# White mice - Are they the unhealthiest?



## racingmouse (Jan 12, 2011)

This has been something I`ve been reading from time to time and thought I would open a discussion on it. I`ve never been without at least one white mouse in my group and all apart from one (a PEW male who died from old age) died either from tumours or something else. As I recall, any other mice I`ve had have been argente, broken marked, black & tan or dove etc.... and none of those took tumours except one broken marked doe who I had to have put to sleep, but the others were susceptible to respiratory diease and leukemia/ascites (or bloated belly syndrome sysmptoms).

I suppose I just wanted to know what others have to say from their experience, or from what they know through breeding lines whether white mice are indeed carriers of more health issues than their coloured counterparts?

For the record, I adore white mice and will always have them because I think they are exceptionally stunning mice. I know most people might disgree with that for their own reasons, but white mice have something special in my eyes.


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## Stina (Sep 24, 2010)

Where have your mice come from? There aren't any implicit health problems associated with c/c....however different lines can have different health problems present. The only color gene I am aware of that is implicitly "unhealthy" directly related to the color gene itself....is dominant red Ay.


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## Cait (Oct 3, 2008)

I have a lot of creams and PEWs and they don't show any more problems than the other colours I have or have kept over the years - but I could name some varieties that I've found less healthy.


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## SarahC (Oct 3, 2008)

White mice have a colour,it has been masked by the albino.An albino mouse can be genetically any variety,black,red,broken and have whatever these individual varieties may be prone to.Many varieties have their roots in experimental labs.Chinchillas for example cannot be recommended as pets as they were cultivated for the investigation of tumors and tend to develop them more than others varieties because of that.If you were to have a pew that was masking chin then it would have the same problems.Because you don't know what your random whites are you can't hazard a guess.Mousebreeders whites are genetic creams which don't have problems especially with lumps etc.It is possible that more pews have a lab heritage.That's the down side of random mice,you don't know any of their heritage.


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## Stina (Sep 24, 2010)

But with chichillas even they dont' have problems b/c they are chinchilla...they have problems b/c they are from lab lines. Outcross them enough with lines that don't have tumor problems and the problems will dissappear. Health issues are almost never a result of coat color itself...but because of the breeding background...the color is generally just incidental (especially with lab lines). Again, Ay is an exception to this in that the gene itself that produces the coat color ALSO causes health problems.


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## SarahC (Oct 3, 2008)

yes,it is their lab background which is the factor .There are many white lab mice in circulation over here,some feeder breeders prefer them,who knows what they've been produced for?That's the only reason I could think for them being prone to more illness.


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## Stina (Sep 24, 2010)

Feeder breeders also generally have no consideration for long term health so they don't care if they get tumors or anything as they age.


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## SarahC (Oct 3, 2008)

yes,another good point.


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## racingmouse (Jan 12, 2011)

Thanks very much for your insight everyone. I was`nt aware that white mice were actually carriers of a colour gene but possibly that would only show in their offspring if they were bred a few times to other coloured mice? So if two white mice were bred to one another, would all the babies be white? Or would the babies be a variety of colours? I know nothing about crossing colours as you can see!

That`s good to know that breeder mice derive from creams. I`ve only had two `show` mice to date. One white female and one satin black female. They were BIG characters (as is the chocolate female I have now!) but sadly, the satin black died from respiratory/heart failure before she was a year old. She took an acute attack one day and just went all floppy and died.  And the white female took ringworm and then seemed to have a lump of some kind on her upper arm/lower neck. She died from this. It was sad to lose both girls in such circumstances as I hoped to have them well into their old age.

Stina, most of my pet mice (apart from the three show types) have all either been rescue/rehome small pet mice and three came from a pet shop. So a bit of a mixed lot really. I suppose when you rehome mice from rescue, your never going to know what faults they might carry. Betsy is`nt a large show mouse, but she is from good stock and has that pedigree look! Very different from my little white mouse Rosie, whom she dwarfs in size!


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