# the long haired thread



## SarahC

I have a few longhaired mice.Started with just petshop quality bucks and hope to improve on that.No does so I've just used short haired ones going spare.This is the first round,still pet shop quality and I'm undecided on colour but I'm going to do occasional posts marking their progress.Feel free to add your own pics,pet quality or otherwise,although I shall be sick with envy at the angoras that are not available here.


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## jadeguppy

I love the look of angora on white. Very nice mice! Here are a few of my petstore angoras and longhairs.


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## SarahC

I like orange mice,so yours hold more appeal to me and the fur looks a decent length.Usually it's difficult to make direct comparisons between the lines of mice I have and others that are not involved in UK showing. This will be a level playing field and it will be nice to trade pictures and just enjoy the mice in a non competetive way  .At the moment I have them in cream,blue,white and himalayan.I think black might be nice but I don't have any and I think using a colour that I already have would be beneficial.I have reds and fawns so will probably opt for those.I'm going to expand the numbers first and then alter the colour.


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## jadeguppy

I"m partial to the fawns as well. Sounds like you have some fun breeding ahead of you.


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## tinyhartmouseries

Here is Gilbert my especially long, dense coated boy, bred of two hets. He's lilac tan but the tan lightened too much...
baby pics-
















older Gilbert!


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## jadeguppy

Beautiful! He reminds me of my little angora dove.


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## SarahC

Gilbert has amazing tresses :mrgreen:


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## tinyhartmouseries

Aww, thank you guys...he turned into a bit of a hormonal grump but we are working on it.


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## maisymouse

I have this girlie, its hard to see her long hairs, she's pregnant at the moment so Im hoping more long haired on the way, I have a pew doe aswell like the top picture and a black buck, I will upload pictures of them aswell today


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## SarahC

It's several months on and after a recent discussion with squishy at a show I thought I'd update.Having bred quite a few litters of long haired I became quite disillusioned.The mice generally were small,poor eye and ear and just not good specimans.I had decided to give up but no sooner than the decision was made than a nice buck popped out,a reasonable all round good sort.That one mouse made me reconsider.No good having long hair on an inferior animal and in particular I don't like the terrible unders that long haired adults have.I think those shocking unders are the result of not selecting for this trait assuming that the fur will hide all.Why put up with it on long hairs?So I've sacrificed the hair length to create a good foundation stock and I am finally happy with them.They are not large but bigger than dutch,decent colour/ear/eye and good unders,slightly cobby.I look at them and think that if I can get the fur back on this frame then there could be some show potential.
Cream buck,all the mice are the same 'stamp' and cream or white
















I've also got a very nice pew doe who retained good fur as an adult.This mouse failed to conceive with numerous bucks and I'd given up,now when she's getting on a bit she's suddenly produced a litter of 2 and she's doing a good job of rearing them,hopefully they will provide the future long coats.


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## squishy

Looking Sarah  its so frustrating I thought about giving up when a chocolate popped out he had such a long coat and he had a lovely silky fur, sadly he died a couple of months ago  i`m going to carry on working with them, I do find them to be great mums and seem to be hardy little mice  My aim is to win BIS with one :lol: well I can dream xxx


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## m137b

The longhaired varieties are hard, much harder than my others. That cobby body type is the hardest thing to breed out, it's getting better but not by much, and of course if they have a nice long dense coat they look shorter and more compact than they really are.
Some current angora babies, these are all 3-4 week olds.


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## Loganberry

Those ivories have very nice heads and ears!


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## Laigaie

I think a lot of the problem with the body type is simply that they look cobbier than they are. Feeling the mouse under the fluff (if you have one calm enough to let you), they're not always as stocky as they look. And I agree, those are fantastic heads for longhairs! I only wish my fluffbutts looked that nice in the face.


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## Velvet_Meece

My male long haired has been deemed useless due to being with my females for around 4 months with no action, so i got hold of a new male and my girls have finally been put to use!

So here is 4 of my current 6 litters from LH pairings! i will update at around weaning time when they're hairy-ness begins to show


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## SarahC

I don't mind the cobby build.I think if they had long lean bodies that the hair won't look so impressive.Those whites are beauties.


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## Emfa Mouse

Nice babies!! I'm loving those pied reds!


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## Benjamin

Those pied Reds really are stunning looking mice


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## Velvet_Meece

Well this is the doe i've decided on from the above pic, now to pick out a buck


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## SarahC

I am jealous of their long tresses,very nice.


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## candycorn

She is lovely...and my favorite part was to go back to the fuzzy picture and figure out which one she was! I found her!


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## Gill

I'm having the same problems - small mice with poor heads. The only solution I can think of is to include some good satin short-hairs in the line, and Sarah Y has very kindly said she will let me have any that she has when I go up to Northants in the summer.

One of the breeding does









The only long-haired buck









Current babies


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## SarahC

I have seen a rapid improvement in size and type with an outcross to normal mice.A couple of generations of short haired mice followed but I have just got back to a few with semi long hair appearing.I don't have to much room for a large breeding number though which slows things down.


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## Patry

Some of my babies...


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## SarahC

the fur looks good on those.I particularly like the first(white one).I am very jealous of the fur on the mice featured in this thread but will have to practice patience.

Here is my up and coming next generation with fur between short and long but with better build,size and health than those I started with . still a work in progress.


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## Gill

I'm jealous too - I'd love a mouse like Gluhwein. There are five PEWS in my current litters, all with longish hair (typically it doesn't shew in the photo I posted), but it will be a week or so before I find out if they are any good.

I'd be very interested to hear how you progress, Sarah. It's a relief to know that someone else is having the same difficulties in getting decent long-hairs. I was beginning to think I was doing something wrong.


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## SarahC

I won't be surprised if they amount to nothing Gill but I'm quite enjoying them anyway.I've got one pair with the semi long hair so I'll see what they produce.


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## icedmice

Oh WOW what beautiful longchair mice you have! I LOVE the stains they looks so shiney and luxurious  .

We got an impressive one in our mousery currently, his name is "ICED Fluffy Duck" and he retained his coat beautifully into adulthood. He recently had a litter to his sisters because we'd love to see more like him. His line have always have impressive coats with super fine hair but Fluffy is especially nice  .

His juveline coat photo:









His coat now:


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## Gill

As an experiment, I put my best (short-haired) doe in with Scruff, the long(ish) haired buck to see if I can get some better-sized mice. She was certainly enthusiastic - I've never seen a doe chase the buck before!

Doe


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## Benjamin

I found this little satin "gold" doe in one of my latest litters


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## Gill

A few of my current youngsters look fairly fluffy, but, of course, they are only four weeks old, so they will grow, but not their hair.

Champagne Doe









Dove Doe (looks as if she has been digging in the substrate!)


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## SarahC

clearly lots of enthusiasm for them  How old are yours icedmice?Are you going to keep with mixed colours Gill.I'm turning mine to a uniform colour so that I have no need to consider colour.A nice surprise Benjamin,a ginger fluff.


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## icedmice

Fluffy is 5 months old . Oddly he didn't loose length of the coat in his hindquarters. But he isn't the first we've had like that, the other nice bucks that share his ancestory have not been quite as impressive but still very nice, this is Mojito a great uncle of Fluffy:

























Mojito was about the same age as Fluffy in those photos, he's still got great length but at over a year of age he's looking a bit scruffy these days. The lines aim was to work on consistancy in marking it originated 3 years ago from a pet store mouse who also had a fine coat. I've since proven it is just the regular longcoat/longhair gene but there may be modifiers altering the quality a little.

Fluffy recently won first in ticked longcoat category at the Sydney Royal Easter Show. He'll be a hard one to beat while he's in his prime considering we don't have show type mice like yours in Australia, shame mouse show careers are so short lived.

I do have a young litter from Fluffy and one turned out to be gremlin, how odd. I have well documented histories of all his ancestors and there has never been a gremlin. I'm thinking it's a one off peudo-gremlin deformity that probably isn't hereditary, her name is Gizmo and she's nearly 3 weeks old  , she's a pretty little thing:









Oh that gold doe is just to die for benjamin. What a beautiful colour.


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## Gill

I'm not bothered about colours, Sarah, just the coats. There are also a couple of promising pieds in the litters, one black and one chocolate. I'm rather pleased with them as my two pied long-haired adult does have now had thier full quota of litters.


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## Patry

I´m very happy with Glühwein. He is adorable 

Here, in Spain, there aren´t a very longhaired mice. They have only a few long hair :/

My babies have lost some hair....


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## MojoMouse

Here's a pic of my fluff boy... He's in love with the doe in the pic that Velvet_Meeces posted - he wants to woo her and have floofy little pom pom babies. 










Striking a casual pose to show off his stylishly coifed do...


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## Patry

Awwwwwwww!!!!!! I love it!!!!! :O:O:O

I want one angora! ajjjjj, I fall in love with him!!!


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## SarahY

Mojomouse, that mouse is awesome! Such hair! :lol:


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## SarahC

that's the best l/hair ever MojoMouse :mrgreen:


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## MojoMouse

Thanks.  He looks kind of hilarious - I fluffed him up a bit for the pic, his coat doesn't always stand up like that!

I regularly get boys like him. It's interesting that the hair length lasts longer than the first juvenile moult - sometimes up to 19 - 20 weeks. The males are fluffier than the females, but they're nice too, just not so long. I wish we had satin here to cross to! I'm so envious of those beautiful, shiny coats.

I'm not sure what the gene is. I doubt it's angora - more likely something that's just popped up locally. ICED has mice with amazing long coats, as per her pics in this thread. As we're both in Sydney, it's likely that the gene is the same one. Australia is so far behind what you've achieved in conformation, and we only have a few of the genes you have to work with in the fancy so it's nice that we have something that stands out a bit.


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## Cordane

I'm not sure if I'm still allowed to post.. A few forums I'm on have rules about posting in "old" threads.

I'm not sure what you class these two as but my boy has some pretty long guard hairs (2cm, some longer) and espcially behind his ears. He is 3-4 months old in the pictures.























And this is one of my girls, the photo shows her at 4.5 weeks.


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## SarahC

it's fine to post.Those look reasonably well built.I've noticed that a lot of longhairs are very lacking in health and substance.I wonder why this is?Could be a few reasons,selecting for fur over health and vigour,longhairs might appeal to people less likely to cull or perhaps just not enough people breeding them for an all round improvement.


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## Cordane

They are both pet store mice, we don't have breeders in NZ or show mice for that matter so I'm rather chuffed with them both. I might breed them together to produce some more longhairs.

People could be culling those with short coats despite the fact that the longer coated mice are smaller. Though their coats could also be making them look "healthier" or "bigger". The Siamese (who has started to get her nose point) looks the same size as her much less fluffier sister though the sister is actually 5 or so grams heavier.


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## Velvet_Meece

I wonder if perhaps its due to not being able to see the build of the mouse properly, what would normally look like a quite weedy and malnourished youngster in a normal mouse may look relatively normal with all the fur hiding it..?

Its a thought i guess


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## Gill

Update: I've had some (partial) success with this little boy. Ever hopeful, I leave a couple of bucks when the number of does in a litter permits. And I have to admit that, until he was six weeks old, I thought he was female [Moustress - I seem to recall you had a similar problem with a long-haired buck?]. I called "her" Angel as she was so friendly, even at the flea stage. Now he's renamed Gabriel.


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## Gill

Forgot to ask - what colour is he? I've always assumed champagne, but he's rather dark, though nothing else seems to fit. Most of my best long-hairs are either the same as Gabriel, or are dove. The coats on the pieds and PEWs are generally shorter.


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