# Angora Coats



## jessierose2006

Does anyone have a 'perfect' example of what an angora mouse should look like. I would like to perfect just the coat as i believe mine have shorter angora coats.

And what would be the best way to go about improving coat? does it have to do strictly with genes or does it have to do with the length of the parents' coats.


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## Jack Garcia

I doubt anyone does because it's an exceptionally difficult variety to breed properly.

The best thing you can do with non-standard coats is to breed them in PEW only, because it allows you to focus on type and coat, without regard to color. This applies to angora, longhair, texel, rex, fuzzy, and most non-standard coats except satin.



> does it have to do strictly with genes or does it have to do with the length of the parents' coats.


This question presents a false dichotomy. The length of the parents' coats (particularly the father's*) is genetic.

*Female non-standard mice lose hair a bit easier due to changing hormonal patterns associated with their cycles every few days, so males almost always have longer coats, due to their more consistent hormone levels.


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## MouseHeaven

I mainly breed angoras, it is rare that I have a mouse thats coat has the same length and quality as any other mouse. I have angora mice that have relatively short coats that produce mice with hair twice as long...vice versa. Like Jack previously stated, it is easier to breed to using a non-colored coat, such as PEW, because you won't have to focus on the coat color as well. Just look for the same qualities as you would any other mouse, but keep in consideration the quality of the coat (length-wise.) If you want to improve the coat, you first select the mice with the longest hair. As for how a "perfect" example of an angora mouse should look, unfortunately, I have none.


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## Jack Garcia

In terms of body type, it should look like this: http://eastcoastmice.org/theidealmouse.htm or this: http://www.afrma.org/stdsmse.htm, but with very long hair.

The ECMA has this to say about the angora coat:



> Angora- The Angora coat should be long and full with good volume and density. The coat shall be as long as possible with guard hairs to match and a silky texture.


At the bottom on this page (a German-language page ironically about Qualzuchten or "suffering breeds") is a picture of a mouse with long hair: http://www.farbmaus-rassezucht.de/farbm ... rbmaus.htm

When I think of what the ideal angora mouse would look like, it would have proper type and fur that resembled the guinea pig at the top of this page: http://www.mydogs.com.au/jazzukiperuvians/default.asp (isn't that beautiful?)

Confusingly, I think in terms of phenotype, angora mice are closer to Peruvian cavies, but angora rabbits are closer to what mouse people would call "texel."


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## MouseHeaven

:shock:  Which side is the head? :lol:

This is one of the longest haired angoras I have, this picture was taken at 4 weeks of age. His hair has grown even longer since, and his body has also filled out a bit; he is now at 6 weeks of age. His other qualities may not be as pleasing, but I sure do love his coat


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## jessierose2006

so in order to achieve longer fur length i should cull the shorter length mice and keep the longest only to breed into my groups.


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## MouseHeaven

That's usually what works for me, but occasionally when I breed from one of my foundation mice, who don't have very long hair, I get a decently long haired mouse.


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## jessierose2006

that so strange that it works like that. Could i breed a longhair to an angora to help with the length or would that cause coat problems with the guardhairs?


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## Jack Garcia

I've heard reports that breeding angora to longhair messes them up and makes them inconsistent. I can't speak to that personally, though.

The way I'd do it is this: invest in some large PEW show mice in standard coat, and breed them with your best angora females. Then, cross those babies and keep the angoras, and re-cross the female angoras with the original show PEWs, and repeat. This way you can improve type relatively quickly and still keep angora around to work with. You must improve type before you can work on coat or color ("You have to build the house before you can paint it"). But as long as you have the angora genotype around, you can keep it "in the background" while you work on type.

Once you've achieved consistent type (this will take a few years) you can start working on coat length. To do this, I'd keep litters reasonably large, at around 6 or 7 each (the rest is culled) until around 5 or 6 weeks so you can judge adult coat length better. Then at 5 or 6 weeks, cull the shortest coats and breed the longest. This will also take a few years at the least. You just repeat the same kind of pairings over and over and keep pictures so that as the years pass you can look at past pictures and see if you're making improvement (which hopefully you will be). This takes a long time, but it's the only way you can improve angora mice from where they are now.

Angora is a difficult variety and nobody that I know of does it well because folks don't realize the amount of work it requires, but I think it definitely has potential if you choose to devote the right resources to it. Breeding pet store angoras to other pet store angoras will unfortunately just create more pet store angoras and nothing close to the perfect angora mouse you asked about. It's an elusive animal, but possible with hard work.

Good luck!


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## m137b

Jack Garcia said:


> When I think of what the ideal angora mouse would look like, it would have proper type and fur that resembled the guinea pig at the top of this page: http://www.mydogs.com.au/jazzukiperuvians/default.asp (isn't that beautiful?)
> 
> Confusingly, I think in terms of phenotype, angora mice are closer to Peruvian cavies, but angora rabbits are closer to what mouse people would call "texel."


A peruvian has rosettes causing the hair to fall over the head, not to mention cavy's have hair, not wool/fur, length is based mostly on the owner's skill at grooming, not genes.

Angora mice have a limited coat length based on genes, and look very much like French Angoras http://www.arba.net/Breeds.htm, density makes the coat look better, and grooming skill, but much more is due to genes.


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## MouseHeaven

I couldn't have said it better, Jack! I was actually typing up something extremely similar, I hit preview and you already posted it :lol: I'm actually working on that exact plan. I've been on the look out for PEW show mice; meanwhile, I'm trying to develop the longest (length), densest, and longest lasting coat from my angora PEWs in hopes to soon carry out my original intentions.

Over all, it is a lot to take on, and a lot to evaluate before breeding, so choose your pairs very selectively.


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## Jack Garcia

Well, yes and no. The Peruvian does have a rosette, but the length itself (the subject of this post) is representative of what's called for in the mouse's standard:



East Coast Mouse Association said:


> Angora- The Angora coat should be long and full with good volume and density. The coat shall be as long as possible with guard hairs to match and a silky texture.





> Angora mice have a limited coat length based on genes


If you want to go that route, _all_ animals have limited coat length.  The standards say "as long as possible," though. And the type and general conformation is also very important. It seems with angoras (and texels) many people selectively forget that the mice involved are more than just coat. They're type, temperament, and color, too. That's why PEW is the best variety to work with in non-standard coats. I've actually judged PEWs in fuzzy (a variety that has been improved a tremendous amount in the last few years) and they were some very nice animals indeed.

I have no doubt that if bred properly, angora mice could resembled other longer-haired varieties of small animal (rabbit, cavy, hamster) or other coats of fancy mice--angoras don't have to be small, cobby, and with tiny features. It will take the person who wants to do it a lot of work, though.



MouseHeaven said:


> I couldn't have said it better, Jack! I was actually typing up something extremely similar, I hit preview and you already posted it :lol:


Thanks.


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## MouseHeaven

> I have no doubt that if bred properly, angora mice could resembled other longer-haired varieties of small animal (rabbit, cavy, hamster). It will take the person who wants to do it a lot of work, though.


Have no fear, the person who wants to do it is right here! :lol:

...I'm so cheesy :lol:


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## Jack Garcia

Hah!

I hope you get some good foundation boards for your house, soon, so you can build it soundly and them paint it and put up nice curtains.

Wait--it's late (and New Year's), and that analogy didn't carry as well as I pictured it!


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## MouseHeaven

You had good intentions 

By the way, Happy New Year!


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## Jack Garcia

¡Feliz año nuevo!


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## m137b

I was more concerned that it painted an unrealistic ideal, as the hair structure of a mouse and cavy are very different.  I don't think a mouse's coat has the potential to look like a cavy's. Or be as long preportionatly. Or that a mouse should have a coat preportionatly as long as a cavy's.

I'd hate to try and accomidate a mouse who's coat was as long as it's own body.


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## Jack Garcia

m137b said:


> I was more concerned that it painted an unrealistic ideal, as the hair structure of a mouse and cavy are very different.  I don't think a mouse's coat has the potential to look like a cavy's. Or be as long preportionatly. Or that a mouse should have a coat preportionatly as long as a cavy's.
> 
> I'd hate to try and accomidate a mouse who's coat was as long as it's own body.


Some pet breeders say the same thing about show mice in general--that their tails shouldn't be longer than their bodies or that their ears shouldn't be as large as they are or that the mice themselves are too big, but that's the difference between breeding for pets and breeding the "perfect" show animal. You have to have standards as to what's perfect--if an angora mouse of good type had a coat as long as its body (or longer) and was presented on the show bench, it would likely be judged very favorably, as that would be in line with the standard for that particular variety.


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## m137b

Jack Garcia said:


> Some pet breeders say the same thing about show mice in general--that their tails shouldn't be longer than their bodies or that their ears shouldn't be as large as they are or that the mice themselves are too big, but that's the difference between breeding for pets and breeding the "perfect" show animal. You have to have standards as to what's perfect--if an angora mouse of good type had a coat as long as its body (or longer) and was presented on the show bench, it would likely be judged very favorably, as that would be in line with the standard for that particular variety.
Click to expand...

It's not really a matter of the perfect show animal or the show standard.

Mice molt, cavy's do not.

A mouse can not grow 6 or more inches of fur between molts.


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## Jack Garcia

How large are your mice? I can see a large PEW buck (12-14") with a few inches of fur, though I don't know if it would reach 6". If it can already reach an inch or two on the best pet store-derived mice bred only for fur length, with years of careful breeding it would not surprise me at all if larger mice could have fur twice as long as that, or longer. I'm not saying it wouldn't take a huge amount of work to combine the size and fur length into one line of mice (it's _much_ easier to breed small, cobby, pet store mice with long fur--I've done it!), but that's what the competition is all about: achieving difficult things and improving varieties through careful breeding and wise choices.

And don't discount the genetics involved. On this point, I refer to you Phil's blacks and others' blacks in the UK. They're using a/a and they've gotten their mice every bit as dark as ae/ae mice, even though the genetics are different and one might be tempted say "but it's different--you can't get them as dark!" It's pretty fallacious to underestimate the power of selective breeding. It's slow, so it's sometimes easy to shrug it off. But that's what the entire show scene is based upon and it has given us truly amazing results in the past 120 years so I don't doubt that in the right hands the fancy could see spectacular long-furred mice.

Everything is within reason, of course. I don't think anybody would say you could selectively breed mice to have gills or horns. But wouldn't that be pretty awesome? lol


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## m137b

Jack Garcia said:


> You have to have standards as to what's perfect--if an angora mouse of good type had a coat as long as its body (or longer) and was presented on the show bench, it would likely be judged very favorablyquote]
> 
> 
> 
> Jack Garcia said:
> 
> 
> 
> How large are your mice? I can see a large PEW buck (12-14") with a few inches of fur, though I don't know if it would reach 6".
Click to expand...

If a show mouse is 12-14 inches long, that's approx 6+ inches of coat. I have been disputing the probability of that alone. Nothing else. Like I said to begin with, i think a coat that long is an unrealistic ideal.

I was never talking about my own mice, just the potential for the variety, my mice are substandard , I have never said I have decent angoras let along good ones. My average mice are only 8-10 inches, yes they're small, and pet typed. But not pet store derived, all but one of the ancestors came from a local breeder. As temperament and health were my only goals for the first 2 years I was lucky to get them, because all but that one pet store mouse proved to produce poor health and temperaments. And only my brindles are descended from him.

I don't doubt that the coats on show mice will improve beyond our imaginations, well at least my imagination, :lol: , I'm just too logical to dream that big .


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## jessierose2006

so would i be better off going the long hair route or is longhair harder than angora. I like the longhaired mice in general (angora, longhair) but will my breeding longhair to my shorthair mice cause issues with my shorthair coats? I know with angora i shouldnt have any problems breeding to shorthair i just wont get as many angoras out of the breedings


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## MouseHeaven

Wait... so why are you breeding the long hairs to the short hairs.. if you wanted to improve the coat..?


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## Stina

Jack, like Cindy was saying.....peruvian cavies don't molt...mice do...unless a non-molting long hair gene pops up, a coat like a peruvian guina pig's is literally impossible. To compare to dogs...poodles, lahsa apsos, and a couple other breeds have non-shedding coats that can reach a tremendous length....a golden retreiver, samoyed, or any other "normal" long haired dog simply cannot achieve the length of coat of a non-shedding breed....the longhair and angora mice we have simply cannot achieve the length of coat of a non-moulting animal...it is impossible. Now if someone could find a non-shedding gene for mice....that would be cool!


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## Rhasputin

non shedding gene. . . I'm on it! Just let me use my magical gene making powers. . .


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## Jack Garcia

Don't forget the horns and gills. I'm also still waiting for wings.


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## jessierose2006

well i only have an angora buck at the moment i dont plan on keeping any angoras i get out of those litters. But if i want babies he was the only man i have at the moment. i plan to keep one of the males i get from my 2 new litters and possibly 1 or 2 girls. So I bred him to my shorthairs, my one lone satin, and my angora does

I know i am going to want to keep them all though.


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## bethmccallister

I'll be embarking on the angora journey shortly...maybe in 3 years I'll have a beautiful line of PEW angoras to show off...cross your fingers!


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## MouseHeaven

Will do


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## mice-lover

jessierose2006 said:


> so in order to achieve longer fur length i should cull the shorter length mice and keep the longest only to breed into my groups.


or u could sell the short coats instead of culling


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## SarahC

mice-lover said:


> jessierose2006 said:
> 
> 
> 
> so in order to achieve longer fur length i should cull the shorter length mice and keep the longest only to breed into my groups.
> 
> 
> 
> or u could sell the short coats instead of culling
Click to expand...

You are aware that this member is a feeder breeder,that's up to her and we are aware that you are not,that's up to you.Please refrain from turning more threads into a debate on culling,it's already been done.Further posts along these lines will be deleted the same as graphic descriptions of reptile feeding which upset non feeder breeders will be.Thank you.


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## jessierose2006

Well I dont think i will have the room to keep all of them let alone the fact Spike would take ages to eat all of them lol. as of right now i have 16 babies 1 of which i KNOW i am keeping even though i think its a boy it looks like a pied fox/tan. and is just soooo Cute even still being somewhat naked. 

I have a website up for adoptables that i plan to have out of each litter. and i can get some out to a petshop down the road also.Especially since they raise their own mice and take excellent care of at least thier mice.


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## jessierose2006

Thankyou Sarah C I appreciate that. sorry if one of my posts were graphic... i cant remember if i said anything graphic but my appologies if i did.

On another note. Is it easier to keep longhairs than angoras when dealing with a longhaired variety or are longhairs just as difficult when it comes to coats as angoras.


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