# How to improve Blue Himi?



## love2read (Aug 30, 2011)

I was wondering how to darken the points on a Blue Himi? Should I pair her with a Blue buck or a Black buck? I assume that Blue would be the best option, but wanted to ask and make sure before I put the pairing together, just to make sure.


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## candycorn (Oct 31, 2011)

I have read here that tempurature can make a difference. That keeping the siamese and Himi's in a colder environment leads to darker points. I am sure there was a thread about it not long ago. 
viewtopic.php?f=26&t=1888&hilit=colder+siamese+darker - Found it!


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## m137b (Sep 22, 2010)

A very very good black or blue would eventually improve blue himi, but only if it is a very good one, ie deep rich extremeties. Otherwise just breeding himixhimi for many generations, selecting for the darkest and earliest developing points along the way.


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## Rhasputin (Feb 21, 2010)

Do you want to make blue himi in the end, or blue siamese? 
Siamese will have darker points by default.

Does anyone have a photo of a blue siamese?


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## love2read (Aug 30, 2011)

I want Blue Himi, not Siamese, which is why I'm not wanting to breed Himi X Himi.

Would Extreme Black be better then Black or would it not make a difference?


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## Rhasputin (Feb 21, 2010)

I don't believe it makes a difference.


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## candycorn (Oct 31, 2011)

Okay...I am new to this game...but how can you get a blue point himi if blues have black eyes? Is it really a silver point himi?


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## Stina (Sep 24, 2010)

Personally, I think a^e/a^e would definitely make a difference for himi's.......it does help to improve pigmentation at the extremities and that does include in c-dilutes. jack's extreme blacks occasionally produce siamese and they have VERY dark points.


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## Rhasputin (Feb 21, 2010)

I think that if you took a show quality black mouse, the impact would be the same.

Also Tara, no that wouldn't be a silver. To be a silver it would need to be p/p which himi is not. The himi gene itself is what's causing the eye dilution.


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## Stina (Sep 24, 2010)

I was just using jack's as an example...yes a show black would definitely make a difference...but in the absence of show blacks, the extreme non-agouti gene would definitely make a difference.


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## love2read (Aug 30, 2011)

My blacks have very good pigment(imo). I have 1 Extreme Black doe and and 2 Black does and I usually can't tell the difference unless I pick them up to check the vents and see which ones have tan hairs. Even so, the black does have hardly any tan hairs at all and their ears are extremely dark as well.

I only have 1 Blue Himi and she was such a beautiful baby that I decided to keep her, but since I've only worked with black Himis I wasn't sure what to put her with. I LOVE Black Himis and would like to see what can come of the Blue Himi as well. Her type isn't too bad and my Blue and Black lines are excellent(they're from Beth, originating from Melissa's lines I believe), so I'm eager to see what her future babies will look like! :mrgreen:


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## candycorn (Oct 31, 2011)

Thanks Casey, that is very interesting to know.


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## Rhasputin (Feb 21, 2010)

candycorn said:


> Thanks Casey, that is very interesting to know.


You're welcome. 
To explain it a bit better, a himi or siamese is named after it's base colour.

So an agouti siamese is agouti based, a blue siamese is blue based and a silver siamese would be himi/siamese on top of a silver base. Like, a black based siamese would have red or ruby eyes but isn't a 'dove' siamese, since it's not p/p which would cause dove. 

I would imagine that a dove siamese or a silver siamese would be really hard to see, if it was visible at all.


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## Laigaie (Mar 7, 2011)

To answer your original question, I'd suggest you have two major options:

1. Putting her with your blue buck, but that will give you a mixture of C/c and C/ch pups, and those are nigh-impossible to distinguish. Is there any chance you've got a quality blue buck that you have reason to believe is C/c? If you did, breeding her to him would give you C/ch, C/c, c/c and c/ch, meaning you can remove the full-color pups and keep the pale pups until they point up. At that point, select a male blue himi, and breed them separately from your blues or your other himis.

2 Putting her with your darkest black-based ch/* buck. You'll get all black-based pups, but breeding her darkest son (a blue carrier, naturally) back to her will give you a good proportion of blue-based pups. Personally, I'd breed her to a ch/ch buck rather than a ch/c buck, simply because the first litter from her needs to be mice you can see the color on. For that litter, having a bunch of pews would be really useless, while having ch/ch mice and ch/c mice would be no problem.


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## love2read (Aug 30, 2011)

The Blue buck I'm considering putting her with has a very good chance of carrying the PEW gene. He had PE siblings, but I culled them and only kept BE babies from that litter(I was wanting blacks and blues). He also should NOT carry Pied, which, unfortunately, my Black buck does. I would prefer to stay away from Pied.

On a slightly different note, what would pairing a Black or Blue with Himi do to any Black/Blue bubs that come out of the pairing? Would it cause the Blacks to have worse pigmentation or make the Blues mealie or would it have no effect at all?


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## Laigaie (Mar 7, 2011)

I honestly don't know. I know the agoutis I've bred as C/ch and C/c are different in shade from eachother, and further different from the C/C agoutis in house, but agouti is a partially-yellow color, while black is a non-yellow color.

According to FinnMouse: C/c* dove and champagne "are clearly lighter in colour than their corresponding C/C -types." It also says "This effect is limited to the yellow portion (this is in genetical terms, so it means the golden brown section) in agoutis and in tanned mice to the belly." In theory, black mice don't have a yellow portion, as the a/a means they're all-black, so again in theory, there should be no further dilution of the black mouse. That said, black foxes do appear to be slightly less black than black selfs, but that could be an artifact of selective breeding for the belly rather than the top color.


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