# PEW x Satin RY Litter



## HouseOfMouse (Oct 24, 2013)

Hey all!

I'm really excited about my first litter and can't wait to share their progression with everyone here. The buck is PEW and the doe is a satin RY whose color is kinda sooty but in a beautiful way. I'm from NYC so unfortunately for the mice, but fortunately for me, there is a lot of foot traffic through the pet stores I frequent and there is often new shipments of mice. Although there are rarely any shipments of males for obvious housing compatibility reasons. As any animal lover, I've had an array of pets growing up but I never had mice so I was excited to see the doe in a tank full of an assorted mixture of mice. I had my eye on a dark chocolate doe who might have just been agouti if I had looked closer but the strong odor coming from an over due cleaning had kept me back, but the satin coat on this doe was like a piece of golden hay running around so I had to have her. After growing fond of her I read a lot about mice and decided that I would like to breed her and not let those beautiful genes end with her. I picked up the PEW buck which was from a mistake shipment of males. I was so eager to see what kind of genes he was hiding, but it took them what seemed like _forever_ to get pregnant. I put them together in August and she didn't get pregnant until October.

Pictures to come!










*EDIT - PROBLEM RESOLVED* ***I'm trying to upload pics using the option where you copy the info from Facebook but I'm using a Mac and when I right click it doesn't have a "get info" option, does anyone have any suggestions on how to trouble shoot this problem?***


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## PPVallhunds (Jul 26, 2010)

I don't habe that option on my tablet either, but if I left click the pic so it comes up bigger then right click there is an option to "view image" if I click that in the a dress bar is the image url that is needed to post the image


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## HouseOfMouse (Oct 24, 2013)

PPVallhunds said:


> I don't have that option on my tablet either, but if I left click the pic so it comes up bigger then right click there is an option to "view image" if I click that in the a dress bar is the image url that is needed to post the image


Ahh thank you for your insight, I have a tablet but don't often use it so this will be helpful if I ever try to upload an image while using my ipad mini.

This morning I did some trial and error testing using editing software and I'd like to share my results incase anyone experiences problems uploading photos in the future:

The pictures were taken from an iphone so they weren't very big files to begin with, if your photos were taken with a DSLR or Point & Shoot camera you may have to experiment a little bit. I would individually import the photos to my editing software -> Clicked file then Save for Web -> Selected the image to be PNG-8 -> Changed the image size Height pixels to 700 (it was at 850) which changed the width to a corresponding number as well as the percent which was at 100 and now 82 -> Changed the quality to Biocubic Sharper -> Clicked Save. (This made the pic 230 KiB and the max allowed to post is 256 Kib)

Shortly I'll be editing my first post with a picture of the parents and creating another post for the baby progression pics.


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## HouseOfMouse (Oct 24, 2013)

Here are some pregnancy pics of the doe a day before she gave birth to 12 pups on October 25th.


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## HouseOfMouse (Oct 24, 2013)

The anticipation to see what the babies come out looking like has been killing me, it looks like they are all going to turn out dark. I don't mind but I would have liked to see some that looked like the mom, I'll be on the look out for a new buck I guess.

11 Healthy babies and 1 runt which can easily be seen in the Day 2 pic. It went missing without a trace on Day 3.

I've documented their progression in sets of 2 days. Today is Day 5 so for now here is 1&2 + 3&4.


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## Abwettar (Oct 28, 2013)

Ahh your doe is such a gorgeous colour! I bet all the babies are going to be beautiful


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## PPVallhunds (Jul 26, 2010)

Looks like you might be getting blacks and agouti to me.

Watch there weights as one or two look a bit thin (bottom baby on last pic the sides are sunken either side of the spine on lower back), if your letting a doe reaise a big litter it's best to get some extra nutrition into her food if you haven't already. Extra protien and calcium.


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## HouseOfMouse (Oct 24, 2013)

Aww thank you, I hope some will be satin but we'll see.

Yeah, I try to feed her as much nutrition as I can but she is so picky. She picks out all the sunflower seeds in her food and will disregard the rest until she gets hungry. I sometimes give her an oat, meal worm, and lactaid milk (I'm lactose intolerant) mixture and she seems to enjoy it. Her little joy in life is getting crumbs from a bag of stacy's pita chips. :lol:


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## HouseOfMouse (Oct 24, 2013)

Progression photo update. This is from Days 5&6. Today is Day 8, but I take the photos at the same time every night so you can expect 7&8 within the next day or so.








So it seems all the pups are going to be agouti. :?

A bunch of them have tiny bits of pied on there tails which is something I don't like. Where do I go from here in terms of future breeding plans? I haven't been able to find a thread on a litter that was all agouti, I can imagine I'm going to have a hard time keeping track of them as individuals.


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## Frizzle (Oct 6, 2011)

As for where to go, do agouti interest you? Are you looking for show, or something different from PEW? An easy thing to do would be to breed a buck back to the doe for a litter of RY, some satin. What you'd want to do is keep back the best buck, and any of the does that are an improvement over you doe.

If you're breeding for pets, the tipped tails might actually help them find homes, people like animals that are unique, and tipped tails can be helpful in IDing mice from a litter.

As for what to do to tell them apart now, I've seen reference to snipping notches in ears and clipping off toes. I don't know what ages this is recommended for, as it is not a system I've needed to use.


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## HouseOfMouse (Oct 24, 2013)

Frizzle said:


> As for where to go, do agouti interest you? Are you looking for show, or something different from PEW? An easy thing to do would be to breed a buck back to the doe for a litter of RY, some satin. What you'd want to do is keep back the best buck, and any of the does that are an improvement over you doe.
> 
> If you're breeding for pets, the tipped tails might actually help them find homes, people like animals that are unique, and tipped tails can be helpful in IDing mice from a litter.
> 
> As for what to do to tell them apart now, I've seen reference to snipping notches in ears and clipping off toes. I don't know what ages this is recommended for, as it is not a system I've needed to use.


Agouti doesn't really interest me, I'm not looking to show - just pets. I'm mainly looking for colors and personality. When you say to keep any of the does that are an improvement do you mean personality or something more?

Yeah, I have a soft spot for tipped tails, just not the blochty pigmentation that is sometimes on the base or the rest of the tails, though I agree people generally enjoy those kind of markings to identify mice. That makes it hopeful that these mice will be able to find homes quickly. Do pied tails happen because there are pied genes hiding? I'm not sure I've read why pied tails occur and how to control them from showing up.

I've read about snipping and clipping but I think that might be too intense since I'm just breeding for lovely pets. I'll have to get creative with colored permanent markers or figure something out.

On a better note, I just got back from my local pet store and came across an awesome buck to replace the PEW I had used. He's a brindled satin with some white pied on his face. He's restored my excitement in breeding because I know he'll produce a more interesting litter. His personality is also way better than my PEW who is very skittish. :mrgreen:

New buck:


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## Frizzle (Oct 6, 2011)

Whatever you consider to be an improvement, whether that be size, personality, health, you name it.

Tails, toes, and small belly patches could mean the mouse is a minimally marked pied, but I've also read that some believe it is an indicator that a mouse is a carrier for pied. I haven't worked with pied, so I can't tell you one way or the other.

Your brindle buck is nice, but might not be the best choice to breed with your RY doe. Since Brindle and RY can look very similar (since bridling can be minimal) you might not always be able to ID what is what. But Brindle is nice in that it has a lot of variability and you can get unique, identifiable mice.


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## HouseOfMouse (Oct 24, 2013)

Frizzle said:


> Whatever you consider to be an improvement, whether that be size, personality, health, you name it.
> 
> Tails, toes, and small belly patches could mean the mouse is a minimally marked pied, but I've also read that some believe it is an indicator that a mouse is a carrier for pied. I haven't worked with pied, so I can't tell you one way or the other.
> 
> Your brindle buck is nice, but might not be the best choice to breed with your RY doe. Since Brindle and RY can look very similar (since bridling can be minimal) you might not always be able to ID what is what. But Brindle is nice in that it has a lot of variability and you can get unique, identifiable mice.


Thank you!

I was surprised to find him, I've never seen a satin or brindle buck available in the pet store so I quickly bought him for the great combination. I was thinking of breeding him to one of the best does from the litter and to my RY.


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## HouseOfMouse (Oct 24, 2013)

Today is day 10. This concludes the progression pics. Here are sets 7&8 and 9&10.


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