# where to buy pets, mouse strains



## scifinj (Feb 3, 2015)

Dear All,

Very new to the forum, but hopefully will be posting some photos soon. My first few questions to the forum:

1) what are reliable places or associations in US to buy pet mice, in addition to the common stores like petco? How common are infections in mice that are sold by the pet stores vs mice sold by the breeders? I obviously want to pick pets for future breeding that are clean enough. I know this maybe be tough to avoid though. Please feel free to recommend breeders or associations or forums in northeast (PA/NJ area). It could be a local issue - I am not even sure if its possible to acquire / ship mice 

2) Being ex science major, I recall we used various varieties of mice in college - aka laboratory mice of different colors or strains. Naive question: why those are not sold in the stores? I'd like to think it over before educating/planning breeding with my son.

3) Are there breeders who may have other strains of mice available to share? I see many available on Jackson Labs site and I would be interested to have other so called "wild type" strains e.g. C57/BL/6, DB2, etc. Please explain?

many thanks
Rob


----------



## PPVallhunds (Jul 26, 2010)

1) depends on how good the shop or breeder is. I'd rather go to a good breeder who knows there lines and if they are prone to anything or what genes they carry. Most petshops just buy in animals from dealers so don't know anything about there background.

2) lab, pet ,show mice are all the same, fancy mice. There are lots of colour varities, and shops should have different colours, but whites are more common used for food so likely stocked more by shops who sell the mice as feeders.

3) yes, you prob more likely to find the less common colours with breeders than shops.


----------

