# breed who with who, makes what?



## kerryann (Oct 4, 2010)

right im not sure how to explain what im trying to ask so bare with me please  
im curious to know if there is a definate outcome in breeding two certain mice? example siamese x siamese = siamese. but what i want to know is say u wanted to produce some champagne or self black (these are examples) can these be produced with mice that arnt these colours?think what im trying to say is can u breed 2 mice to produce a completely different mouse? so sorry if this is confusing but this is the best i can describe my question :roll:

and if this can be done examples would be nice


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## moustress (Sep 25, 2009)

Punnet squares for a genealogical breakdown would be a good help. It's a simple graph of the grid type in which you fill in what you can see. You can then work backwards or forwards to try to guess what the parents were and.or what the offspring might be. there's a short list of loci in the Genetics section, and lots of places online for mouse fanciers that have more complete info.

It's kind of fun, don't you think? It's a great way to learn about genetics! I recomment either petrodents:

http://www.petrodents.com/index.php

Or finnmouse:

http://www.hiiret.fi/eng/breeding/varieties/index.html

Have fun!


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## SarahC (Oct 3, 2008)

do a search on ebay or amazon for tony jones book,exhibition and pet mice which gives easy to follow information on what makes what.The only problem is examples rely on mice being exactly what you expect them to be and thats not always the case.You don't usually get the new colour in the first generation,you have to breed the results together e.g black x silver
= black,breed these together to get blue.


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## Jack Garcia (Oct 9, 2009)

What you're asking about is the nature of Mendelian inheritance (named after Gregor Mendel, who discovered it). Once you have a good general grasp on Mendel's work and its implications, you can then apply that specifically to mice (or any other organism, really). The Wikipedia article on Mendelian inheritance is actually a good place to start: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mendelian_inheritance

Not all mouse-related inheritance is Mendelian, but most of what we deal with is.


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## kerryann (Oct 4, 2010)

this is all great thanks guys


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## Jack Garcia (Oct 9, 2009)

You're very welcome!


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## kerryann (Oct 4, 2010)

ive clicked into moustress's link to pet rodent to do a punnet from but havent got a clue what im doing  its asking for the allele?


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## kerryann (Oct 4, 2010)

i just cant do the punnet squares. so frustrating. think i need to learn the codes first as dont even know what D/d or B/b means  
getting myself all upset here as it feels i will never learn. it all seems so confusing


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## Jack Garcia (Oct 9, 2009)

Mice have more alleles than any other domestic animal and as such mouse genetics doesn't lend itself easily to Punett square calculations except on the very most simple level. I don't bother with them.


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## kerryann (Oct 4, 2010)

ok


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## moustress (Sep 25, 2009)

I find the attitude in the second to last before this post condescending. Some folks wold gladly step up and list all the possiblilities of any pairing, but that wouldn't really help you learn anything

Really, it's not that bad; there are only five common loci, more if you are breed for markings or special coat types. don't be put off just because someone tells you they don't do it. They probably have established show stock and think it's just not necessary for them. When you are breeding from mousies with no established history you will never know what's going on, otherwise.


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## kerryann (Oct 4, 2010)

thanks moustress. i would love to become a very good breeder in the future, just curious where and how did all u guys learn everything you know. is there any good place online etc that is good to study genetics etc?


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## moustress (Sep 25, 2009)

Wikipedia has a lot of stuff, beginning at basic Mendelian theory, and on up to stuff that is pretty new and complex. I should go look myself as new stuff is being discovered on an almost daily schedule.

And don't be afraid to ask questions. Sometime it's more important to know how ask a good question than it is to know the answer.


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## Wilko (Nov 6, 2010)

The best way to learn about genetics is to read  I'm not an expert on mice genetics, but I learnt a lot about other species by reading up on the internet. If you start with http://www.petrodents.com/component/con ... rectory=65 that should help. And like moustress said, don't be afraid to ask questions 

To answer your earlier question - "whats an allele?"... Mice have 5+ *loci*. *Loci* are parts of the mouse's genetics that control the colour of the fur, depending on what exact genes the mouse has. *Alleles*, are variations of the genes that fit in those loci. So think of the loci like locks, and the alleles like keys that fit in those locks. Different locks control different colours, and depending on which keys goes in those locks affects the mouse's fur colour. I hope that's clear :?


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