# Avoiding pink-eyed mice?



## Daphne

If one is breeding for pet homes, do you think it's best to just go with black-eyed mice only? I personally don't have a preference, all mice are adorable in my eyes! But would PEs be harder to place? I know a friend who has hamsters, and prefers to have the BE varieties just because the red eyed ones look "evil" to her. Is that common consensus, or are most people not fussed either way? Just curious on your opinions


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## jammin32

i personally think both are great and have no preference if im totally honest i think the PEW are actually really nice looking mice


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## PPVallhunds

it all comes down to personal opyion realy, some will like pink eyes some wont, i personaly prefur black eyes when possible.


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## Daphne

My girlfriend has a slight preference for black eyes, but also has a soft spot for PEWs. But as I don't know any other rodent keepers, I just have no idea what most people like. I probably will keep a low number of PEs and a higher number of BEs to be on the safe side, until I can gauge demand


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## sys15

i detest pink-eyed mice. from what i've observed on this forum, however; i am decidedly in the minority. most keepers appear to not care much.


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## Daphne

sys15 said:


> i detest pink-eyed mice. from what i've observed on this forum, however; i am decidedly in the minority. most keepers appear to not care much.


Do you mind if I ask why? Not judgmental at all, just curious I guess  is it the whole "demon eyes" thing?


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## Frizzle

I don't mind pink eyed mice, but my preferred coat colors have black eyes. Of my friends, one absolutely HATES pink eyes.


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## Shadowrunner

I actually like both colors.
I'm in love with blue mice so those always have black eyes, but I have slivers too and I love them just as much.

So I don't know.
I know some people who hate red eyes but I personally like them the same.


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## MojoMouse

Addressing your question, I rehome mice as pets and _in my experience_ the black eyed mice are far easier to find homes for.

My personal preference is for black eyed mice. I dislike pink eyes, intensely, and have tried to eradicate them from my lines. Unfortunately I get PEWs occasionally due to the c/ce mice I breed.


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## sys15

Daphne said:


> Do you mind if I ask why? Not judgmental at all, just curious I guess  is it the whole "demon eyes" thing?


i think they are ugly.


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## SarahY

I prefer pink eyed animals, except for pink eyed rabbits. Those look very strange! Pink eyed rodents look like they have little gems for eyes, I think it's pretty


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## Autumn2005

I don't like pink eyes myself... makes me think of big sterile labs and animal experimentation...

I actively select against PE, but they'll still pop up on occasion.


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## moustress

If you have a line of black eyed (PP- dominant!) mousies and you breed a pink eyed mousie into that line, you will have a hard time elimninating that recessive (pp-recessive gene that dilutes color causing pink eyes and diluted coat color, cc albino or c^h, siamese/himilayan).

There are three kinds of pink or red eyed genes. Albino is a double recessive (cc) and it obscures any other color or marking, though that color and marking type will show when the mousie is bred to a non albino mousie.

Then there's another recessive (c^h) that causes siamese and himalayan varieties, and that can give you eyes ranging from pink to deep ruby.

I adore the recessive p dilutes in all their variation; always have (15 years of breeding); always will!


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## We Love Mouse

I personally prefer pink eyes over black eyes, I think they are beautiful. I always get very excited if pink eyes pop up in a litter! But in the hamster community I'm in, there are some people who really dislike pink eyes (some due to the fact that in the past pink eyes are associate with aggressive campbells), and some that likes them. It depends on personal opinions really.


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## Daphne

I agree that they look like gems  especially the deeper coloured reds. But then, I can see the whole lab thing too, when I think of lab mice I automatically think PEW.


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## ekimsivad

I have bred most small animals over the past forty years and supplied pet shops and pet owners throughout that time.

My experience has been that in general pink eyed Whites never sell and most pet shops will not touch them. I've never had much trouble with any of the other pink-eyed colours though. Ironically when I was breeding Chipmunks the white ones were really popular and went like hot cakes.


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## moustress

One other thing I like about pink eyes is the wide range of colors, from true pink, through candy apple red, and all the way to deep, deep red. I adore the bright eyes that you can get with the recessive p, as well as the colors of fur that accompany them.


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## Seafolly

When dealing with the general public I think you're more likely to adopt out black eyed mice. That said, if you had a black mouse or an agouti mouse for adoption alongside a PEW, I wonder who'd get picked? I'm under the impression that people prefer a "fancy" look and the PEW is the standard lab mouse. Like most here I'm quite happy with PEW but of the mouse and rat litters I've seen in pet stores and through shelters, the PEW is usually the last to get chosen. Just in my experience! Based on looks alone I'd choose PEW over agouti or black buuuut that's me. I have positive associations with that variety. 

Oh, and the only rat of mine people cringed from was a siamese rex. She had really pink eyes and the response to her was rarely positive.


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## moustress

PEW is only one kind of pink eyed mousie; There is so much more to see with colored pink eyed meeces!


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## GibblyGiblets

I don't mind Pinked eyed mice, they can't help what they is xD

and some of my friendliest mice have been PEWs, and PEW babies are adorable.

However I do prefer color, and pink eyes in colored mice (depending what it is) looks wierd to me, I dunno

added to the fact that when you think of white mice with pink eyes, the first thing that pops into peoples heads is "snake food"

(not sure whit white mice are so popular as snake food? because they are so common?, had a friend who had a snake who wouldn't eat PEW mice, only colored ones..wierd little legless thing...) ANYWAYS

it's been my experience that if you have PEW mice then even if you clearly say you are selling PET mice, people will always come looking for feeders (the same with colored mice as far as that goes) but PEW are more likely to be thought of as food

it's also in my experience that mice are hard to place as pets anyway, but I guess that depends on where you are, too


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## Daphne

I wasn't planning to go with PEWs anyway, just because I want to go with something a little more "interesting", so that's not a problem  I know mice are quite hard to place as pets, because of the stigma surrounding them (lab animals, snake food, vermin etc) so I think I'll definitely take the "safe" route and go for black eyeds, at least at first. I wonder if it would be easier to find pet homes for mice in "interesting" variations (e.g. tricolours, tans etc) than it would be to find homes for "boring" black or brown mice... Not that I personally see black and brown as boring, I adore chocolates!


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## tinyhartmouseries

I've always had trouble finding homes for black selves. People like the pied/broken mice pretty well. Also the average onlooker is frequently enchanted with how pointed mice look like "tiny cats".


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## Frizzle

Out of the animals I have gone the pet route with, the two selves were longhair (one with pink eyes), the others were bandeds (all black eyes). Of the rats, three were black eyed, one was a dark ruby.
I have had special requests for pied mice, but I was out at that time.


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## Daphne

I have actually been thinking about starting with pieds, so maybe that will work out well for me  Seems like the biggest thing to definitely avoid is PEWs.


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## vicky1804

I like both, although I think I like pink eyes a litte more.I think you can very some very pretty colored mice with pink eyes, also as someone else mentioned theres a range of pink eye colors from light pink to deep red. I would love a Dark Eared White Hamster and these have pink eyes.


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## moustress

Some of the red eyed colored mousies are gorgeous colors; orange, champagne, argente....I love them and always have. The lighter brighter colors tend to be a big bigger as well, which I think makes them a little more robust healthwise. I have especially enjoyed breeding red eyed tricolors and splashed based on those.

And in satin; one of my clients/patients once said that my fawn satins 'looked the way mouses would be in a fairy tale'.


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## Louise Bygrave

I breed mice for peoples pets and have come across no such problem placing pink eyed whites in a home. It all comes down to personal pref. I have even had a few people specially ask me for them for pets, especially if people buy two mice for company they will often go for a coloured with black eyes and a white with pink eyes for a bit of variety. As with all mice breeding for pets, the better the colour selection the more interested people are.


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## andypandy29us

My daughter insisted we had mice with black eyes when we got our first mice as the ones with red eyes scared her cos she thought they were evil cos all the ghosts and stuff in kids cartoons have red eyes .... but as we got our second lot of mice she wanted a white mouse and they had none with black eyes so she chose the pink eyed white ... and she loves her to bit .... its just a case of teaching kids that red eyes are not evil and the mice are just as friendly and cute as the black eyed .... my daughter learned a good lesson from the mice x x


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## TomOdell

i hate albino snakes for the most part, but i love amelanistic mice
it's weird
i prefer red eyed mice and i can't see there being a problem selling them


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## DaisyTailsMousery

In my personal experience, the people Iv'e sold to didn't like PEWs. They didn't mind pink eyes as long as the mice themselves weren't albino. Personally I love mine, but most people tend to see them as unnatural lab mice to do experiments on.


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## TomOdell

rematnogard said:


> In my personal experience, the people Iv'e sold to didn't like PEWs. They didn't mind pink eyes as long as the mice themselves weren't albino. Personally I love mine, but most people tend to see them as unnatural lab mice to do experiments on.


all going well, i'm getting 1.1 white albino mice


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## gyri

Since everybody seems to be discussing their personal preference I guess I'll chime in. I am not a fan of the PEWs but do like satins. My dove and fawn satins are probably my favorite two mice. Just something about pink eyes on a mouse that isn't white is charming to me.


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## visitor

I`ve spotted lovely coloured mice in petshops and asked for a closer look. As soon as i see pink eyes i leave it. I don`t find pink eyes appealing at all. dark eyes are much nicer.
Might be a silly question but can you get mice with blue eyes?


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## DaisyTailsMousery

It is possible... but extremely rare. I've only heard of it once


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## visitor

Now BEW mice would be amazing.


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## CheezieSpaz

I usually have a preference to black eyes but I absolutely love my PEW and even my Himilayan has beautiful ruby red eyes. So, I have two mice with black and two eyes with pink/red. My parents think the red eyes are creepy as hell but they've grown on me and I absolutely love taking pictures of my himilayan because of her striking eyes and how they compliment her markings~


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## Seafolly

I've gotten a lot of compliments on my satin PEW from folks who don't know a thing about mice. I have RY, stone, and blue as well but it's the PEW that gets the "so pretty" comments. Interestingly enough, one of my PEW's got adopted over my long haired stone, and Vicats was saying how many people comment on that satin PEW. Don't know what it is about satin but it seems to suit mice!


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## Lyra

My mom and few of my friends are afraid of pink-eyed mice... 
My mom, because when she was a little girl, got two PEW mice on her birthday, and that, as they were boy and girl, ended as something akin to a mice invasion 
My friends, on the other hand, think that PEW mice look evil. Oh, well...


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## TwitchingWhiskers

Honestly, I don't have much of a preference. Certain colors I think go better with a certain eye color; recessive yellow for instance, I think look best in BE. I really love ruby eyed mice, too, they look so lovely.


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## Budgiebonkers

Are pink eyes also called albinos? If so I cant stand ino anything lol i have 3 ino budgies and all 3 were horrible breeders. There genectics are so weak 
The only reason I got albino feeders because they were cheaper then fancy. Now i got fancies to see if i can breed out the red eyes


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## AyJay658

Remembering my views as a child, I second what andypandy said about thinking they were evil. Also as a child I was a bit afraid of anything albino..possibly because of my religious upbringing I had to picture 'the devil' and 'demons' and that sort of thing and I always imagined them with red eyes. I'm over that now :L
But now I don't really notice the eye colour when I see the mouse! I bought a red eye and a black eye the other day and I didn't even notice till I got them home!


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## TwitchingWhiskers

Budgiebonkers said:


> Are pink eyes also called albinos? If so I cant stand ino anything lol i have 3 ino budgies and all 3 were horrible breeders. There genectics are so weak
> The only reason I got albino feeders because they were cheaper then fancy. Now i got fancies to see if i can breed out the red eyes


Not all pink eyed mice are albino, but yes there are albino mice. There are many varieties that come in pink eyed, for instance: dove, champagne, silver, argente, himalayan, and many others.


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## FeralWolf

I don't mind pink eyes at all; before I got a PEW, I didn't think I would like them, but she was so sweet that I realized it didn't matter much the color of her eyes, and you get used to it. It didn't stop me from buying her.

However, my mother absolutely hates pink eyed mice with a passion. When she saw I was thinking of buying new mice, she actually said, "No red eyes, right?"


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## TheFabumouse

I generally prefer Black eyes. I think pink eyes are nice to, but often I much prefer black eyes.


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## Rambo-Bright

I get pet homes seeking mice and rats often, and many of them say 'no pink eyed/red eyed ones please, they look evil!'. Some of them were converted when they saw how sweet and friendly the rodents were and didn't care what they looked like, but others stayed away from them.

I do prefer black eyed mice but have no issues with pink eyed mice, they are rather lovely


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## Fantasia Mousery

Budgiebonkers said:


> If so I cant stand ino anything lol i have 3 ino budgies and all 3 were horrible breeders. There genectics are so weak


That's not at all how it works in mice fancy. White and other very light colours, including the PEW/albino, are actually the ones with the best show standards, because they are much easier to get big ears and long tails and stuff on. So if you get a litter of blacks, agoutis and pews, the pews will most often be the prettiest.


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