# First mice! Finally!



## FallDeere (Jul 27, 2013)

I joined this forum two years ago to prepare for mice... and now I finally have them.

I got these two from a girl who took them in after they were abandoned at a pet store seven months ago. She wasn't able to find the right home for them until me, which is why she had them so long. They're sweet hearts. <3

Linked because the pictures are HUGE:


http://imgur.com/8EjQF


Just a few questions if anyone cares to answer...

What color would they be called?
Is it possible to tell how old they are?
I've heard mice do better in trios: should I get another female? 
I've found a lone female I could adopt, how hard are introductions for female mice? Especially since these two girls have only had each other and the lone female has been alone for a little while...

Thanks for looking.


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## PPVallhunds (Jul 26, 2010)

I'd say ressive yellow and agouti for colour

If they were dumped around weaning time you can add a month to the 7 months that the lady had them. So I'd guess 8-10 momths range.

I prefur at least trio's as that way when one dies you won't be left with a lone female.

Yes is normaly easy to introduce females, just give the tank a good clean and throw in things like toilet roll tubes (as they help to break the line of sight if a fight does break out) and leave them to it. You may get a bit of squeaking the first day or two but then they should settle down fine. As long as no blood and it doesn't carry on for 4 or more days I wouldn't worrie.


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## FallDeere (Jul 27, 2013)

Thanks for the input on introductions. I really want to get a third, I'm just so afraid of them not working out and I don't have room to house two groups of mice long term. 

If the first one is recessive yellow, why does her back have black ticking? I just went searching and she seems to fit Sable on this page: http://www.afrma.org/miceunstdnonrec.htm

If the second was agouti, wouldn't she be more brown? She doesn't really have a speck of brown on her. She's just grey with ticking, so definitely agouti based. I found a bunch of colors that are like that, though, and I can't pin down which she would be. There's Blue Agouti, Silver Agouti, Chinchilla, and even more that I saw that were similar. Any way to tell the difference?

Also, what type of gene causes headspots in mice? The grey one has the most adorable headspot, but no other real white on her. I've never seen headspots in mice.

I really meant, is there any way to tell how old they are by looking at them. I don't know what age they were when they were dumped. I suspect they were bought at a Petsmart or Petco, kept for a while until the owner was bored with them, and then dumped at the place where the person saved them (don't know what type of store it was). There's no way for me to know how old they were when initially bought or how long the original owner kept them before dumping them, so unless there's a way to tell their age by looking at them, they could be a lot older than 8-10 months.


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