Has anyone figured out a pattern to how they are distributed? I've decided it is completely random and luck of the draw between the parents!

I have one unicorn that has no stripes at all in her gene pool. The fathers I have used only had stripes only once (recessive on one dominant on the other). Yet 2 out of 3 babies she has had were zebras! She got the very rare stripes which showed up once out of 4 genes (over normal and piebald - very common both). She is even a white piebald (normal) herself!

The other strange breeding was a black piebald (black dominant with buckskin recessive) bred with a double buckskin. I assumed it wouled be a buckskin since the black is very rare as opposed to the common buckskin which showed up 3 out of the 4 genes. No, I got a black unicorn baby! Huh???

Don't get me wrong I am not in the LEAST complaining I have however given up trying to predict the genetic outcome.

Anyone else had some crazy unexpected results from their pairs? :)

Well, the thing is, it APPEARS that this game doesn't actually use a scientifically accurate method of producing gene pairs (punet squares). For the sake of producing more results that are also more randomized, it appears that children can take 2 genes from the same parent for 1 gene pairing, which in real life it'd take 1 gene from each parent.

I actually think this is better because this gives the posibility of getting amazing gene combinations in just a couple generations whereas in a real life scenario, it would take much longer to produce pure genes.

from Angel's explanation, the babies get half of genes from father and half from mother (all that talk about left and right columns, remember?). 

Black is dominant over Buckskin (hence why it was a black baby), when breeding you need to look at gene power as well, so that you know which one is going to show up if its included in the pair of genes. Piebald is a pattern, so I assume that both parents had a pattern other than piebald in their gene pool.

and due to that logic, no, babies can not get 2 genes of the same kind from same parent.

they certainly shouldn't take both genes from a parent! Could you point out such a case, Irrimn?

Each of the babies inherits one gene from each parent, and the one that is dominant is based on each gene's Gene Power. You can see each gene's power in the List of Genes in the Help tab.

For example, here's a pair of pets and their babies that they have. I bred this pair quite a few times due to how well their genes matched up.

Parents: http://beastkeeper.com/pet/1360 and http://beastkeeper.com/pet/9511

Their babies: http://beastkeeper.com/pet/16105, http://beastkeeper.com/pet/17285, http://beastkeeper.com/pet/18356, and http://beastkeeper.com/pet/20231

The reason why I bred this pair is because they both have Acute Eyesight and Second Breath.

from Angel's explanation, the babies get half of genes from father and half from mother (all that talk about left and right columns, remember?). 

Black is dominant over Buckskin (hence why it was a black baby), when breeding you need to look at gene power as well, so that you know which one is going to show up if its included in the pair of genes. Piebald is a pattern, so I assume that both parents had a pattern other than piebald in their gene pool.

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So in the genetics libraries where it indicates genetic power, *that's* the deciding factor in the dominance? I thought it was just a scoring tool used for the leaderboards and the dominance was just an RNG coin-flip to see if it was the left or right column which attained the dominant gene. With the frequency percentage measuring the rate of occurence in wild-caught specimens to give a gauge of rarity.

I had just bred my striped blue cockatrice who was carrying a dilute and green with a full dilute, blue dilute stud who was carrying orange - the child is indeed a blue dilute. I've yet to fully uncover the genetics of the little guy, but if what you're saying is true then it would be safe to assume that the child didn't inherit the striped gene (which has a higher GP) of its mother?

Your theory at least makes sense with the blue coat, which if the punet square is still applicable only has a what? A 25% chance of being dominant-recessive blue? There's still a 50% chance this child is still a carrier for another color. This makes it increasingly unlikely that blue would win the coin toss to be the dominant trait unless it would present dominant because of its GP advantage over green and orange.

This would essentially mean that rarer coat colors like white, black and silver would *have* to be dominant-recessive to present as a phenotype.

What doesn't make sense though is that the frequency percentages don't add up with it. If blue is dominant over green, why are 66% of cockatrices green versus only 16% are blue? Heck, I've seen a lot more white cockatrice (5%) than orange (20%) - at least on the market.

Yes, it is impossible that the child has a recessive striped gene, seeing as Striped has the highest gene power of all the marking genes.

The gene power for cockatrice colors is White>Blue>Green>Orange>Black>Silver.

Meaning if a trice has the white gene at all, it will be white, whereas a cockatrice that is silver colored must have silver as both of the color genes (This makes me sorta sad since the silvers are my favorites, especially the spotted one, which is the rarest of them all).

The percentage has nothing to do with if it is dominant or recessive. They are for determining the genes of randomly generated pets, like wild caught ones.

yes, power of the gene determines if the gene in pair is dominant or not. But genes have equal chance of being inherited, regardless of being dominant or recessive

and yeah weaker genes have to be in both strings to be dominant.

duh, lili and lia beat me to it XD. But yeah, its difficult to get weaker gene power genes to be dominant because they have to be present in both columns - 1 from mother and one from father.