# What's with this coat? [lots o' pics]



## madmouse (May 19, 2012)

On 1/25 I had a itter of pet-type mice born. One out of the seven is now having a bizarre coat malfunction. The baby in question is the solid gray (merle) at the top. In this first pic you can see she had a normal rex/texel coat.










A week or so later she suddenly lost all the fur on the back of her neck. I thought perhaps she had some sort of fungal or parasitic infection so I removed the entire litter from my mouse room until the babies were old enough to treat medically. There was no scratching or other symptoms in this mouse (Bainbridge) and no hair loss in her mother or littermates.










Then the fur on her body became sparse and coarse, but retained it's length, looking just like the coats on my lgh fuzzies. The hair on her face became noticeably shorter, even the whiskers, but kept its original thickness and texture.










Also at this time her merle markings came in.










Bainbridge, the doe in the pics, has a first cousin/half-brother named Howard who had a different sort of coat malfunction. When Howard first grew fur, he appeared to be a straight forward fuzzy, but before his coat came in completely it fell out everywhere but his nose, feet and tail. He was also *very* tiny. Here's what he looked like as a weanling (that's him with a normal pup half his age for comparison):










Around 7 weeks Howard suddenly hit a growth spurt and grew a coat that looks like a lgh fuzzy. Like Bainbridge, he is also merle. He now looks like this:










So, does anybody have any idea about what's causing this hair loss/change in texture? Is it coincidence that wonky (but somewhat different) fur problems showed up in the same line or does this indicate something genetic going on?


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## Skye_29 (Jan 7, 2013)

:O this is really cool. I don't know anything about it I'm afraid, but they look kind of funky


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## pro-petz (Nov 14, 2012)

Not that good on genetics but have you paired texels to hairless or any that carry the genes of those together which may be causing the coat conditions you have.


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## madmouse (May 19, 2012)

Skye_29: I totally agree! I won't be breeding these two, as I consider them to have "problems" (Bainbridge because she was unpredictable fur, Howard because he was so tiny and weak as a baby he barely made it). But I do love their funky appearance and will be keeping both as pets.

pro-petz: There is a small chance that Bainbridge (the furrier of the two) carriers true hairlessness, but I've never known hairless carriers to show any sign of having unusual fur. A breeder of amazing texels on another forum suggested that Bainbridge's problem was that she was homozygous for rex and was the product of too much texel-to-texel breeding. I'm inclined to believe her.


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## pro-petz (Nov 14, 2012)

madmouse I did state I was no good on the genetics side but also stated about the possibility of the combination which as you stated may also be due to the excessive texel to texel,

I know you stated you are now going to keep howard and bainbridge as pets but if you were to breed would not breeding to outcross unrelated selfs not carrying texel or hairless be a solution to avoiding it happening again.

Although the next stage from that would again be unrelated carriers of the gene I would expect.

Sure some of the genetics whizz breeders will be able to offer a possible solution if you were to try and breed from howard and bainbridge.

I will certainly remember the possible implications if I were to acquire texels in the future.


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## Kitsune_Gem (Oct 15, 2011)

In rats you get coats like that sometimes, they are called patch work rats. Its pretty cool and hard to come by.. I'd love to get my hands on a patch work rat.. They lose fur here and there and then regrow it. Perfectly normal for that type. Perhaps its the same in mice?


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## madmouse (May 19, 2012)

Kitsune_Gem: Yes! She did look quite a bit like a patchwork rat! I had one of those guys years ago and her coat was very interesting.

Bainbridge is now forming a normal looking rex coat on her entire body. I'll definitely be keeping an eye on it for any further developments.


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