# Are any colors rare?



## Brindle

Hi all,

If you didn't see my intro, I currently work for a feeder rodent business that has thousands of breeding mice. They have an extremely wide variety of colors/patterns, satin, long and short haired and it made me wonder if any of them are unusual or rare? Probably not within the fancy breeding community, just not common in general, but I thought i would ask.

Some are definitely very interesting, like a Silver and Tan female they have, she is the only one I've seen so far there although I'm sure there are others, they have every tan variety, and i really love the tans that are also varigated. I haven't seen any Chinchilla, Fox, Merles or Brindles though.

Just curious more than anything, I love Horse color genetics so Im sure mice is extremely interesting.


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## PPVallhunds

certain countries either don't have certain colours or they are newer to that country. For example in UK merle is rare as its only just been imported. Don't know about Canada but dominant red is meant to be less common in America.
Fox is a c diluted tan mouse so im surprised where you work has lots of tans and other colours but no foxes id have expected they would have some or do they not mix the varieties? 
The ones work orders from the supplier only sell whites.


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## candycorn

Certainly colors are not found often in Canada. Merle being one of them. Some areas don't seem to have many black mice either but I don't recall where that was.


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## Brindle

Since my initial post I have been looking closer at some of the tans... there is a definite variation in tone.. some are almost red bellied where are other are more yellow or look creamy, but still have an almost yellow outline to the lighter color but haven't seen any that look like they have a true white belly.

I just change water bottles there so I don't get a good close look at most of the mice, I can only see ones that come up to the front of the cages while Im changing waters, so I probably only see about 60% of the actual mice. There are tons of diluted colors too which can make it harder to see markings and variations, especially through the cages like I am seeing. There are some very interesting ones though.. saw a little tri color baby the other day, and a very interesting variegated long hair who almost looked like a little werewolf LOL.

They just mix and match colors don't matter so there ends up being some very interesting combos. The Satins and dilutes are all very striking, I find the long hairs remind me of hamsters LOL. I think one of my favs is the sable mice.

Being surround by so many interesting mice (literally thousands) makes it so hard to resist not bringing some home and breeding some of my own LOL. The odd one will really catch my eye, I should bring a camera to work next time!


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## Seafolly

This is an old thread but it's worth saying that merle came into Canada in December 2014. We do have more these days thanks to a few imports from the US.


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## SarahC

and how are they doing?They've been relatively issue free here apart from unwanted colours and coat types.


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## Seafolly

I haven't heard of any issues (they came from New York). A lot were shipped off to Germany, apparently, but some remain and are still breeding.


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## Zamwyn

We don't have merle here in Sweden yet, which makes me quite jealous. =P It sounds good though that they don't have any particular issues.


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