# Longhairs



## Mujician (Jul 18, 2010)

Hi, I was just wondering if longhairs are entered into shows. Are they a difficult breed to 'get right'? I heard that siamese mice have inherant problems with their fur making them not an ideal choice for a noob like me.

Also, can longhairs be any colour? How about satin longhairs?

If I had a dove self and wanted a satin dove self: (apart from buying one) how would I achieve this result? Is it acceptable to mix different breeds together to achieve a certain result? I have read things on here about people improving certain traits in their collection of mice, making chocolate darker for example. Is this done by selective breeding, or some other way.

Final question:
Are mice easy to handle? I would like mice that are happy to be picked up and are settled when they are out of their cage. All the mice I have come accross have been very skittish and not easy at all to pick up.

Thanks, Ben


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## SarahY (Nov 6, 2008)

At the moment there aren't many longhairs being shown, and only one person that I know of has them. Her details are in the current National Mouse Club yearbook, she has an advert in there. Longhairs can be bred in any colour but they are extremely difficult to breed to show for a lot of reasons! On top of the normal considerations (type, colour, ear set, tail thinkness, fitness, etc) the hair needs to be as the standard dictates. Longhaired is not a variety that is recommended for beginning exhibitors, as it would be many, many years before you'd have anything to show. If showing isn't that important to you, then that doesn't really matter.

Many breeders run a colour along with it's satin counterpart. Satin is a simple 'on/off' gene, breeding it into a self line doesn't negatively affect either. It means you can show in both the satin and self sections and double your chances of winning! 

Generally speaking (in show terms) it's not good to mix varieties together. Carried genes will have an effect on the colour of mouse - if the mouse is carrying extra genes the top colour won't be pure. Breeding in chocolate will bring a warm tint with it, blue will darken the bases of the hair shafts, dove and silver will lighten it and could bring in white noses and tail set-ons, fawns and argentes will bring in tan hairs, black eyed creams could pass on the stone genes and result in mice that can't be shown (as stone isn't standardised), red based colours will ruin the type, marked varieties will result in white hairs and maybe white sections of tail, and so it goes on. It is usually best to breed dove x dove, PEW x PEW, etc, and selectively breed.

There are a few exceptions though. Adding a good dark show black to siamese will darken up the points on the siamese, but the resulting babies are no good for black breeding. Agouti and cinnamon can be bred together successfully, but you have to be careful not to lose the distinction between the two colours. Adding chocolate or cinnamon to red will brighten it and remove any sooty looking hairs. You just have to be really careful and not add in colours that would be damaging.

Lastly, most show mice are very easy to handle - they have to be, they get handled by strangers at shows! Most show mice are very docile, calm and sweet natured. Some varieties, like Dutch, have a bit of a reputation for being bitey but I suspect that's more to do with lack of handling in their everyday lives.

Sarah xxx


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## Mujician (Jul 18, 2010)

Brilliant Sarah, thank you.

If I were to breed some mice, how would it be best to do so? I thought I could do the following:

2 cages, one with one male, and the other with two females. If i did want to breed them, i thought I could introduce the male for a few days then remove him. The female or females would have thier babies and when old enough I thought I could separate the males into the cage with dad and leave the female babies with mum(s). Or is this completely the wrong way of doing it?

Where could I get show cages from?, and are these too small for a mouse to live in for its whole life? What is an ideal mouse house? Many thanks, Ben


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