  This can be avoided by only breeding ruby-eyed mottleds to unpatterned or to platinum dwarves. 

Below is a picture of two eyeless/toothless whites the day before they died.  Even the rare one who does survive multiple months will stay this same runty size.  These five are all littermates.