albino cub challenge

Every December, there’s an albino cub challenge, in which you get a bunch of apps and decor if you breed three albino cubs. Each breeding has a tiny chance of throwing an albino; you can raise the odds by base matching. My micropack won’t get this naturally, so it’s project time.

Fortunately, my lead is black light solid special. There are five (5) black light solid common bases: albino, birch, eggshell, isabel, and white. I bought 14 black light solid common fodder cubs (some way too far in advance, because I mistakenly thought the start date was December 1 instead of December 13). We also have an albino perma (dawn of the final day, lead hunter of the Empire of Steel), so that makes 15 attempts in total…napkin math says the odds are in our favor.

* end level & stats are measured as of December 23 (when all project moms have given birth), or when they left the pride, whichever is first

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= Breeding Records =

Base outcomes from our 15 project dogs: (19 cubs total)

• t2: aspen, willow
• t1: albino (2), birch (3), eggshell (2), isabel (6), white (4)

I also bred 3 permas and 85 NCLs. Since NCLs don’t come in black light solid, all of them are in adjacent base groups. The permas are more varied, but all black. Base outcomes: (129 cubs total)

• t*: glass
• t2 (BO): ashen (2), chartreux, noctis, snowpard (2), sulphur, sunkissed
• t2: aspen (2), clear white, buttermilk (2), sunshine (2), willow
• t1: albino, birch (18), eggshell (14), isabel (14), white (8), beige (4), apricot, bisque (2), cedar, cream lighter (2), cremello, dark brown, dove gray (3), dusty (8), fallow (2), light golden (3), lemon, light cream (3), light golden (2), linen (5), liver, rosy brown (4), silver gray (3), wild rose (2), zer (4), zivar (5)

The NCLs don’t get a chart, but here’s an obnoxiously large cenotaph: (85)

actually a mimic, airplane mode, all your base, aurelion sol, between heaven and hell, boing!!, broken in the light, bubble bobble, can you tell me where I am, cat’s cradle, corn casserole, cornbread muffin, count von count, death yak, duke cedric vii of lancaster, dusty “mad dog” mccoy, deckled edge, dystopia, entropic howl, exodia the forbidden one, exthanemesis, ezio auditore da firenze, faelor, fiesta blend shredded 32 oz, first blood for cosmic wonders, for narmer, goldeneye 007, ice-cold lemonade, ikken hissatsu, immanuel kant, jabberwocky, john cena, john d rockefeller, kaziklu beyblade, king midas, kolumbao, lobotomy corporation, loose lemons, ludwig wittgenstein, mac and bees, marbury v madison, mash! potato! mash mash potato, memories of tomorrow, muffin party, New Befriended Wolf, night of the nocturne, numinosity, nyaaaa-chan, odin the allfather, ok bloober, ombrophobous octopus, on information and belief, pancake, pantaloons of healing, paradox space, pidgin, pikachu, radagon of the golden order, ranker krishna, red bull baron power play, red dead redemption, rev it up up up, rogue (1980), robert oot, sacred soil, scarborough fair, shadow marshal luger, shroud of silent mist, snap crackle pop, spicy soup for you, taquito, the death of literacy, the incredible edible egg, the outlaw of dry gulch, they hit us in the food, tomestones of poetics, tyrone, waaambulance, what's under the tarp, worlds collide, wyatt “six-gun” blackwood, you must build a boat, zergal of zendorian, zeromus, zone of the enders

By day 8 of the challenge, I only had 1 albino (and, notably, no albinos from 22 NCL nests) and was getting nervous. I added a few more in-group breedings: 2 self-caught albino chaseds, 2 bought at premium prices. Base outcomes: (8 cubs total)

• t1: birch, eggshell, isabel (3), white (3)

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= Results =

From 107 nests, we got 156 cubs, of which 80 were black light solid common (BLSC), and 3 were albino. That’s a rate of 1.46 cubs per litter. Summary of the mothers’ bases: 7 albinos, 12 non-albino BLSCs, 85 in base groups directly adjacent to BLSC, and 3 with miscellaneous black genetics.

Looking at the 80 BLSC cubs, if we assume there is an equal chance of getting any base within that group, the chance of getting 3 or fewer albinos is less than 0.01%. did they changed it??? my egg. (In all seriousness, the evidence points strongly towards base probabilities not being equal within that group.)

Conclusion: Next year, I should prep a lot more moms, and I may want to specifically go for albinos. (In Wolvden, I believe there was experimental data suggesting the specific bases of the parents may get a probability boost, e.g., realgar x sarder has a higher chance of getting a realgar than a pyrope. Here, seven of our project dogs were albino, and one of them had an albino cub, which is far from conclusive but is consistent with the base boost hypothesis.) Having a freezer will help. Cheap albino fodder cubs vanished from TC in early November, so we should stock up in October. 

Big shoutout to our albino moms: (1) cryptbloom (project dog, albino), (2) one night in tokyo (project dog, isabel), and (3) airplane mode (NCL, zivar). Also shoutout to worlds collide (NCL), who had a glass cub—the only time traffic scone has passed his base! (Now what am I supposed to do with this cub…?)