# Some spicey new babies =D



## GibblyGiblets (Oct 2, 2011)

After what seems like forever (literally, I got SO impatient waiting on this litter lol!)

I finally have some Splash carrier babies, with the hopes of a tri-color (if someone wants to correct me on this, go ahead because I honestly don't know) but I heard you can get tri-colors from breeding a pied mouse to a splash. the mother is pied.

The father is Spice, who I'm not sure if he is a merle splash (since he carries merle) or just a black splash.

and the mother is a mystery color as well, she's not dark enough to be chocolate, but is more of a dark tanish color, and has a white/silverish looking stripe of fur along her back (she carries variegated)

so these babies will be a lot of fun.

there are 12 and once again, I've having a hard time figuring out what they are lol

I'mma cull down to about 5 or 6 in the next 2 or 3 days.

this is the proud daddy, Spice (or not so proud as he has no idea he's a daddy xD)









and the babbies!


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## TwitchingWhiskers (Feb 2, 2013)

Lovely buck, he's so pretty! Good luck with the babies, you must be so exited.



GibblyGiblets said:


> I finally have some Splash carrier babies, with the hopes of a tri-color (if someone wants to correct me on this, go ahead because I honestly don't know) but I heard you can get tri-colors from breeding a pied mouse to a splash. the mother is pied.


Splashed is dominant, so the babies won't 'carry' Spl. Only recessive alleles can be carried. Some of the babies will be splashed, but they won't show it unless they have one c-dilute from dad, and one from mum. If mum is c-diluted, you will get more splashed. Basically, for splashed to show, you need splashed and 2 c-dilutes.

To get tricolor, you need piebald + splashed + c-dilutes. Piebald is recessive, so unless your splashed buck carries piebald, you won't get any pieds/tris.

Someone else may have a clearer way of explaining this, and I'm not exactly one of the genetics whizzes :lol:


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## GibblyGiblets (Oct 2, 2011)

TwitchingWhiskers said:


> Lovely buck, he's so pretty! Good luck with the babies, you must be so exited.
> 
> Splashed is dominant, so the babies won't 'carry' Spl. Only recessive alleles can be carried. Some of the babies will be splashed, but they won't show it unless they have one c-dilute from dad, and one from mum. If mum is c-diluted, you will get more splashed. Basically, for splashed to show, you need splashed and 2 c-dilutes.
> 
> ...


Ok, I see thanks for clearing that up, genetics knowledgeable I am not xD

I'll have to get a picture of the mother tomorrow or the next day, might check tomorrow to make sure she's been feeding them, this is her second litter so she should know what she's doing lol

I am pretty sure Amber (the fathers breeder) told me he does carry c-dilutes but I can't remember if she said he had any pied in his line,I'll have to dig through the info lol. the mother came from a pied chocolate doe and a varigated buck who throws black eyed whites and the mother of this litter had a couple black eyed whites in her first litter. but that's about as far as her genetics go that I know of because she was in one of my first litters I had when I started breeding again.


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## TwitchingWhiskers (Feb 2, 2013)

> Ok, I see thanks for clearing that up, genetics knowledgeable I am not xD


Everyone starts somewhere; when I started... I didn't have a clue. :lol:



> I am pretty sure Amber (the fathers breeder) told me he does carry c-dilutes but I can't remember if she said he had any pied in his line,I'll have to dig through the info lol. the mother came from a pied chocolate doe and a varigated buck who throws black eyed whites and the mother of this litter had a couple black eyed whites in her first litter. but that's about as far as her genetics go that I know of because she was in one of my first litters I had when I started breeding again.


Your buck is c-diluted, because if he wasn't, he wouldn't show splashed.

The BEW's make perfect sense, they are variegated and piebald (W/* s/s). A mouse that is genetically both pied and variegated, is BEW.


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## TwitchingWhiskers (Feb 2, 2013)

Just had a random idea... If you have a couple keepers from this litter, you should name them spicier and spiciest; Spice (dad), Spicier and Spiciest. Totally expecting you to ignore this comment :lol:


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## angelofwhimsy (Dec 11, 2011)

Pretty, pretty buck! I definitely vote for mummy pics 

How exciting, bet you can't wait for their markings to come through!


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## GibblyGiblets (Oct 2, 2011)

Here's a picture of the mother, Vemmy.

not the best picture but one I snapped when she was sitting still for 5 seconds xD as luck would have it I got her good side, literally, you can see the gray/silver looking strip of fur next to her hip, that is actually ticked looking.


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## TwitchingWhiskers (Feb 2, 2013)

Strange, that does look ticked. Could it just be a strange molt mark?


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## GibblyGiblets (Oct 2, 2011)

TwitchingWhiskers said:


> Strange, that does look ticked. Could it just be a strange molt mark?


I don't think so, she's had it since she was a baby (part of the reason I kept her lol) and she's about 7-8 months old now.

there was a male born in her litter that had a the same marking, only thicker, same silvery/gray looking ticked fur, kicked myself for not keeping him but at the time I didn't have the room for another male.


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## TwitchingWhiskers (Feb 2, 2013)

Could there be roan/merle in there lines?


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## GibblyGiblets (Oct 2, 2011)

TwitchingWhiskers said:


> Could there be roan/merle in there lines?


I very highly doubt it, though it would be awesome :shock: Variegated is hard enough to find around here, so a highly doubt anyone has any roans or merles.

my male who is Vemmys father has only ever produced BEW, variegated, pied black and chocolate and black/chocolate selfs I've even done a couple father/daughter breedings and same things produced.

as far as the babies go, I culled them down last night from 12 to 4, 3 girls and a boy, just in case lol.

It seems to have helped, I'm not even sure their mother is taking care of them, because she's hardly ever one the nest, so yesterday the babies were all empty, but this morning the four babies were full to the hilt with milk, can mice alolactate?..however it's spelled lol, can mice feed babies even if they havn't been pregnant basically, I've heard they can and I've heard they can't. I personally have never seen it, but someone is feeding them.


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## TwitchingWhiskers (Feb 2, 2013)

I've heard that it's very rare, but possible, for nannies to lactate. The dam probably just doesn't feed them when your around... I'm not sure, I've never had these issues, and I rarely use nannies anyway.


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## ThatCertainGlow (Jun 23, 2012)

From what I understand it is very possible, but I don't know if my nannies ever did. I never had a first litter with nannies present. They were in there for babysitting only, second litter, and third. Mom doesn't need to spend very long on the pile to have fed them, I think. It's the cleaning and such that takes most of the day, and night. I hope she is feeding them, because they need more milk then I would guess a nanny can produce. That and the next litter would need feeding, and I don't know if you can count on a nanny to suddenly lactate again? So, really hoping mom is doing drive by feedings.

Good luck with them. ,
Zanne


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## GibblyGiblets (Oct 2, 2011)

The babies are 4 days old now, they're still kind of small, smaller than I'd hoped they'd be by culling the litter down to four. but they're doing ok and are all full of milk

the only downside to culling before you can see the color is that these are all boring D= three of the four look like they'll be black pied.

the whole group










the girls








keeping my eye on the one in the middle, she's falling behind the rest.

And the lone boy, who I kept just to see if I got anything interesting.


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## GibblyGiblets (Oct 2, 2011)

Teh babbies are 6 days old now.









All of em

Teh girlz










I can't tell yet if the lighter baby is a variegated or splash, I hope she's a splash

and teh boi


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## Seafolly (Mar 13, 2012)

Hm, she really is falling behind. Poor kiddo. When you selected the babies to keep, how did you do it? I'm looking at a really heavy cull too. But at Day 2.  I thought skull size was a good indicator but need to read more on it.


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## GibblyGiblets (Oct 2, 2011)

Yeah  I'm not sure if I should cull her since she's already almost a week old or just let her grow out and see how she does, the little vari/splash baby is the biggest(not sure what she is right now, the markings on her body look like pictures of splash babies I've seen but rhe dark face and headspot throw me, because that's what my varis look like) along with her brother.



Seafolly said:


> Hm, she really is falling behind. Poor kiddo. When you selected the babies to keep, how did you do it? I'm looking at a really heavy cull too. But at Day 2.  I thought skull size was a good indicator but need to read more on it.


Honestly with these, with the exception of one, they were all pretty much the same size, had the same head shapes ect. I just picked four and went with it, I knew I wanted mostly girls and a boy to keep back as a just in case I got anything interesting.


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## TwitchingWhiskers (Feb 2, 2013)

I would defiantly cull that little one, she won't make a good pet, and obviously not a good breeder.

On the other hand, the fatty on the right looks promising; I hope she's splashed! Good luck with them


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## madmouse (May 19, 2012)

Briar, knowing your mice as I do, I would bet money that Vemmy is a very poorly marked variegated. Variegation can be really unpredictable. Varis can be white with a few dark specks to dark with a few white specks and anything in between. The variegation is also what makes her look ticked, she's probably got random white vari hairs here and there. Vari also tends to dilute the coat a bit, making a/a look brown. But that's not the kinda dilution you want for splashed to show.


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