# Fancy Feeder Mice?



## spazzy_sparx

I breed my mice for feeders but I am getting some crazy colors. I was wondering if any of them are desirable. I was doing some research on color genetics and I found one called a broken tan and fox.

Could the picture of my mouse below be a broken tan?

I couldn't get a good picture of the other one, but she is pure black and her stomach is a solid tan color. Could she be a fox? I want to try to get that belly white. hehe!


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## SarahC

I can only see one picture and the mouse is a broken tan.Foxes have a white belly so if the other mouse is black with a tan belly its not a fox.You need to introduce the chinchilla gene to get fox.


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## spazzy_sparx

SarahC said:


> I can only see one picture and the mouse is a broken tan.Foxes have a white belly so if the other mouse is black with a tan belly its not a fox.You need to introduce the chinchilla gene to get fox.


Ya, there is only one picture. Awesome! Well, a tleast I got something! That is exciting! Thank you! Are broken tans common though?

I was thinking of finding a place to show my mice and get my little sister to help me. She would like that.


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## Jack Garcia

Yes. Black broken tans are common in feeder bins and petstores all around the world.

If you're really interested in showing your mice in the US, you should get in contact with the AFRMA (California) or ECMA (east coast). A lot of US fanciers, regardless of where they live, actually belong to both (I do). That particular black and tan broken mouse couldn't be shown for a thousand different reasons (tail is too thin, ears are tiny and poorly set, face is too "pinched," tan is weak, spots are incorrect, she has yellow ears, etc), but perhaps with very selective breeding some of her descendants could. Or, it's possible that she could be shown in the "pet classes" of the ECMA.

The AFRMA is http://www.afrma.org; 
The ECMA is http://www.eastcoastmice.com (basic membership is free to the ECMA);

Good luck!


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## SarahC

do you have any pictures of U.S exhibition brokens Jack that you could post?I would be interested to see how they look .


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## Jack Garcia

Not offhand, as I don't breed brokens (too much work!) but I do have an "oddball" broken male, color unknown, from a breeder who was aiming for agouti/cinnamon brokens. He is not the best example of what a broken should look like, but it is closer than the brokens you find in pet stores. I will take pictures of him later today.


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## spazzy_sparx

Jack Garcia said:


> Yes. Black broken tans are common ...
> 
> Good luck!


Thank you!


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## Jack Garcia

Actually, Sarah, I found a better example in my pictures.










These mice are actually cinnamon tricolors and this picture was taken in the hotel room at one of the shows we had. None of them won to my knowledge because their spots are not evenly distributed enough. A properly spotted broken (of any color) will have more evenly distributed spots.

Here is the AFRMA's section on marked mice: http://www.afrma.org/micemkd.htm

While we're at it, here's a picture of one of our show/exhibition mice (PEW, adult) up against a typical petstore petstore-derived mouse (brindle, 5 weeks):










The PEW still has some faults, of course, but it gives you a general idea of what American show mice can look like. There are probably only 15 of us in the country who keep and show mice of this type, though.


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## spazzy_sparx

Jack Garcia said:


> Actually, Sarah, I found a better example in my pictures..... There are probably only 15 of us in the country who keep and show mice of this type, though.


I have never seen a brindle. That thing is pretty awesome. The only pet store mice around here are white. kinda boring.


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## Jack Garcia

American brindles are extremely common in the US as the brindle allele is dominant over all others except dominant yellow (Ay/*) which we don't have in the US. In other words, it is dominant over everything else. Often, petstore brindle mice are PEW mice who simply "mask" brindle.

So some of the PEWs you see may be brindle "underneath" the PEW.


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## SarahC

the pew looks to be a very good mouse,ears might be considered a bit 'handle bar' but thats only minor.The marked mice in your picture and on the link would not match our standard for brokens.Thanks for going to the trouble ,very interesting and good to see the mice others are striving for.


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## SarahC

had a quick look through the self section as well.Strange to me that you have fawn ,red and orange.Do you have pearls still, over there ,there is a picture of one.


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## Jack Garcia

Our fawn, red, orange, and gold are caused by the recessive red on the Extension locus (e/e), which can produce a wide range of colors so different clubs have them standardized differently.

How are English brokens different from American brokens?

One person (Karen Robbins of the AFRMA) has pearl, if I remember correctly. She is also the only person who has leaden.


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## SarahC

brokens over here would have no chance of winning with such heavy rump marks and would be disqualified for the heavily marked noses.The colour falls naturally in these areas and the challenge is to produce mice without the clumps,white mice with dalmation type spots.


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## SarahC

viewtopic.php?f=23&t=1376 if you have a look on this link you will come across a faulty broken that I bred,good enough to show and possibly win a class but definately not good enough to win a section.
the last pearl buck over here has died.I have 2 of his sons that were produced from a black doe.The only two left


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## julieszoo

SarahC said:


> the last pearl buck over here has died.I have 2 of his sons that were produced from a black doe.The only two left


Aw no Sarah  Are you able to salvage the variety from those 2 sons......?


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## SarahC

huh,nothing but a shed load of black uns so far,just one has coloured up into a silver grey.


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## julieszoo

Fingers and toes crossed for you then.


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## Jack Garcia

Oh no!

You might want to email the AFRMA and make sure that pearl is still alive in the US, because if it is, it's with only one of their members...


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## Jack Garcia

Sarah, that black broken girl you posted is what we aim for in the US; it's just not what we have!


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## SarahC

pearls are probably held in labs as they are a variety used for research.Not over here though .I have some very pale silver greys with white undercoats.It remains to be seen if these are dark pearls and can be selected for paleness.Someones got their work cut out with the brokens Jack.It took me around 4 years to produce good brokens on a regular basis and the starter stock didn't need anywhere near as much work as the mice pictured.


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## Jack Garcia

I'd say all the varieties are held in labs, or at least their genes are so that they can be recreated if need be.

One variety that I see possibly going extinct soon is the dominant red, as the recessive red takes hold. It made its way to Europe in the last few years and I know at least one breeder who has abandoned all of his dominant reds in favor of the recessive type.

Yeah, brokens in the US are seen as a really difficult variety to breed properly. For one thing, you have to keep potentially hundreds of individuals to have the right partners for any specific mouse on hand.


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