# Advice for Future Breeder!



## SablePanther (Oct 14, 2011)

Hoping to breed one day. Will be moving house (currently have housemates) in the next year or so and once I'm set up I plan to start getting everything together for breeding.

I have a lot of mouse (and rodent in general) experience, and I've rescued and fostered a lot of pregnant mice (and a hamster) so am very used to both caring for and raising mice. Though I still spend the first few days terrified every baby squeak is her pulling their legs off, hahah.

A couple of years ago I started getting interested in the genetics of breeding. I've always been very interested in dogs and dog genetics (though I don't plan to breed them) and the interest naturally continued on to mice when I started looking at them. I'd love the first hand experience of it all, and I'm hoping to start a variety from scratch (for example breeding a blue to a black tan and then back to another blue to create a blue tan line) rather than starting with them already from other breeders. That way I can really learn how the varieties are created.

I'm very into dark, vibrant colours in mice. Not sure what I plan to work with yet but my favourites are - siamese (seal point), black tan, chocolate tan, blue tan and black fox. I love having the markings to work with too - though I like selfs I think I'd be more interested in breeding the markings.

So I have a couple of questions! One is - any advice to help me pick a variety to breed? I'd rather not work with lethal yellows as a beginner if I can help it because I don't feel confident enough to be able to avoid health issues as a beginner breeder.

My other question is - what's the best advice you can give to someone starting out? Either about set-up or about breeding in general over time? What are some pitfalls I can avoid or some tips that may help me?

Thanks guys, and hopefully one day I can start sharing litters with you!


----------



## Frizzle (Oct 6, 2011)

If you're breeding for show, I'm not the one to talk to, but personally I've found tans to be really fun & rewarding. Since tan is a dominant gene, you don't have to worry about if a mouse carries it or not, you just flip the mouse over & take a gander. It does come with some difficulties, like throat patches on the darker varieties, tan intensity (while maintaining the top color, if it's for show), as well as paying attention to how high up the demarcation line goes. If you liked playing with marked on tan, it does make for a nice faux tri.

I'm surprised I didn't see true tri's on your list! Coming in lots of different colors, they are a marked variety that can also look very bold. Maybe not the easiest to get started in though.


----------



## PPVallhunds (Jul 26, 2010)

Pic a variety you like, you will be looking at lots of mice of the same colour so make sure you actually like it lol.
If you just going to bred for colour and want to start from scratch have a look at your list and see which ones you need to make them and if you can get them or not as some colours are less common than others. But as above if you would like to one day show your line your better off having two lines, one your colour breeding project and a separate show as it takes years and years to breed pet quality mice up to show quality mice and what a lot of people forget is yes you can breed diffrent colours together to get the right colour you need but show breeders have been breeding to get the right shade of colour. Each colour will have various shades and it takes a lot to get a line in the right shade. My Siamese line is from my pets originally and is two years on and still not good enough to show yet.

The biggest downside to breeding is culling. If your breeding to work on a colour or show you will get a lot of mice that don't meet the grade and with mice generally not popular pets you need some way to reduce numbers or be faced with being over populated and then unable to breed.

I find the hardest part with just breeding is picking out the tiny little things that makes one mouse better then another so with foxes picking which young buck is the best out of a few, who has the better trickling, who has the best belly, the best top, the best feet, demarcation line, ears, eyes ect. It often comes down to realy small fine points.

One tip is allways have more boxes than you think you need, I've ran out after a spate of box chewing.all my spare have been used and chewed so making more.


----------



## SablePanther (Oct 14, 2011)

Thanks guys!

Yes - the culling will be hard, have had to euth before and cry every time but I at least know I can do it. Thinking of befriending a snake owner so they don't go to waste, at least.


----------



## PPVallhunds (Jul 26, 2010)

All my culls go as frozen snake food. Makes me fell better knowing the mice had a good life and a quick end and will provide a snake with a good meal. Especially when I compare my mice to the ones work get in bulk those mice are tiny and thin (the latest one's are even dirty) so they can't be getting the best care, and the more of my mice a snake eats that's one less of the small skinny dirty mice they get.

My adults are keeping a boa going at the moment, it's ment to be on rats but since moving ages ago it's refused to eat, it's been separated and by chance one of my big mice were left over after feeding the smaller snakes so I offered them to it and it loves them. It must just have good taste :lol:


----------



## Cait (Oct 3, 2008)

From the varieties you've listed, black and chocolate tans would be suitable for a beginner (to showing) in my opinion. Siamese are a bit more difficult, and they suffer more than other varieties from molt, meaning an otherwise perfect mouse can be spoilt for showing. Blue tan is difficult in that its genetically predisposed to have a paler tan, whereas the tan on a black or choc can be really deep and rich more easily.


----------

