# Is there a general rule of thumb with breeding.........



## jammin32 (Jun 14, 2012)

When breeding certain types of mice to possibly try and get a different variety is there a general rule of thumb you can stick to ?

I basically want to know if there is any way to know what two types of mice you can breed and what outcome you will get

Is this even possible ?

For example:

Breeding a self with a self will produce selfs (very basic and obvious i know but you get my drift)

Ideally if there is a list or a reference point that anyone knows or even just from your own experiences i would be grateful to be directed to it or advised.

My ultimate goal is to try and breed various different types and colours as there are so many amazing ones about and in the process learn properly more about iour lovable little pets 

Hopefully this post has made a little sense


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## SarahY (Nov 6, 2008)

It's absolutely possible, you just need to know the genetics for the colours! I'll run through some basics and post some links.

Firstly, the 'bases' for the colours in order of dominance are:
- Red (Ay/*)
- Agouti (A/*)
- Self (a/a)

And there are also:
- White bellied agouti (Aw/*)
- Tan (at/*)

So red is dominant to agouti, agouti is dominant to self. All reds are heterozygous, which means they only have one red gene, because mice with two red genes die in the womb and are reabsorbed (this is called 'lethal homozygous). The other is either agouti or black, as a red with the tan gene is a sable. If you breed an agouti colour to a self colour, you'll get agouti colours, but also some self colours *if* the agouti carries self. Tan is co-dominant modification of the self gene, so if you breed an agouti to a black tan, you'll get agouti tans, and possibly black tans if the agouti carries self, and possibly agoutis and black self if the black tan carries self.

You can work out the outcomes of crossing genes by writing them out in Punett squares. I've written a guide to using those here:
http://www.blackthornmice.co.uk/genetutorial.html

Colour genes are recessive, and these are listed here:
http://www.blackthornmice.co.uk/genelist.html

Once you know the letters for the colours, you can work things out very quickly! Most colours are recessive, which means each parent must have at least one of the gene to make it appear in the litter. For example, if you breed a blue to a dove, you'll get black mice but they will carry blue and dove. If you then breed one of those blacks to a dove, you'll get blacks and doves because the black is carrying the gene from it's parents. If you bred that black to an argente, you'll get agoutis and argentes (and possibly black and dove if the argente carries self) because dove is pink eye dilute on a black base and argente is pink eyed dilute on an agouti base.

There is lots of information on each gene and the way they interact with others on the Finnmouse website:
http://hiiret.fi/eng/breeding/genetics/index.html


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## jammin32 (Jun 14, 2012)

Excellent reply but very complicated lol

My head is scrambled trying to work that out, i guess my first step is to work out what each of my mice are in the way of initials for the charts you have shown on your site then i can do the calculations to work out the litters.

Ok here are my mice so would you be kind enough to tell me there gene initials (im sure thats wrong) lol but hopefully that makes sense to you.

And using your chart is it clear what the litter outcomes may be ?

Thanks

Male








Female








Female (champagne colour)









sorry the pics are a little blurry but they won't sit still :lol:


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## thewesterngate (May 22, 2012)

I didn't know tan was a het expression of the self gene. Very helpful! I have a silly question myself, if I can thread jack for a moment. I see genes expressed as A/* ... what is the asterisk representing? 

ETA: Nevermind! I started rifling through those links.


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## SarahY (Nov 6, 2008)

> Ok here are my mice so would you be kind enough to tell me there gene initials (im sure thats wrong) lol but hopefully that makes sense to you.


Your male is splashed, but I can't tell if he's stone, black eyed Siamese or ruby eyed Siamese,so I'll do all three:

Stone splashed: a/a ce/ce Spl/*
BE Siamese splashed: a/a ce/ch Spl/*
RE Siamese splashed: a/a ch/ch Spl/*

(If he's stone, he'll have black eyes and no dark brown points. If he's BE Siamese he'll have black eyes and dark brown points. If he's RE Siamese he'll have ruby coloured eyes and dark bown points.)

The first female is an argente piebald: A/* p/p s/s

The second female is a champagne self (unless she has a tan belly or white spots?): a/a b/b p/p

Your male does not have any genes in common with your females, so we can predict your babies from the champagne will be blacks (a) and your babies from the argente piebald will be agoutis (A) with the possibility of some blacks as well. All the babies will carry either stone (ce) or Siamese (ch), pink eye dilute (p), chocolate (b), and recessive spotting (s). Splashed is dominant but will only express itself on a mouse that is showing a c-dilute colour (like stone, Siamese, chinchilla, etc). So if you want more splashed, breed a daughter to the father; if you want champagne, breed a son to the champagne; and so on.



> I didn't know tan was a het expression of the self gene.


It's not always heterozygous, it can be homozygous, but because it is dominant it looks the same


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## jammin32 (Jun 14, 2012)

My champagne female has a tanned belly.

Thanks very much for the reply, very helpful 

I would like to get some tans ideally at some point so I'm going to have to try and suss out what adults I need to breed to get a tanned litter next.

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 2


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## SarahY (Nov 6, 2008)

As the champagne is tan, she will be at/* (so either at/at or at/a) b/b p/p, and she will produce black tan babies when bred to your buck


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