# First Show Litter!



## hyshqa (Feb 12, 2011)

After a long wait, having had my mice for almost 7 weeks now, I am very excited to announce the arrival of my first agouti/cinnamon litter! A wonderful surprise (well, with the size of her it wasn't much of a surprise..) to wake up to this morning. There were 7 in the litter but I removed two which were tiny runts so she's left to raise 5  I removed both does from the buck a few days ago when I was sure this doe was carrying a litter and had planned to put the second doe back after a few days but she is also starting to look rounder now so I'm hoping for a second litter within the next week 

I might get some photos tomorrow but I'm planning on showing some of this (and the next) litter if they're good enough so there won't be many photos after that


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## SarahC (Oct 3, 2008)

that's great news and a nice sized litter to


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## PPVallhunds (Jul 26, 2010)

congrats!


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## WoodWitch (Oct 18, 2009)

hyshqa said:


> I might get some photos tomorrow but I'm planning on showing some of this (and the next) litter if they're good enough so there won't be many photos after that


Good thinking!  
Congratulations and best of luck on the showbench and I look forward to meeting you at a show soon.


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## hyshqa (Feb 12, 2011)

Thank you very much everyone  Second doe is definately in kindle (have I used that term right?  ). I'll be attending the next Sowood show but I think these would be a bit too young to show at 5 weeks? I've arranged to steward for that show anyway and I don't know if you can steward and show at the same time? I don't mind anyway, they'll be fine for me to show later in the year - I'm also going to be attending the Manchester show and the last Sowood show of the year


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## Anne (Mar 21, 2011)

congratulations


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## WoodWitch (Oct 18, 2009)

hyshqa said:


> I don't know if you can steward and show at the same time?


Yes you can. Better practice your poker face though


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## hyshqa (Feb 12, 2011)

Here we go!

Tentative doe 









2 cinnamons at the top, 3 agoutis at the bottom. One of the cinnamons is particularly big and fat compared to the rest!


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## Anne (Mar 21, 2011)

wow how can you tell agouti from cinnamon already?? I LOVE the mom, she has a really nice agouti colour!


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## WoodWitch (Oct 18, 2009)

Anne said:


> wow how can you tell agouti from cinnamon already?? I LOVE the mom, she has a really nice agouti colour!


Agoutis turn much darker than cinnamons very quickly, good ones being almost black in just a few days.

Your doe looks a good colour, I'm sure your babies will be too


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## hyshqa (Feb 12, 2011)

What *tratallen* said :lol: The genetics of the parents (agouti x cinnamon) mean the offspring can _only_ be either of those two. The three at the bottom have been very dark on their backs since I first saw them at a few hours old, while the two at the top are a paler grey instead. Admitedly I am guessing, but with the agoutis being darker due to them black ticking while cinnamons have a brown ticking, I would assume the darker ones are the agoutis


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## Anne (Mar 21, 2011)

well you are probably right about them (even though agouti and cinnamon could carry other things like blue, but it you know the background you probably know).

I had cinnamons and agouti in the same litter before and I could only tell when they were a couple of days, but yours just look small.

but mine was pettype and very bad colours. I have experienced with a current litter how agoutis can look black, as i thought I had a whole black litter, but all of a sudden 6 of the 7 was brown instead :shock:


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## SarahY (Nov 6, 2008)

Congratulations!


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## hyshqa (Feb 12, 2011)

Thank you Sarah 



Anne said:


> well you are probably right about them (even though agouti and cinnamon could carry other things like blue, but it you know the background you probably know).
> 
> I had cinnamons and agouti in the same litter before and I could only tell when they were a couple of days, but yours just look small.
> 
> but mine was pettype and very bad colours. I have experienced with a current litter how agoutis can look black, as i thought I had a whole black litter, but all of a sudden 6 of the 7 was brown instead :shock:


Yes, the mice have come from Dave Safe so they breed true, they don't carry odd genes  The only other colours I'll get are black (agouti x agouti) and I think chocolate (cinnamon x cinnamon).

I'll get a photo of them in a sec to show them all next to eachother, you'll be able to see the difference easily


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## Anne (Mar 21, 2011)

yeah you are right, it is very easy to see. Nice with a true bred line! Most of my mice has a lot of wierd stuff in them :roll:


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## hyshqa (Feb 12, 2011)

Regarding what I said earlier, what's the youngest aged mouse you're likely to see on the show bench? I understand that the objective is to enter mice as close to the age limit on the u/8 class so that they're as big and deveoped as possible, and obviously it goes without saying that they must be weaned, so for that reason I would say 5 weeks minimum (just to be sure, I know they're usually weaned before that), but are 5 week old mice ever big enough and good enough to be worth entering? This isn't something I'm considering doing with this litter or for shows in the near future but I'm interested to know for the future. I believe the youngest I've seen or heard of that had any success was a 6 week old mouse.


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## SarahY (Nov 6, 2008)

I wouldn't bother entering a 5 week old, unless it's unusually large  Six weeks is better.


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## hyshqa (Feb 12, 2011)

Ok, thank you 

Litter from above - I _think_ the agouti and cinnamon next to eachother in the middle are bucks and the rest does.


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## SarahY (Nov 6, 2008)

They're looking great!


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## Anne (Mar 21, 2011)

looks like they will have a stunning colour!


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## Bella (Aug 15, 2010)

My goodness those are some beautiful babies! I wish I could get my hands on some show quality mice!

Good luck with the future shows.


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## hyshqa (Feb 12, 2011)

Thank you very much


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## Autumn2005 (Apr 21, 2010)

Good looking babies! Cinnamon is pretty much my favorite mouse color, so I always like to hear about those! And the mum had a lovely dark agouti coloring, the agoutis I have are pale and washed out, making them look ugly 

On the other hand I read:


hyshqa said:


> Second doe is definately in kindle (have I used that term right?  ).


And my first thought was, like the book-reader Amazon sells???? :lol:


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## hyshqa (Feb 12, 2011)

Well I got quite a surprise this morning again! The second doe looked like this yesterday:










But I woke up to this:










I'd never have guessed she would have them so soon - I took that photo of her yesterday so I could document the doe's size as she grew to use as a reference for the future. She was about the size the first doe was when she had 3/4 days to go so I'd actually made a mental note that she had about that long left, then I go and find 9 pups in there this morning! One of them had a red bruised tail so I'm guessing that nest is a bit crowded, I'm going to give it a day for any runts to make themselves known and drop the litter to 5. I'd also like to be able to sex them properly before I do that though - with the first litter I was so focused on trying to see differences so I could see the bucks vs the does that it didn't occur to me that they might all be the _same_ gender....all 5 of them are does! I wouldn't normally complain but I could really do with a nice agouti buck in one of these litters  The second litter does look to have a number of bucks but if I was so far off with the first litter I don't have much faith in myself to sex some that are only hours or even minutes old.

Here's the first litter today:


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