# Siamese mice



## fuzzymom

I am looking to produce siamese mice. I have several groups of mice, some related, some not. Let me try and simplify this because I keep horrible records and breed willy-nilly.

Group A - Himilayan male bred to two blue females. The male was long hair and one of the blue females was long haired. They produced some black selfs and poor quality black tans. The himilayan died so I had to replace the male and then I had the new Group A, which consisted of the two original blue females, and four of their daughters. Two were black self, one of which was long haired, the other standard. Two were black tans, one of which was long haired, the other standard. I then bred these 6 females to an agouti male that only throws agouti offspring. I then took 6 females and 1 male from Group A's offspring to create Group B.

Group B - 6 agouti females bred to an agouti brother. They have only produced agouti and black selfs. Sometimes I see long hair so the male carries long hair.

The New Group A - New Group A is made up of four agouti females. Two are from Group A, two are from Group B. I'm raising them up to be breeders. They are only about 4 weeks old right now.

Group C - Group C began with what I thought was a himilayan male, a himilayan female and an orange brindle-ish female. (over time the brindle has lost a lot of her brindle and now is almost completely orange instead of brindle.) The himilayan female died when she got pregnant, so I paired up the orange female and the himilayan male. The offspring they produced was always either siamese or poor quality black tans. (The male turned out to be siamese, not himilayan...at least I think so). I kept one male and one female siamese offspring from this male for use as breeders.

How could I go about producing healthy siamese with as little inbreeding as possible?

I will be getting new mice soon to start breeding for colors. I want to be more careful in how I breed the mice and who I pair up with who and actually develop lines of different colors. I'm basically trying to re-do all my mouse breeding so I can do it a little better this time around. But I'm very limited in the funds department. What would you do if you were in my shoes?


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## SarahY

I were in your shoes I'd pair the Himalayan with the Siamese doe first and get some more Siamese babies. Then I'd breed those Siamese and your existing Siamese buck to the blacks (and possibly blues) and go from there, discarding all of the other mice. I would only use Siamese and blacks. Then, a couple of generations on when you have plenty of Siamese, I would start workinng on breeding out the longhair and tan (which would of course be fox on a Siamese). Agouti is useless in a Siamese line, it will just produce mice with weak points and streaky colour.

Because Himalayan is an heterozygous variety if you use that to outcross the resulting babies have only a 50% chance of carrying Siamese, the rest will carry albino. So you need to breed some more Siamese to start with to have plenty of mice to work with.

May I ask why you don't wish to inbreed? I ask because to improve a variety and to work with a limited amount of mice you'll have to inbreed, and this is a good thing!

Sarah xxx


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## fuzzymom

I've always been told inbreeding was bad because it leads to unhealthy lines of mice when you breed related mice over and over. I no longer have the himilayan male (which I think was siamese.) I only have one siamese male and one siamese female (brother and sister) to work with. I could get pictures of the two so you could see what I'm working with if that would help. Thanks for the quick reply. 

I really want to get into breeding mice and I want to do it the right way. No more of this just tossing males in with females to get babies. (which is what I was doing before because I mainly breed for feeders).


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## Rhasputin

Inbreeding doesn't make un-healthy mice. 

Also, hi Jesse!


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## fuzzymom

So breeding related mice does not make the resulting babies unhealthy? From what I was always told if you bred related animal you run the risk of producing babies with genetic problems or deformities. Of course that is if you continually breed related animals. I think its called line breeding, right?

I inbreed right now mainly due to not having many mice and simply because most of the offspring go to be feeders.

Hello! *waves*


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## Rhasputin

They'll be likely to get a genetic problem, if the parents had one. But if they have a genetic problem, you wouldn't want to breed them anyways. Inbreeding is fine.


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## sushidragons

Inbreeding in the rodent world doesn't seem to carry the same stigma as inbreeding or linebreeding in other species. Reptiles are similar, but direct inbreeding (siblings) is frowned upon. Line breeding (mother to son or father to daughter) is generally accepted.

It does lead to a higher incidence of cancers and the like, but more so if the parents are carrying hereditary issues. It can be a gamble though if establish a line through inbreeding or linebreeding and find out too late that your original breeders have horrible issues such as warts, cancers, benign (but unsightly) tumors, etc. If your family tree has no branches, you will start seeing younger animals afflicted with the diseases their ancestors faced in their old age.

I try not to breed successive generations without outcrossing with fresh blood from unrelated sources. It's a lot less time consuming and expensive in mice than it is with other species. My bearded dragons take 2-3 years to reach safe breeding size and weight and so outcrossing adds years to my projects. But my animals are comparably larger and more robust in the long run.


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## Jack Garcia

Inbreeding solidifies the traits which are already there. If the mice are healthy, "doubling up" on the genes present won't "create" new problems. But if the mice have problems lurking already, inbreeding is a good thing because it causes them to show up and allows you to discontinue that line of mice early on instead of investing years in it and having consistent problems all down the road. Some of the very best show mice are highly inbred.

Himalayan and Siamese mice don't do well in non-standard coats (like angora/longhair), by the way, because the points and shading have to be correct and the differing length of hair throws that off and "smudges" the color. They make good pets or feeders, though.



> I'm basically trying to re-do all my mouse breeding so I can do it a little better this time around. But I'm very limited in the funds department. What would you do if you were in my shoes?


I would come to the ECMA show in Pigeon Forge in December and pick up some extreme Siamese from me.


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## sushidragons

That's true. It does let you know where hidden problems lie, good point!

Put me on that list for some extreme siamese too, Jack!!


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## fuzzymom

I'd love to go to a show but the husband and I are moving soon and funds are tight. What is extreme siamese? I'm thinking of just starting over with new animals. I'd love to get into showing mice and rats if I find some nice animals possibly with a known genetic background and re-do my animal room.

Thanks for all the info everyone!


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## sushidragons

If I go (and I fully intend to!) I can bring some mice your way. I do a lot of business in Virginia and DC and can meet up with you in Richmond (assuming you'll be staying in the Richmond area?) after the show. I will be working over Christmas and will be in Richmond for a chunk of time.

Just let me know and we can hash out the details.


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## Jack Garcia

fuzzymom said:


> What is extreme siamese?


They're Siamese mice who are also extreme black. They conform to the standard a lot better than regular Siamese and much better than petstore-derived Siamese. Here's one that I bred. Notice that even her toes are pigmented, like they're supposed to be:


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## fuzzymom

Here are my only two siamese. They may not even be siamese. I'm a beginner with colors.

Female









Male









The lighting makes their color a little off. I was using my phone. The female has long fur. The male's body is darker than the female. His almost looks like he's got a gray shadow all over his body. You can kind of see it in the pic.

So that is what I have to work with. That extreme siamese is beautiful! I love her ears!


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## fuzzymom

Any thoughts on these two?


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## Jack Garcia

They look like they might be ticked to me, but the pictures aren't really clear enough to tell. Ticked means that they're agouti (A/*) on the A-locus instead of a (black), so if they're ticked, they're not really Siamese even though they are shaded a tiny bit.

Being ticked makes mice who are ch/ch (otherwise Siamese) lighter and more washed-out because agouti allows for brown pigment whereas black doesn't. Their toes and ears have almost no pigment at all, which could be because they're petstore-derived but if they're agouti too that just makes it worse.


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## fuzzymom

Here is the clearest picture I could get of them. The mouse at the top is the female, the lighter mouse on the right is the male, and the female sniffing him is their mother. (I have no clue what she is either. Identifying what she is would probably be a good idea too.)


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## Jack Garcia

She is either recessive yellow or brindle, both of which ruin all pointed mice and make breeding them almost impossible. Unfortunately, both recessive yellow and brindle can hide agouti, which is probably how the pointed mice you have appear ticked.


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## fuzzymom

So if you were in my shoes, what would you do with these mice in regards to breeding them. Is there anything I can breed them or the mother to, to achieve anything?

I'm going to have to look up recessive yellow because I have no clue what that is. *off to search the internet!* When I first got her I thought she was brindle because she had that brindle-ish sort of marking on her back, but over time it has faded and she is kind of this orange color all over, though if you look really hard you can kind of see hints of the marks she used to have. They are just really really faded.

And thanks for your help!


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## Jack Garcia

You're very welcome. I personally wouldn't breed them at all unless it was for feeders or just for pets (with no regards to color).

Getting rid of both agouti and recessive yellow while trying to maintain homozygous Siamese is the kind of task that is nearly impossible.

When a mouse is both Siamese/Himalayan and recessive yellow, it appears PEW. So if you have any PEWs related to these mice, you might want to see if either have a yellow parent or grandparent because they may not actually be PEWs.

e/e (recessive yellow) can mess up a lot of different varieties of mice, but none more so than the pointed varieties.


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## fuzzymom

I mainly breed for feeders so I do need babies from these guys. I really do want to get into breeding for higher quality in color and conformation though.

I do not have any relatives of these two. The father (who was the original "siamese") was fed off.


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## Jack Garcia

Even if you genotyped the mice in a lab (which costs in the tens of thousands of dollars and only a few labs will do) and bred based only on that, you would still get nothing but muddied-up, washed-out, off-color babies for a few years until you fully isolated the recessive traits you want (a/a ch/ch with no e/e, no Avy/* and no A/*).

This is why breeding correctly in the first place is so important. Once mice have been bred poorly (like these have--not by you), undoing the damage in future generations is nearly impossible. Especially with Himalayans, you'd be taking a few steps backward with every pairing since you would never know if your PEWs were c/c or A/* e/e ch/ch.


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## fuzzymom

What of my agouti mice then? Originally they came from what I'm guessing is a long hair himilayan, though I'm probably wrong.










He bred with two blue satin females, one long hair, one standard and produced the poor quality black tans and black selfs. They then were bred to an agouti male, producing more agouti offspring. Those offspring produce agouti and black self. I have pictures of the 6 agouti females and the agouti male (brother) they are breeding with if you want to see pictures of them. Not sure if any are satin but I have gotten some long haired babies out of them a few times.


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