# just thought i'd post recent pics of all my mice!



## nanette37 (Feb 1, 2010)

here they are!

males:

blueberry









mango/honey









females:

cocoa bean (pregnant with blueberry)









marble (pregnant with blueberry)









baby (renamed. used to be razzberry but my mom kept calling her baby and it stuck!)









kiwi









peanut









zigzag









umber

















iris (she has 2 white spots on her tail so doesnt that mean she carries a broken gene?)


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## Jack Garcia (Oct 9, 2009)

They're all so cute! What's up with Marble's markings? It really does look like she's marbled! lol At first glance I thought she might be variegated. 

You're right that if a mouse has white a tail tip or headspot or white toes, it probably carries recessive white spotting. Not always, though.


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## nanette37 (Feb 1, 2010)

do you think she might be variegated? i remember seeing an example of one with that looked kinda like her. and is she blue? and zigzag? i wasnt sure if they were blue or "poor" chocolate :lol:


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## moustress (Sep 25, 2009)

marble is a very striking mousie; I think she's broken marked. Variegated should be an even distribution of markings, I think. You have a bunch of cuties! Keep us posted with pix on any litters.


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## nanette37 (Feb 1, 2010)

i will! hopefully there will be some babies in the next 2 weeks!


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## contraria (Nov 9, 2009)

I think she is a varigate/merle

I had a black doe like her, and in a litter with a siamese boy, ho do not cerry ressesiv white spottin. ther came pups just like mom and marbel


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## Jack Garcia (Oct 9, 2009)

It's true that variegated _should be_ more even, but it never is in petstore-derived stock. I think she could be either or both. The only way you'd know for sure is by breeding her to a mouse who you're 100% certain doesn't carry recessive white spotting. Variegated is dominant.

On my screen, Zigzag (which is a really fun name, btw) looks black.

Do you see how you can almost make out a band around Marble's belly and a white stripe that goes down her spine? Both traits are very common faults in the variegateds I've seen--when the variegation isn't evenly distributed, it tends to "clump" the white spotting in those two places. That's why I first thought she might be variegated.


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## nanette37 (Feb 1, 2010)

ya i have notice the slight band and line down the spine. i didnt know what it was though until you said something haha. and i dont have a male that im certain doesnt carry recessive white spotting. mango might not carry it but i dont know because i dont know his parents or anything. maybe when i breed mango with peanu, kiwi, or baby, i can use one of the sons to breed with marble. and ya zigzag does look black on the screen but she is actually lighter and more grey colored in person (so is marble) so thats why i think she is blue. what happens when you breed blue to chocolate?


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## MarlaAlVutha (Nov 7, 2009)

Marble is awesome! I cant wait to see what Marble and Blueberrys babies look like!


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## nanette37 (Feb 1, 2010)

me either! i saw them mating on thursday so i should have babies in 3 weeks!


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## MarlaAlVutha (Nov 7, 2009)

Woot! Keep us posted!


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## Jack Garcia (Oct 9, 2009)

nanette37 said:


> ya i have notice the slight band and line down the spine. i didnt know what it was though until you said something haha. and i dont have a male that im certain doesnt carry recessive white spotting. mango might not carry it but i dont know because i dont know his parents or anything. maybe when i breed mango with peanu, kiwi, or baby, i can use one of the sons to breed with marble. and ya zigzag does look black on the screen but she is actually lighter and more grey colored in person (so is marble) so thats why i think she is blue. what happens when you breed blue to chocolate?


In general breeding blue to chocolate will produce all black babies who carry both blue and chocolate, unless they share recessives. A mouse who is both blue and chocolate (a/a d/d b/b) is termed lilac. It's a difficult color to get right and can resemble chocolate or blue. The trick is getting it somewhere inbetween.


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## nanette37 (Feb 1, 2010)

Jack Garcia said:


> In general breeding blue to chocolate will produce all black babies who carry both blue and chocolate, unless they share recessives. A mouse who is both blue and chocolate (a/a d/d b/b) is termed lilac. It's a difficult color to get right and can resemble chocolate or blue. The trick is getting it somewhere inbetween.


well i'd love to have both of those colors so thats good to hear! thanks! black is my favorite color for mice. not the black i have though cuz she isnt "truly" black. i'd love to have some of those black selfs that are so beautiful


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## Jack Garcia (Oct 9, 2009)

I would, too! They look like black holes that just suck the light into them and pulverize it! lol


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## nanette37 (Feb 1, 2010)

haha! man how do people get their black mice to be like that? what do you have to breed to what?


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## Jack Garcia (Oct 9, 2009)

It takes years or decades of selective breeding for only the blackest of the black. Your eye has to be trained to see very minute differences that most people (including most mouse breeders) would never see. In that way, mouse breeding is more of an art than a science. But a lot of the blacks who win prizes (in the UK or US) are actually ae/ae instead of a/a. That helps a lot.


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## WillowDragon (Jan 7, 2009)

Introducing the extreme gene helps alot these days, more and more people have got the extreme gene i reckon.

I went to a mouse show today and saw a black thrown straight out of its class because it was the wrong 'shade' of black. I'm pretty sure the others it was competing against were extreme.

Willow xx


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## Jack Garcia (Oct 9, 2009)

WillowDragon said:


> Introducing the extreme gene helps alot these days, more and more people have got the extreme gene i reckon.
> 
> I went to a mouse show today and saw a black thrown straight out of its class because it was the wrong 'shade' of black. I'm pretty sure the others it was competing against were extreme.
> 
> Willow xx


Yep, it happens. If it's not dark enough all over, it isn't allowed to compete.

I have a sneaking suspicion, though I couldn't prove, that the blacks who aren't ae/ae and who can still hold their own against the ae/ae mice are actually umbrous too (a/a U/*).

This is because some black-based (a/a) PEWs I got from a breeder in California give umbrous babies _all the time_ but you wouldn't know it till you outcross and end up with a non-PEW (usually agouti) baby who is clearly umbrous, which I've done.



nanette37 said:


> haha! man how do people get their black mice to be like that?


My (joking) answer to this is often, "Clairol Perfect 10." lol


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## nanette37 (Feb 1, 2010)

im not really sure what umbrous is. does anyone have like a link they could post so i can read about it? thanks. and how would you introduce the extreme gene? like i know what it is but i also dont haha


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## Jack Garcia (Oct 9, 2009)

The extreme gene, also called extreme non-agouti, is represented as ae and is the lowest recessive allele on the A-locus. It's called "extreme black" or "super black" from time to time. So if a normal black is a/a, an extreme black is ae/ae. You have to have the gene to introduce it and it is unrelated to the extension locus (which uses "e" as its initial and causes confusion with ae sometimes). Since everything on the A-locus (Ay, Avy, Ahvy, Aw, A, at, am, a) is dominant to it, you may have it lurking around in any population of mice and not necessarily know it. Because it causes an overabundance of pigment, mice who display two copies of this gene are slightly smaller than other mice, as a general rule. Just ask any breeder of show blacks--their mice are usually the smallest at any show!

Most good blacks (whether a/a U/* or ae/ae) carry _nothing else_. This is a very important point to remember. You would never breed a good black to a chocolate or blue or spotted mouse, etc. Black is the only acceptable outcross, period.

Umbrous, represented U, is a gene which only shows some of the time and only on some varieties. It's generally classified as a dominant trait but its dominance is partially modified by the A-locus, which basically means it can be present on an agouti mouse and not show depending on what else is going on. Few people have real umbrous in the US, as all of our umbrous comes directly from English imports. You can read more about umbrous on the Jax (no relation, haha) laboratories website, but I forgot where the exact link is since I lost all my bookmarks recently when my computer crashed...

Edit: Here is a photo of one of my heterozygous umbrous mice, WNT Langlia:










She is argente and the umbrous part of her is dove. Were she agouti, the dove part would be solid black, and were she black the umbrous part would help to make her darker all over. Despite good type (that you can't really see in this picture, she's an old lady), she could never be shown due (in part) to the umbrous.


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## nanette37 (Feb 1, 2010)

wow that is very helpful, thank you!  . so if everything on the a-locus is dominant to ae, how will you be able to find out if your mouse carries it or not?


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## Jack Garcia (Oct 9, 2009)

You're very welcome. I love helping people with mouse genetics. 

The only way you'd be able to tell if any of your mice carried ae is by careful breeding of siblings over and over. If the mice have anything else going on at any other loci, it complicates matters because you might not be able to tell even if your mouse is ae/ae. For example, most of the c-locus dilutes (himalayan, beige, albino) show little difference on an ae/ae background as opposed to an a/a background*. One example that Finnmouse gives is ae/ae chocolates. They lack the reddish shade that is required for good chocolates, but you might not know that that's what's up because everyday "poor" chocolates also lack that. Extreme non-agouti is not very common in the US outside of the New England area or LA. You see it almost exclusively at mouse shows.

*This is true up to a point. The best siamese are probably ae/ae ch/ch.


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## moustress (Sep 25, 2009)

Extreme black cannot be achieved by breeding normal black to be darker. You can get a better black mouse that way, but extreme black is way beyond that...it's hard to describe...no trace of pink even in the 'pink' of the eye or the tip of a toe. Thje ones I had must have been ae ae because they were weird looking; huge long tails and big ears with a relatively tiny body and head. I got the biggest mouse I ever bred from a pairing with the extreme black buck that yielded Monster who was 12 1/2 inches from nose to tail tip. the female never conceived, so I let the gene lapse, but it's probably still hiding in the mix somewhere. The overly dark chocolates are probable evidence of that.

People offering judgment on pet mousies beyond responding to the substance of the inquiry or of the purpose of the post is pointless, as this is not a judging area at a show. Become a judge and do it at shows, and no doubt you all will be very well received. some of us just love mousies, even if their coats are 'poor', just because, hey, they're mousies, and we love 'em.


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