# Mousies du Jour



## moustress

I am going to start a thread for myself to post not-quite-random pictures of some of my mousies.

This first picture is Snowflake, a cute marked champagne I found at a pet store. Just to show you that I do know what a right shade shade of champagne looks like. Not that it will stop the arguments; there are a wide variety of shades that are seen as 'the' right shade for champagne. This one has the very light pink undertones, that were they bluish, would make her a silver mousie. My favorite shade of champagne is one that has a golden-pink cast so that it seems on the verge of being beige, or yellow, or very faint lavender-pink .



Here's Viola, another champagne doe found at the sane pet store months earlier. I didn't get a pic of her belly, but she has a nice bright orange underside. She is a bit dark, and could be taken for lilac (dove), but, nope, she's champagne. I have seen pictures of very light champagnes with bright bellies, but I think a good tan belly looks better on a darker shade of champagne.



Da Boss is a marked red satin buck who was among the founders of my yellow.red tri lines. (he's really let himself go; he'd never be able to congugate these days :roll: )


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## Jack Garcia

The red is almost certainly an unmarked brindle. The obesity is a dead giveaway.


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## moustress

Right! I wouldn't breed lethal yellow if you paid me, so my reds and fawns ae mostly A^vy. I have about 8 recessive yellow mousies too, right now. I'm working to try to get a darker orange. One way or the other, I'm gonna see red.


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## moustress

A few mus mus for your enjoyment:

Here some pictures of my F3 generation of brindle/tri crosses, from which I got alot of interesting marked mice.


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## Jack Garcia

They're strange-looking, aren't they? Are they poor angora? I see guard hairs sticking out, but they don't really look long enough to be angora?


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## WillowDragon

Alot of my pet type mice have that actually, my satins more specifically, especially the young ones. When they are babies they look long haired, but once they get fully grown its obvious they aren't.

Willow xx


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## Jack Garcia

Oh? That's interesting. Is it considered a fault in the UK? It is in the US. The fur is supposed to lie evenly on the skin without some of them sticking out a little bit...


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## WillowDragon

I do believe hair being to long or too thin is a fault over here. Meeces tummies are particularly prone to hair faults.

Happily none of my exhibition types have hair faults, as far as my unjudge eyes can see! hehe

Willow xx


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## Jack Garcia

None of mine do, either.


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## moustress

You show people!! I never even noticed the guard hairs you speak of, and I tend to think it's a molting problem, not a fault of any kind. I guess time will tell...AND, let me remind you once again, I'm not showing, so this sort of thing is kind of irrelevant to me. My original satin line had medium long hair that I believe is called caracul, which has a curved hair rather than an actual curl, giving the fur a sort of feathery layered look that I really like. These mousies don't have that quality, but they do have other interesting qualities like the merle-like patches that outline the faint areas where stripes probably would have been without out the transgenic contribution. That's why I posted it. To call it weird and then point out perceived faults obviates the purpose of post. :roll:

I posted these mainly to show the odd variegation that occurred in the mixing of brindles with the transgenic factor. I'd appreciate it very much if you'd address my interests as well as address the pedantic concerns you have about proper show standards re faults, etc. I'm experimenting and you should appreciate the effort I put into it. This is where new types of mousies come from.

I'm glad if your mousies please you; I derive great satisfaction from my meeces as well.


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## WillowDragon

Didn't mean to upset you sorry =o/ You know I love your pretty meece.

But you know I didn't even see the fainter patches untill you pointed them out! Bare in mind I have never seen a merle or amercian brindle mouse in real life, I just though they paler bits were more white spotting!
Looks very cool though.

Willow xx


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## moustress

I'm sorry too; I guess I felt pushed, and sometimes have to push back a little. I know I am a singular kind of mousekeeper; I like to go for the unusual at the same time as being very, very passionate about mousie behavior and health. I lavish great amounts of time and care on my meeces, way beyond what some breeders would consider normal.

In some ways, I think the real serious breeders miss out on seeing babies grow up. I've had some pretty remarkable litters off of litters who were not all that pretty by your standards. Size and type do not always follow what is visible. But, we each do what we do, and no doubt have good reasons for doing so, and thus deserve some measure of regard.

(When the little kiddies used to get up my nose about culling certain of my meeces, I'd tell them, "Hey, they are my meeces, and I'll off them and spit them like wienies on a stick and roast 'em for lunch if I feel like it! They're probably pretty darn tasty!" That wouldn't be much of a reach for me, actually, as my nuclear family did eat squirrel and rabbit on occasion. And other odds and ends from the animal kingdom...)


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## moustress

Here your mousies du jour. These two boys are from one of my argente/tri litters. The muddy too dark champagne is of no great note, but I absolutely love the way the long coat on the argente boy shows the base color. Sweetheart is also a very affectionate, playful cuddlebuddy who is normally pretty calm when I handle him he just kind of relaxes andlets his feet dangle from my hand.


"Ooh, nice warm hand; wait a minute, are those GIRLS in that tank down there?!"


"Nice clean bedding."


"Hey, bro, there's girls on the shelf next to ours."

 
" OK, that's enough of the flash, moustress."


"This photoshoot is OVER!"


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## julieszoo

He's cute, the centre parting reminds me of a sheltie cavy


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## moustress

Here's your mousie of the day:

This doe is an argent brindle.


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## julieszoo

Very pretty


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## julieszoo

Very pretty


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## moustress

You must have meant it, cuz you said it twice! Thanks!


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## Weema-Nerang Mousery

Well I think your meec-ta-farz are just beautiful. Pop them in a post pack and send them to me!!!


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## moustress

Ooh, I think that'd be a good way to get both of us in trouble! Thanks for the thought, though.


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## Weema-Nerang Mousery

Yeah was just joking! You do have some beautiful meeces. I am partial myself to fat red and brindle mice and keep a collection. I don't show, I would love to in the future but I really enjoy breeding to see what colours/patterns/types I can create. If they don't have good tails or their ears are too small it doesn't bother me, I love 'em' all the same.


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## moustress

I feel much the same; in fact I think the ear thing is way overdone for show meeces. The proportion of the ears to the head are almost like than for elephants, and I find it just wrong looking. I like meeces that look like meeces. Nice tails are okay, as are bigger meeces in general, though the size thing is overemphasized. Some of my meeces are perfect in proportion to standards, only smaller. But we all have to right to breed our mousies to whatever standard we desire.


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## moustress

They're big and orange, and one of them (I hope) is pregnant.

Meet Mondo who is big frizzy cuddlebuddy of mine. He's over two years old, and is being bred for the first time to a fawn satin and a red. I feel scammed because I suspect they are just getting fat on the extra chow I give breeding meeces.


Mondo: Probably not pregnant.


Girlie #1: I think she might be pregnant.


Girlie #2: I hope she's pregnant.


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## nanette37

im not sure i like show type mice as much as "pet type". i like the pet mice because i just think they look cuter haha. and they arent as big which i also like since im allergic. show mice are almost the size of small rats and ive had a rat before and was deathly allergic  . but anywaysssss i really like your fawn/red mice. ive always liked that bright orange color. hopefully i'll find some like that around here sometime! and if they are pregnant then you better post pics of the babies!


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## moustress

I've been concetrating on the fawn and red meeces for a long time, getting the colors deeper and richer; I want to breed red mice that are more red than brown like many of the ones I've seen pix of online. I've had English meeces,l and they are beautiful, and very calm, easy to handle, but not very playful. To me meeces are great fun, and I prefer an active, curious, playful pet mouse, if I had to choose between that and big ears the choice would be very simple. The show type mousies I bred into my lines did help the overall size of much of my stock. I do like meeces that are bigger than the pet types you find in most US petstores. I think they are healthier and more fertile.


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## nanette37

i havent had any experience with big mice so i guess i cant really say much about them. but i do know that they are healthier. which is definitely a good thing haha. haha i just think smaller ones are cuter. but you're about the health thing


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## moustress

Health, personality, color; in that order. Those are the criteria on which I set up pairings. Some of my most beloved meeces were common black or agouti or uneven marked. Chuck, a marked black who carries tri is my favorite playmate at the moment. He didn't get a lot of handling before I bred him to Babs, but he's just a sweet, sweet boy both with Babs and with me. I almost wish he didn't carry tri so I could breed him to one of the few standard meeces I have, but I know the tri thing, once bred into a line, is very difficult to weed out.

I'm pretty sure, BTW, that the standard red doe is pregnant. I'm also sure that Flame, my unique satin fawn doe whose mate had to be put down, is pregnant. I need to post a picture of her; her coat is different, not solid fawn. When she was younger I thought she was a red eyed cream, but as she's reached full size I can clearly see that she has white hairs evenly interspersed with the fawn. I'm not sure if it's silvering...I just don't know. I've been breeding this line for six years, and I've never seen a coat like hers.


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## nanette37

hmm it sounds kinda like silvering to me. here is what im looking at right now: http://www.hiiret.fi/eng/breeding/varie ... _fawn.html

does she look like that? if not the i dont know what else would cause those white hairs. maybe someone with more experiene than me would know haha


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## moustress

nanette, I don't know how I missed that section of Finnmouse; that site's like the Bible of mouse genetics, and I refer to it on an almost daily basis. I wonder if that section was just put up recently. I know she's been rewriting and adding to the site all the time in the last year or so. Thanks for calling my attention to this. I may have to breed for a transfer of the trait to colors that carry it off in a more visible manner. I'd love to breed pearl meeces or silver blues.

Here's a picture of her from about two months ago. Her color is a little deeper now.


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## nanette37

haha well ive been looking at everything on that website recently trying to learn everything i can. its kinda hard to see white hairs on her cuz she looks satin so im not really sure what color she is. but with the description you gave i wouldnt know what other possible color she could be. maybe argente? i know their undercolor is supposed to be dark but is says on that site "An Argente mouse shall be of a delicately blended shade of light fawn and silver, as the self silver, level throughout and the two colors so evenly intermingled as to give the appearance of shot silk". so could she possibly be argente?


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## moustress

Here's a new pic of Flame.

BTW, girlie #2 from my post on the 3/1 had her litter; looks like about eight nice long pinkies. I had to remove Mondo from the tank as he kept stealing babies and bringing them to his nest; very weird!


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## nanette37

haha maybe they had some relatonship problems? haha jk! and looking at that picture she definitely looks silvered to me


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## moustress

This guy is Fartzel, who achieved sexual maturity at about 4 3/4 weeks and knocked up his mom and two sisters. I was not pleased, to say the least. He's about 6 mo. old and has the tiniest ears I've seen in mousery ever.


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## moustress

These girls are from three different litters, one tri/brindle, the other yellow brindle, and another fawn. they are all at full maturity.

Marked satin yellow tri doe and satin brindled tri doe:


Satin BEW doe: 


Two satin fawn self does and three satin BEW's, one of them odd-eyed.


Three, no, four! satin BEW's; no, three and one marked satin brindled doe(faint smudges of color on the one facing completely away at the left) and two satin fawn self does. I almost missed the one emerging from the surface of the litter like a white whale.


It appears that brindled only dilutes in the presence of the tri factor, and never reverts. The first generation yielded white tigers, the second BEW's and a few with faint smudges, and the third all BEW's. I'm going to breed the smudgy brindle tri to Chuck, the marked black that carries tri to see what happens.


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## moustress

Wow, it's been a while since I posted in this thread!

Here's one of my favorite tri boys. His father was Diamond Stud, a satin PEW, who was a little over three years old.







Next is a round-up of a bunch of does from my yellow tri and brindle tri pairings. The very light yellow tri was showing her lovely tail as she continued to try to go overboard at every opportunity. Nice try, little darling!


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## nanette37

all so pretty! :love1 . looks like ther is a mouse escaping in pic 5! :lol:


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## moustress

Thankyew!


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## moustress

This is one of my older tri does, Beauty. She's a marked satin agouti tri.





This series shows some young tri bucks. They are a mixed bag of marked tris, some ticked, some siamese splashed, and some mixed, with two c locus dilutions.


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## SarahY

The first of the young bucks has lovely coloured patches, he's really pretty.

Sarah xxx


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## moustress

Thanks, Sarah.

My selection today is a young buck who I thought was just some kind of curly, but look at him now.





He also shows faint tri markings.

I can't help it; I keep taking pix of these two girls. It would appear that I've succeeded in pushing back the fat genes. These lively ladies are quite full grown and then some. Their coats look a bit rough in this pic; perhaps they are molting?


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## zany_toon

I love your little tri boys and the orange yellow satin mous in with the does *swoon - wants to steal!!*


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## moustress

Thanks! That tank full of satin does holds one's eyes. The sleek fat BEW's set off the deep orange of the fawn does so nicely! The fawn girlies shown here have two sisters that have been bred; one of those is the mother of the other odd tri yellow buck who has what looks like abyssinian tufts. One thing that seems to be true of the tri factor is that it eventually seems to mimic just about every kind of marking or, color, or marking known to mousedom.


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## moustress

It's been too long since I posted pix just for the sake of posting pix. This tank contains a bunch or related brindled and brindled tri does that are from about 15 mo to 5 mo old.


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## Autumn2005

WOW, love that brindle at the bottom! Makes me get all fluttery...


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## moustress

She has the prettiest tiny little star on her brow. I'm glad you like the as much as I do.


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## zany_toon

I have to agree with autumn - that brindle is awesome!! The black/brown markings really stand out on her orangey background. She is gorgeous - well done on such beautiful mice!!


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## moustress

I like brindles, but I love marked satin brindles.


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## Rhasputin

After seeing some of your pics....

I'm starting to think that a few of my babies are actually tri-colour brindles. 
I'll try to get some pics, and see what you think. x)


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## moustress

And to punctuate that last comment of mine, here's another one from that same litter. they are supposed to be brindle tris, but I'm not sure if there's anything going on other than brindling.







Another little bit of cuteness; mother, big sisters, and little ones all line up for a pile of bread crumbs.


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## moustress

This buck has a interesting 'look', dontcha think?


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## Autumn2005

He's cute alright... Is he reading the music?


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## moustress

He might be an actual muse; mousies were thought to be spirits or souls because of the way they seem to be able to appear and disappear. I think the meeces like it a lot when we play live in their adjoining room, as long as we don't turn the bass up too loud. I call him Squish because his face, being all white, looks flattened, and his ears are tiny and squished back. He has a lovely thick coat.


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## jujubee18

I heard that kind of spotting on the face is referred to as hereford...like the white faced cows :], but I am not certain that it wasn't just lucky.

Either way he is lovely, and his fur is so nice. I want to cuddle him :3


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## moustress

He's a cuddler for sure. Yeah the face is almost a good Hereford marking. A total accident.


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## moustress

These young bucks are about seven weeks old now. They come from one of the litters off Adamant and The Girlz.


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## Rhasputin

That last picture is a BEAUTIFUL mouse!


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## moustress

Thank you very much!


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## nuedaimice

I LOVE that black and white one (first photo)! Beautiful, deep black! Gorgeous!



moustress said:


> These young bucks are about seven weeks old now. They come from one of the litters off Adamant and The Girlz.


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## moustress

Thanks! One of the side benefits of breeding with tris is all the fabulous black and white mousies, especially the satins. I wonder about the blue marked boy' is he a marked silvered blue or is this just the tri factor imitating silvering? The darkening on his head is just from the satin coat.


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## Wight Isle Stud

I have won Best in Show with Argentes at the higest level in England. But what I get from this set of photographs is pics of mice kept in beautiful condition- what ever their standard they are a credit to the owner, combine your skills as stockman/person with showing and you will be a force to contend with . You will find the very best stockmen and very best breeders were the top men of our time . Condition isthe outward manifestation of inward health. - there is a long time between shows, pleasure should be gained from viewing animals is fab condition twice a day. well done this fancier- when I get a strain together again for showing you will be bringing them to show condition for me .


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## moustress

Thanks for the endorsement. I get a great amount of pleasure and take pride in keeping my little loves in tip-top shape. My families both have farming backgrounds, and I was around a lot of critters growing up, so I learned a lot about keeping large populations healthy and productive. If I ever get a place in the country I want to breed fancy chickens as I love the colors and varieties, and I adore fresh eggs. And maybe a couple of goats. And a Welsh pony. *stop me* And a Guernsey cow. And...


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## moustress

Shakey is a very old doe by the first tri buck, Phantom (got off of his mother, Bonus, my tri original tri doe who was sent to me after being bred to a really great tri stud), from one of the last litters he sired. The is 2 years 5 months old. When she was 1 year 10 mo. she she had a prolonged seizure and died in my hands. I revived her with very tiny fast compression of her rib cage. She has a permanent head tilt and a bit of a funny gait, but she fun to watch! She is so active and just scrambles all over the place when she sees me coming. If I didn't know better I'd think she was part deer mousie; they have to be the dippiest rodents I have ever seen.

Anyway, here she is:


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## nuedaimice

She is an old girl. Does she have cataracts coming up in her eye there?

Thats amazing that you were able to revive her!


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## moustress

No that's just me being lazy and not correcting for the flash. Yeah, it took about a half a minute for her to draw breath; I thought she was a goner for sure. She's not the only mouse I've revived; there was one who leapt off the water bottle and went head first into the plexiglas, and then there was one who rush to get through a wire door and got caught across her neck for a fraction of a second. I no longer try to give mouth-to-mouth, that requires a great deal of breath control, which I have, but I figured, since they no longer think it's necessary for humans, the same should be true of meeces.

I gave physical rehab to a mouse who became paralyzed on one side of her body. Five weeks of hand feedings and exercise. I couldn't believe how hard that doe worked. She lived for another half a year after that, and came through without any limp or head tilt.


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## nuedaimice

moustress said:


> I gave physical rehab to a mouse who became paralyzed on one side of her body. Five weeks of hand feedings and exercise. I couldn't believe how hard that doe worked. She lived for another half a year after that, and came through without any limp or head tilt.


I've had to do that before with a hamster that had a stroke. Helping her to her food and water several times a day.... Its heartbreaking to watch, but so rewarding when they finally come around.

Maybe thats the real difference...


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## moustress

This is a young marked satin doe of about eights weeks from one of Adamant's litters off The Girlz. Of all the litters I've produced with Adamant as the father, I've only seen three red eyed offspring. Her bronze color is a mystery to me; I don't know what to call it.


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## tom95

If she has brown ticking than she is english golden - red eyed cinnamon, I think . This colour is a kind of argente, but not with blue ticking, but with brown ticking. In Poland, also in Germany people called this variety english gold.


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## moustress

She's not ticked, so I guess she's a overly dark dove.

Here are a couple of groups of mature does from my yellow/tri and brindle/tri pairings. This time I waited until AFTER I cleaned the tanks out to take pix.









I was surprised by the variety in these kinds of pairing; I had hoped for calicos in the tri/brindle crossings. Andi, the one with the single shots, is the closest I came to that. On some of them the brindling was reduced to the roots of the fur.


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## WillowDragon

She's not a dove... but she may be a dark champagne


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## moustress

That's possible; I've gotten very dark argente individuals in some of my tri litters as well.


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## WillowDragon

I really quite like dark argentes! 

She is a lovely golden shade, and the satin makes it extra yummy! I bet her and my new cham satin boy would make a whole range of champagne shades!









LOL!

W xx


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## nuedaimice

I love the deep color on those brindles! Very nice!

(I'm a sucker for Am. Brindles though!)


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## moustress

That cham boy is very light, I think you're right. If only...but then I have a litter coming up (unless the doe is just getting fat instead of growing babies for me) that should have some more champagnes in it. I am again struck by the lightness of the standard over there for champagnes. I have produced a lot of overly orange argentes with medium blue roots, but that doe is the darkest ever, which is why I asked. She is being bred to a marked cinnamon tri, which should produce some interesting results.

And here are a couple more mousies:











Can you tell I really like that doe in the first few pix?


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## WNTMousery

Cute pictures, as always. 

I'm wondering how many adults do you normally keep in a 10 gallon tank? This answer varies quite a bit from person to person but I like to know. :?:


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## moustress

It varies quite a bit with age, size and relationship. Generally, I'll have 5 or 6 does in a 5 1/2 gallon tank, and 8-10 in a ten gallon tanks. that the max, I often leave the older does together, and the numbers decrease as they expire one by one, until there are only two or three, at which point they get moved to a smaller tank. the available space is increased by use of wheels, platforms, toobs, etc. I take group pix when all the furnishings are out of a tank.


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## moustress

Here are a few red hot satin babes; I never get tired of looking at them.


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## Rhasputin

I think those numbers are pushing it a little, but as long as they're happy, don't fight, and you keep them and their cages clean, it probably works out just fine. 

Mice do enjoy having other mice for company, afterall. I often keep 5-6 boys in a ten gallon tank, since they're usually the last ones to go from litters. :roll: 
I have to clean their cages more often, but it works out okay.


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## nuedaimice

Lucky for me, I have connections and can get huge tanks for free. When I was working for PetCo (3 years ago), I stumbled upon the realization that they throw all of their cracked tanks in the trash. Even now (even though I no longer work there, because I know and am friends with most of the managers) I can get tanks for free. All sizes, they know just to call me and I'll be there to pick it up!

I usually keep about 3 mice to a 10 or 15, 4 to a 20 L or 29, and about 7-8 in a 35 or larger. I also buy a lot of sterilite bins to keep some in, and I usually get the larger ones that are the equivalent of a 20L. With weanlings and litters, I'll do more in a tank, but thats it. And some of my tanks are set-up to colony breed.

However, looking at all of your photos moustress, I've _yet_ to see any of your mice that look dirty, "damaged", or unhealthy. Something you would see if overcrowding was an issue.


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## Rhasputin

I'm amazed at how nice your mice look, with the amount you keep together. It deffinately shows that you keep up with them very well!  
I agree with Allison, I've never seen any of your mice have that 'greasy' look to them, that mice often get in overcrowding situations.


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## moustress

Well, I guess I appreciate your concerns. I try to keep the numbers below those maximums whenever possible. I don't use larger tanks because of osteoarthritis in my hands. they just are a little too big for me to handle comfortably. As it is, Nate helps me with the ten gallon tanks from time to time, as he is always up there with me either playing guitar or reading something and hanging around just to keep me company. He gofers for me as well, when I need something from the main floor (again, the arthritis, in my hips).

Thanks for the vote of confidence.


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## nuedaimice

Well, you do a great job with them! Its more about quality of care vs. anything else.

I've seen mice that look undernourished, dull eyes, and listless in photos (on webpages) where the breeder says they keep only a few mice to a tank. Whatever the case may be, if you are only keeping a few to a tank and not caring for them/feeding them properly it shows in photos, just as any other kind of neglect would.

Yours are certainly not neglected!


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## Autumn2005

I lvoe the broken satins. Somehow the broken marks make the satin pop even more!


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## moustress

I note that the AFRMA now has a recognized standard for meeces like my blazing hot fawns, and they now call these over the top fawn meeces orange.

Thanks for kudos. I am, slowly but surely, working my way toward a darker deeper orange that is more like true red than the standard red mousie.


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## moustress

It's been a while since I posted in this thread...jeez....three months.

I took some pix of a couple of my oldest tri/splashed mousies. These two were born 2 yrs.4 mo. ago, right before the Fourth of July, and some of them had white markings, so I called them my red, white and blue mousies. They both have c^h in their makeup. These were my first attempt to get blue tricolors, and, in my ignorance I did not know how these things worked. As I'm about to have two more litters of blue tris (yes, the young buck and two nubile bucks gave me good reason to put the date on my calendar right away!) in about 18-21 days, I thought I get a good look at these little cuties. The red eyes were a surprise because I didn't know that the buck, Phantom, from my first tri litter, carried c^h.

It's been a long and very interesting process learning how to breed this type of mousie. anyhoo, without any further ado:



The doe in the lower right hand corner is Lula. She's a shaded siamese splashed tri.



And this is the buck, Lucky.

Looking at them now, I think they were c^ch/c^h, a recipe for a lot of mixed up, muddled looking meeces. It was interesting experimenting, though.


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## shadowmouse

Can I put in a request? Can we see some more of your black/white mousies? I'd especially LOVE to see any black/white that you have that have longer fur. I'm in love with long haired black/white. :mrgreen:


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## moustress

Srry, the first pic should have said on the right in the corner.


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## moustress

This first is an old buck from an A^vy/ tri cross. It looks like the coat mostly reverted to agouti; I picked up a fairly nice looking brindled pair for those litters. I'm going to have to try again now that I have a better idea of what's happening. I like this guy, he's very friendly and affectionate.





My best old yellow tri boy, Regal.


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## moustress

Wow, it's been a long, long time since I posted in this thread! I guess I was afaid it would hurt too much to look at pix of so many meeces that were lost in the accident...I guess I'm recovered, mostly; just a little twinge of sorrow seeing them.

Here's a pick of my cuddlebuddy Ferguson, coming up on the water bottle for his evenings romp with me.


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## minibears

i am so addicted to this thread, pls don't stop moustress :lol:


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## moustress

I glad you're enjoying it.


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## FeralWolf

moustress said:


> She's not ticked, so I guess she's a overly dark dove.
> 
> Here are a couple of groups of mature does from my yellow/tri and brindle/tri pairings. This time I waited until AFTER I cleaned the tanks out to take pix.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> What type of seeds are in there?
> 
> 
> 
> I was surprised by the variety in these kinds of pairing; I had hoped for calicos in the tri/brindle crossings. Andi, the one with the single shots, is the closest I came to that. On some of them the brindling was reduced to the roots of the fur.


----------



## moustress

You like, I take it? Me too. I lost almost all my red and yellow and brindles in the accident.


----------



## moustress

This is Sonata who is about five weeks old. She's a long haired tri.


----------



## moustress

Here are Sonata's brothers:


Allegro, top Andante,bottom


Andante, left, Allegro, right


Allegro, front


Andante


----------



## minibears

is that a banded brother i see in there? send him my way :lol:


----------



## moustress

Oh, yeah! I don't take note of where the white falls on my tris, so I guess I didn't see it. I'm happy with because he has such a nice dark blue patch on his back.

I've been waiting a long time to see some nice dark blue on a blue tri. Wish it wasn't on a long haired mousie, but there it is anyway. The odd thing is that I've only once in twelve years deliberately set out to produce long haired litters, but a lot of my tris carry it, so it does pop up quite frequently.


----------



## moustress

This is Ghiradelli, a marked chocolate buck from a tri litter, and one of my cuddle buddies who loves to vigorously rub noses with his moustress.


----------



## moustress

So, my chocolate boy goes without notice...'k...

This was too cute to let go without a photo:

A young doe, approx. 7 weeks old, is tending her younger siblings.


----------



## FeralWolf

I love Ghiradelli! Cute cuddle buddy you have. That last photo is sweet! :lol:


----------



## moustress

Thanks  I'm glad you enjoyed my photos.


----------



## FeralWolf

I just really really really want to be the 100th post on this thread... so here I go... OCD moment...

Happy 100th post Moustress!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :lol:


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## moustress

Clangclangclangclang.....wheeee-oooo-wheee-oooo-wheee-ooooo-wheee-oooo...

...can't decide what the reward should be....oh, ok...

...OXO-moustressloveya....


----------



## moustress

A lightly colored tri baby with red eyes that just opened.


----------



## thekylie

Awww! I really really like that baby. It's colors look lovely together, like subdued earth tones.


----------



## moustress

Thanks! The pix doesn't do the colors justice. The beige-like color has a rich golden tone to it. I think these colors would look especially nice in satin. I've gotten several lightly colored tris in my litters this past month or so. There's always something new and different when one is pairing mixed tris and splashed!


----------



## Airidies

I just want to say that your mice are beautiful. I really like the long haired mice they are very cute! They tri baby with red eyes is very cute too... This just makes me even more excited about getting my mice!


----------



## moustress

Here's the big sister of that last little red eyed tri; she's about 2 1/2 mo. old.


----------



## moustress

This little mousie just keeps getting prettier! This one's a boy, so there may be a brother/sister pairing in a few months.


----------



## tinyhartmouseries

These dilute tri's are gorgeous, thanks for sharing all these pictures!

I read a little on the accident from you past postings, it piqued my interest. I am sorry to hear about that, that stinks badly.


----------



## moustress

Thanks; I'm glad you enjoy the pix!

I pm'd you.


----------



## tinyhartmouseries

Got it ! Hey, will you be sending us tri does via Alison's husband???


----------



## moustress

Yes! that and/or splashed.


----------



## tinyhartmouseries

Oh goodness, that's the most exciting thing!!! I do so love you tri markings!!! I hope you can send some dilute and chocolate does for me... I love those the most!!


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## moustress

My meeces are a very mixed lot; most of them are heterozygous, so you will get a wide variety of colors which will most likely include chocolate and blue, and any of them may produce tri/splashed offspring when bred.


----------



## tinyhartmouseries

That sounds good to mee...I do love blues as well! Can't wait!


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## moustress

I am anxious to know when the mousies arrive safely at their destination. I have to admit being a little fearful handing off my darlings to a stranger for an 'x' days drive cross the continent, but ndm's hubby so very clearly has things well in hand that I felt really good about it in the end.


----------



## nuedaimice

Yea he checks in daily. All the mice are doing good. Some of the mice that you got moustress had been on the truck for 3 months, and I check them when he swings by for home time. He has nothing else to do but tend to mice, since he doesn't have a laptop or anything. So he dedicates a lot of time to them.


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## moustress

Thjree months....whoa! they look pretty good just the same. Hope they didn't get agoraphobia being in such a small carrier. The boys are sharing a ten gallon plexi tank right now. The PEW trio are really lovely meeces, can you tell me what they carry? They're nicer than the PEW's I got off Berg (snakebait boy) and the three tri does I paired him with.


----------



## nuedaimice

The ones in smaller cages were only on there about a week and a half - we rotate them when he comes home. The ones in the larger cages had been there for 3 months. Well, with a couple of weeks in large tanks while he was on home time. I try to keep the bigger cages under the max. number allowed by calculation of floor space. We try to rotate them regularly, and Matt cleans the cages every 3 days (or as needed).

The PEWs are out of a Tri Color buck and a Splashed doe. The Splashed doe is a Dove Splashed (so she has c and p linkage - so they could possibly have it also).


----------



## moustress

How old are the PEW's?

And, um, it's OK, but I thought all three of the PEW's were does. One of them has what look like testicles to me. Oopsie!! Looks like I'm going to have a small herd of pretty albinos. Ten days is long enough that surely one of them is preggers....

Anywhoo, ahem...sometimes mousies just happen. :lol:


----------



## moustress

Here are the above mentioned PEW's.


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## nuedaimice

They are getting bigger! I can't wait to see some babies out of them.


----------



## Autumn2005

moustress said:


>


What color is the PE gold one?


----------



## moustress

Where did you get that pic? They're mine, and they pretty recent...I think that PE gold is an argente, a slightly frizzy argente. I think that's the only frizzy satin I've produced. My argentes come out is a wide variety of dark and light, with differeing width to the orange and blue bands. I have a bunch of young argentes right now who appear fawn until you pick them up and riffle their coat.

I really with they were fawn, as that's what I'm yearning for, as I lost every single one of them in the accident....I've got BE fawn (red) and champagne, and argentes so far, but no fawn...it'll take a nother generation or two, I guess...


----------



## nuedaimice

Maybe she snuck into your house and took it -le gasp-

-moustress should double check the locks-


----------



## moustress

No! I know now! That's a pretty old picture! At least four or five months old, and those two are bucks. I thought the splashed one was from the litters off of Berg and one of my current tris dolls. Instead, the splashed one is from my early attempts at making blue tris, way back before I had the slightest clue how tris and splashed were constituted genetically. I had some pretty cool looking meeces in those litters, some with blue splashing, red eyes and white swirls throughout the coat. I called them my patriotic paisley mousies.

Sad that I had just figured it out, pretty much, just about the time I started finding out stuff reading online.*sigh* Nothing is obvious to the uninformed.

And, yeah, I should keep my meeces in a locked vault, right? *see my pm*


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## Autumn2005

It was a post on this topic from... Oct? Sometime in 2010 anyway, and I loved the golden coat. No, I didn't steal your picture, though I read that topic too!


----------



## moustress

Ooh; no, I didn't mean to imply you'd stolen it. Although it is nice when some uses the quote function to call up something old like this.

Just looked at your post again; you DID use the quote function; I wonder why that function doesn't identify the date of the post and where it was in the Forum....botheration! Sorry to have sort of accused you of something; whatever...


----------



## moustress

Here's an update on a mousie I featured in this Forum a couple of months ago. this is one of the few times I've had frizzy long hair that actually got thicker and frizzier as the mousie grew. This tri buck is about three months old now.





I was a bit disappointed that he turned out to be long haired as he has three distinct patches of ticked color, each one different. He's still a pretty striking little bugger.


----------



## Autumn2005

He looks like an advertisement for static electricity... maybe one of those dust-cling commercials... :lol:

But still very cute!


----------



## moustress

Thanks! I'm always amused to see him.


----------



## nuedaimice

Umm... why aren't there any new Mousies du Jour photos? This is one of the few things I can count on in life, and now I am disappointed! Its been like 3 WHOLE DAYS since you posted a new one! I'm pretty sure the world is ending... Has anyone heard from moustress?! Perhaps she has been abducted by aliens!!!! :shock:

We should send a search party to her home and possibly a raid party to obtain her mice that have been left defenseless while their owner is being probed!


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## moustress

ndm, my husband will be tickled to be mistaken for a space alien. :lol:


----------



## nuedaimice

> ndm, my husband will be tickled to be mistaken for a space alien.


I bet he will. :shock:


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## moustress

Hey, did you get the meeces yet?


----------



## nuedaimice

He's on his way to NY now... got one more stop in PA (a friend of mine picking up hers from me) and she's going to pick some too. Then he's going to get a load heading home. He's got to get back to help me move. LOL.

I'm very bad at packing... especially the computer equipment. -le sigh-


----------



## moustress

...and, about the probing....my husband can be very...


----------



## nuedaimice

> ...and, about the probing....my husband can be very...


I understand. Aliens... can't live with them... definitely can't live without them! (Believe me, I try weeks at a time - it sucks...)


----------



## tinyhartmouseries

MStress, did you see my thread about your mice that I got on the semi?!


----------



## moustress

Here's one of my marked agouti mamas and her young daughters. They are about two months old. The father was one of my red satin boys.


Some very dark argentes in this litter


The mama




Tri daughter


----------



## WoodWitch

Such gleaming coats, bright eyes and lovely thick tails. As always moustress, they're smashing :mrgreen:


----------



## moustress

Thanks!

Here's some more pretty shiny mousies:




Here's Wowie; too bright!!


Here she is again, exposure and contrast adjusted a bit, so you can see the 'w' on her back.


Wowie




These two pix show a young doe, same tank, with a smudge of color on her backside, probably dove, maybe recessive yellow. I have to try something else for pix of satins, as these are too bright, with the flash causing considerable glare...maybe stepping back a bit and then dropping the photo.


----------



## Laigaie

For our satins, I've been playing with using lamps placed to the left and right of the picture, pointed at the mouse, instead of the flash. That way I can see how much brightness I'm dealing with before I click. Wowie is beautiful. There's a certain special oomph you get with silvery and golden satins.


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## Soleya

I LOVE THEM :love1


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## moustress

Thanks for the advice, L.

And thanks for the compliments, both of you!


----------



## moustress

These girls are the product of attempts to get red eyed meeces to breed together and get fawn. they had a bit of tri/splashed in the mix, so there's one tri in this batch which includes the mother, the sisters, and the second set of sisters. I'm really enjoying all the big cinnamons in these litters!


----------



## Soleya

nice litter yes indeed :love1


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## moustress

Thanks and shiver me timbers, laddios it's Talk Like a Pirate Day!


----------



## moustress

The mother of these girls is a cinnamon tricolor, the father a satin orange (RY).




I'm intrigued by these two, which I think are some kind of roan; what do you think?


----------



## Laigaie

Gorgeous for a start, and roan would be my best guess. Does anyone here specialize in roan? I love the earset on the greyer of the two. Almost dumbo.


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## moustress

These two are the only survivors from the only litter I have gotten from the pretty albinos that came off the truck. It's been perplexing dealing with the trio consisting of two does and one buck. The mother of this litter was pts as soon as these little ones were weaned, actually, most of them were taken away and fostered, or there probably would not have been any survivors at all. The buck also had to be pts. the remaining doe is in with one of my best tricolor bucks, has been for over five weeks, and she shows no sign of pregnancy.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the larger of these two young does will be able to breed in a few weeks.


Girlie #1


#1


#1


#2


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## moustress

Here are pix of a couple of the 'girls dorm' tanks. they are all about six months old except for the mothers, who range in age from eight months to ten months.

Tank #1- Mama Pepper is hiding in the first pic and is front and center in the second one. Licorice, the other mother, is still in a breeding tank. 








Tank #2=the mothers are the big black and white longhaired mousie in the upper right and the bog pied agouti in the upper center.







These tanks of girls look like they need a reduction in the amont of safflower seeds as they are a bit too corpulent.


----------



## moustress

This boy is just a total fuzzbucket. He's a ticked tricolor.


----------



## Laigaie

Good gods, fuzzbucket is right! He's a major poofball! How old is he? I know the male longhairs do seem to get longer with age, but goodness!


----------



## moustress

He's about 6 months old. He's so plush that I can't resist taking him out to handle a little bit more often than some of the other bucks.


----------



## Laigaie

Is he huge like Mr. Sausage Monster under the fluff, or is that fluff really just that deep?


----------



## moustress

this is a young adult tricolor doe.


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## moustress

Lagaie: He's wide but not fat.


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## tinyhartmouseries

Oh man...that doe is so very awesome.


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## moustress

Thanks! :love1 I really, really like her..enough that she'll be bred next month, or sooner if I can figure out how to shuffle things around to give me room in the mousery. She and her brother both carry recessive yellow, and he's just about as good as she is; very similar markings and color distribution.


----------



## SarahY

I must admit that I'm not usually one for tricolours, but that last girl is extremely attractive. I like the rich, dark brown with the black and white. Very pretty indeed, much nicer than the beige patched ones.

I have been watching your tricolour progress with great interest moustress; you have such a variety of colours in them. I'm really pleased for you that your mice are doing so well.


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## jadeguppy

I love your puff ball. I have a pied orange male similar and must admit as well that I like taking him out more than the others.

My jaw dropped when I say your tricolor. That is exactly what I want to work towards. What did you breed to get those rich colors? I think you need a vacation down on the Gulf Coast. Just remember to bring her babies with you.


----------



## moustress

Sarah: Most folks prefer these boldly marked ones with good contrast and definition. It's for certain that they photograph better then the lighter colored varieties. I'm glad you enjoy looking at them. I've been blessed to have had some good breeders for my recovery and, I guess, lucky to have had such good results with them. I do appreciate your encouragement. Thanks so much! 

jadeguppy: Thanks, on both accounts.

I wish I could be more specific in my answer. The humble truth is that I'm not sure of the genotypes of my tris, I just sort of put together individuals that have markings I like.

This doe was sired by a satin yellow splashed odd-eyed satin buck of of a beige based tricolor doe. And, yes, I certainly hope to see some yellow (please please please!), hopefully tri or splashed, in the litters off this doe and her brother.


----------



## moustress

this post had been moved


----------



## moustress

The larger doe in this pic is a very old breeder who gave me a bunch of nice babies over the last year and a half. the other smaller does are her adult daughters, some of whom came from oopsie litters. I've noticed that I get the most striking and unusual black and white meeces and chocolate and white in lines that are contain tri hidden by a dominant in the C locus.



[IMG=http://img20.imageshack.us/img20/3113/mus025.jpg][/IMG]









I'll post pix of their brothers tomorrow.


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## salemouse

Ohhh so pretty! I would give an arm and a leg for such mice.


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## moustress

Here are da boyz.


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## jadeguppy

OH my, that first one looks like he is related to Atilla the Hun.


----------



## moustress

He sure has attitude to be a Attaturk.


----------



## moustress

Here's a young satin cinnamon doe for your enjoyment:





ps the small tanks in the background that are all stacked on top of one another do not remain like that. i just made room on one low section of shelving to give me a workspace


----------



## JustRaina

Moustress,

Your tricolours have made me re-think what I want. Blast you! Where am I ever going to find such lovely coloured girls out west here?

Hmph!

I love this thread! Thank you!

-Raina


----------



## thekylie

I wish I could get my hands on some of those pied from your above litters! I adore them!


----------



## moustress

Thanks!


----------



## moustress

I couldn't resist taking this curly long haired blue doe out and snapping a few pix of her:


----------



## jadeguppy

She looks so snuggly.


----------



## moustress

She's a lovely warm handful, that's for sure! And she always climbs to the top of the water bottle when I come in the mousery, begging to be petted.


----------



## moustress

OK lets try this again. This is a mature pied red satin doe.


----------



## jadeguppy

Ireally like how she looks!


----------



## moustress

Thanks! I enjoy seeing her myself. Tonight I'll take pix of a buck from the same line who is so like her, they cold be bookends. It's amazing how many different colors I got inbreeding for those fawns. The litter that the buck comes from had blue pied tricolor, pied agouti, pied cinnamon, and pied red, all in satin. They are all big and beautiful.


----------



## moustress

Here's the pied red satin buck that is so like the doe I posted yesterday.


----------



## jadeguppy

NIce. Do they have any show mouse background or are they pure pet store that you have improved?


----------



## moustress

My mousies are a mix of pet store, breeder, and show stock. I got a half dozen very nice show mice from The Robbins'es (big name west coast breeders) about eleven years ago. And then there were the tricolors/splashed which had about a quarter English show mousie. You can see the show mousie in my stock in the form of some wide set ears, and over all better ears and tails than pet store stock. I thbnk the bunch of mousies I got early on from a pet store had some English background as well, as they were much bigger than the pet store stock I had bought at the beginning. Some local breeder apparently just dumped the whole load of about forty, fifty mousies, and they were all in one ten gallon tank, buck, does, babies, several litters new born..it was kind of awful, and I took as many of them as I could, along with buying some cracked 10 gal tanks to put them in.


----------



## moustress

On my last trip to the feed mill I got one of the cheap plastic chicken feeders. I figurined it would be fun as meeces love to go in and out of holes...I thought it would be a nice way to get the head shots I like to post, BUTT...


----------



## jadeguppy

LOL! That is a cool toy idea.


----------



## moustress

They all cram into into it; it just barely holds them with heads and tails and...you know whats... sticking out..gotta get some more pix, this time BEFORE I feed them.


----------



## moustress

These two does were quite a surprise; I think they are some kind of roan, as the belly are almost all white.


----------



## thekylie

Ooh, I like that roan color moustress! They almost like they have two colors of speckles.


----------



## moustress

I posted pix when they were younger (and less fat!) and someone said they thoght this was agouti roan, thus the yellowish cast. It's a good ting I like oddities, because I see a lot of that in my tri lines.


----------



## moustress

More young does from my many litters in an attempt to revive my fawn line:

The last photo features the mom of the others; no, not pregnant, just carrying a very, very wide load in the rear.


----------



## moustress

These half wild girls are not very likely to be bred. their mom is a pied cinnamon. they are about seven weeks old now. They are pretty tame for half wild.


----------



## moustress

This young mousie is only three weeks old. She's a blue agouti tricolor, and she's a good example of what I consider to be the ideal head shape, with a curving of the cheeks and a slightly poofy muzzle, with the nose just kind of hanging out off the end of it. This girlie has really pretty ears too.


----------



## Autumn2005

moustress said:


>


oh I just love this little girl!!!


----------



## moustress

Glad you like her...where did you pull that from? I have a couple of nice cinnamon mousies from my latest few rounds of breeding.

Don't you like the little girl I posted most recently?


----------



## Autumn2005

pulled it from page 16 I think. I love all your meecies!


----------



## moustress

Here's a young doe I showed some time back as an 'oddity'.


----------



## MoonfallTheFox

Oh my gosh, you have lovely mice. <3 I looked through the whole thread.


----------



## tinyhartmouseries

Gosh I still want that oddity---


----------



## moustress

Thanks, guys. She gets prettier and prettier with each passing week.


----------



## Autumn2005

Is she a black roan? Broken spotted? She does look beautiful!


----------



## moustress

I;m not sure of the genetics, except that there is tri in her. She might be roan or merle, but I suspect it's a faux roan or merle caused by the tri genes. I'm not going to try to breed either roan or merle, in any case, but she's a little lovely thing.


----------



## jadeguppy

Are you going to try to figure out her genetics?


----------



## moustress

As I've said, I think it's probably just a form of splashed marking; guess I wasn't that specific before, but I think that the tricolors and splashed mousies can show a number of forms that simulate breeds of mousies without actually having that gene in the whole. The explanation I'd give is long winded and has been repeated so many times....and has to do with my belief that tricolors and splashed mousies are caused by transgeneticism, which involves someone adding or changing the genetics in a laboratory.

I've had a number of mousies with this kind of roanish/merlelike appearance, all from tri/splashed litters...almost all my meeces 'carry' those genes, and none of them have ever seen a roan or merle. So....I think it's just something that is occurring because the gears of the altered genes are doing that sort of thing now, and when the gears shift again it'll go away. My view of things includes a piece that involves the added genes 'shifting',; giving different forts of markings with successive generations. There are other phenomena as well, like a gear shift that brings out the 'shaker' characteristic that predisposes meeces to seizure disorders. Ruby eyes are also part of the complex, and it appears that odd-eyes are part of that as well.

I know, it's a funny little corner of reality, but it amuses me and annoys Roland, so what other excuse do I need?


----------



## Shadowrunner

She is adorable.
I'm trying for a degree in molecular biology, so this is really fascinating to look at ^ ^
I love how many outcomes occur from the same sat of genes. It's quite amazing when you think about it.


----------



## moustress

Cleaning out a tank of young does, had the camera handy, so here you go as they are moved back into their home:


----------



## Autumn2005

Gorgeous as always. Just curious, are the doe(s) in the 2nd and 3rd pics chocolate or agouti? I thought chocolate by the first one, but the second almost seemed to have a bit of ticking where the light catches her....


----------



## moustress

The second (and slightly out of focus) is satin chocolate, the third is satin agouti.

I'm tickled by the first one, the argente doe. she is short haired curly, causing the near stripe to look wavy. I call her Ripple.


----------



## MoonfallTheFox

I wish someone would breed more of that oddity mouse. She's stunning, reminds me of a silver platinum fox. /wouldkilltohaveher

The little agouti satin is so shiny! I love the color depth. All of those does look very healthy and happy.

And, that little BEW looks like a pearl or something, almost transluscent fur.


----------



## moustress

Thanks!  I promised little Oddity to tinyhartmouseries, if we could only find a way to get meees delivered like we did in April, when a breeder with an independent trucker for a spouse sent out meeces, delivered and picked up from other breeders all over the place. I have others like her in different colors; argent, red, used to have some like that in chocolate a year or so back....


----------



## jadeguppy

Having a trucker willing to help us all out would be wonderful! The closest breeder to me is 8+ hours away if memory serves.


----------



## MoonfallTheFox

Hart. Make more. Pleasepleaseplease. Then give me some. PLEASE. /pathetic

I would love that. I don't know if there are breeders there but next summer I might be in montana, assuming mother allows me to go on a road trip with my boyfriend. Maybe I could snatch a mouse or two there.

I am just so rediculously jealous of all these beautiful mice. I want to win the lottery, so I can fly around the country and take on breeder mice, whether that be culls or otherwise, and then afford to take care of them all properly. (vet trips. AH!)


----------



## moustress

It's frustrating having to make do with what you can find at petstores. You are lucky if you even find anything that isn't PEW or agouti, and they are usually small and inbred. I just got really lucky way back when I started and got some nice big meeces in good colors. And later I got a few show stock from the West Coast. My tris came from NYC via Rodentfest in Pennsylvania. I'd love to go to Rodentfest someday, but that's about 900 miles.


----------



## MoonfallTheFox

I love my pet store mice, and ours get a surprising variety of mice, I even saw what was either diluted tricolors, merles, or splashed. They had two colors (creamy gold and dark brown) on white. Not enough white, IMO. They were FEEDERS. I could have died.

We also get brokens, we had a lavender too, and we get blacks once in a while. Agouti is rare around here and the one I have is stunning for a pet shopper, he isn't umbrous that I can see and has very even, deep mahogany colour with autumn gold ticking in it. Travelling around to all of the local shops in one day is a very colorful experience. Heck, I have a brindle who was sold for snake dinner (you can't really see the stripes though. Just one, and it's very dull. Faint lines elsewhere also.). I feel very lucky that I have what colors I have.

But, I am in love with the huge, healthy typey mice others have. I want satins, and angoras and long hairs and striking black and white mice with blazes and roans and tricolors and black brindles with orange stripes (anubis has one. WANT.). I want to get all color crazy over here.

Totally unrealistic of me and my pet store mice are of course very well loved, and always will be. Some day I will get ahold of a handsome breeder buck. I will, I swear it. And he will be spoiled until he doesn't know WHAT to do.

Sorry to hijack the thread. :3


----------



## moustress

Young tricolor does:


----------



## MoonfallTheFox

I love how dark the colors are!


----------



## moustress

Thanks. I really like the rich beige on these too, as well as the chocolate. They are really quadcolors with beige, chocolate and black.


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## moustress

This big old wuzzie is Coyote. He earned the name by concealing his jewels long enough to impregnate a sister; it was from that litter that Nance, my blue tricolor doe, comes from. He's such a laid back boy; being such a furball makes him especially nice to handle. He's an agouti tricolor or blue agouti tricolor....it's a little hard to figure with all the fur....does that spot on his side in the first pic look bluish to you?

I was looking through this thread and I guess I'm not surprised to see that this is the third time he's been featured; I like him a LOT!


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## moustress

I was inspired by some asking about a big fat mousie. the first pic is one of the three red self boys that came from an oopsie litter. They were the best accident that ever happened, as all three survived the heater incident, and thus were available to help me recover my fawns, as their mother was fawn. The other two are virtually identical to this one shown in the first pic. The greasiness around the shoulders is from a mite treatment.



These are short haired curly does; the dark brindle is the mama, who came in the mousie truck.


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## moustress

*bump*


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## Gill

It's a good thing you are on the other side of the Pond, otherwise you might find that Coyote missing one dark night. I'm breeding longhairs, and he would be perfect.


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## moustress

Thanks!


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## Emfa Mouse

What lovely mice!! Coyote looks divine!


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## SarahC

some unique individuals moustress,just like you and we wouldn't want it any different.Merry Christmas.


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## moustress

This group of does include four of the does that produced fawn babies for me. The fifth is, I believe, a splashed fawn with just a wee streak of color on her behind. she'd have been bred already, but it's possible she's a lightly marked argente....I tend to think that she's fawn, as I don't think argente would dilute so extensively...

And one of the does in this tank is noticeably sick, loosing hair on her face, and is now in a separate tank being treated. These are the biggest and best group of girls I have, and I'm not going to let that one go without a fight.











The sick one is in the bottom left hand corner of this last pic, and i can see she has lost some fur on the back as well...looks like some kind of skin condition, so she goes on a wheat free diet.


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## SarahY

Some of those pretty orange-and-whites look a bit Dutch!


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## moustress

Yes, I had noted that as well. I bet you find it a bit galling to see something plausibly Dutch show up by accident! 

They occur pretty frequently, actually, in my mousery. The one in this batch is the closest to show standard I've ever seen, and she's one of my typier mousies too, thanks to the recessive yellow doe I got with the tricolours I got four and a half years ago. I love the face flash, and sometimes it just does that Dutch face thing, and every now and then it does the saddle with nothing between the head and butt...more often, though, it's just pied. Yup. As i said before though, you have to do a LOT of litters to get a couple that are close to what you want, and I'm just not interested in showing so there's no reason for me to devote that much time and energy to it.

ps don't take it as a criticism, but I think breeding specific markings for show is just plain WEIRD!!! (in my family when someone calls you weird you smile and say, 'Thank you for noticing!'  ) I feel much the same way about the standards for tris. It's like being presented with a cornucopia of delicious tropical fruit and tasting and enjoying only one kind.


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## SarahY

> I bet you find it a bit galling to see something plausibly Dutch show up by accident!


Not at all, Dutch are only piebalds. Some of the 'Dutch' in my litters you wouldn't look twice at in a pet shop :lol: Such is the nature of breeding them, they are a frustrating variety indeed! 



> ps don't take it as a criticism, but I think breeding specific markings for show is just plain WEIRD!!! (in my family when someone calls you weird you smile and say, 'Thank you for noticing!' ) I feel much the same way about the standards for tris. It's like being presented with a cornucopia of delicious tropical fruit and tasting and enjoying only one kind.


We just want different things, that's all  I want to show mice, I wouldn't keep them otherwise, and you can't show without meeting some kind of standard. I like having something to strive for, I would get bored very quickly without that.


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## Cait

The hair loss could be ringworm - worth considering if you haven't already, with OTC treatments available.


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## moustress

Yes, I had thought so myself. I've had a couple of cases in that general shelf area, the tank right below them, those two girls are this in quarantine in the same room this tank was moved to. The other ones affected are recovering nicely, with their hair grown back in. I odn't know if the doe shown here is gong to make it though. It's much harder to treat topically when it's on the face like this. She may have to be pts. The rest of the girls appear to be fine, but I might treat them presumptively. They're good looking does and I'd hate to have to put them all down, especially the one I think is a splashed fawn.

Looking at the photos, there appears to be one other doe that had the beginnings of this too, dangitall! Sometimes one sees things like this more clearly when it's a photo blown up to full screen size. *gah!*


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## moustress

Shiny standard red doe!


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## SarahC

Do you have an equivalent or access to this moustress,you mix it with water and can spray or dip the whole mouse to kill fungal infections.The mice will overcome it eventually on their own but when you are a breeder it keeps recurring in the new stock and becomes a real aggravation.This product lasts ages and does many,many mice.

http://www.google.co.uk/aclk?sa=l&ai=CQ ... verol%7Cpm:


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## moustress

Here are some adult does from a few different litters. They are young adults who show just what kind of recessives show up when you breed back to the sire. I was aiming to extract the fawns I used to have, and succeeded, but never expected to see anything like what looks like roan. Those girls have the light belly to go with the top, and just a wee touch of white marking on the belly.

At least I've learned to take pix AFTER changing the bedding; the girls are probably looking for something that smells like home in their freshly cleaned tank.


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## jadeguppy

THose are some interesting color mixes.


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## moustress

The roans are probably agouti based; they have a touch of yellow and brown, and in the satin that is an interesting look, for sure. then there are the tris; no outstanding, but there's a pied agouti/cinnamon with the colors fading together, and a pied BE silver/lilac tri that is more like splashed in the colored portions, a pied agouti/chinchilla, a pied overheated argente (one of my typical weird argentes), and OH, let's not forget the lovely pied himilayan tri who has such bright red eyes.

Sometimes words fail me when describing all the tri/splashed variations.

It took them about a half an hour to reduce that piece of dried caraway rye to nothing. It was was hard enough to use as a hockey puck.


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## MoonfallTheFox

Those are really pretty mice, random recessives or no. <3


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## moustress

Thankya kindly.


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## moustress

ere's one of my favorites boys; Soul Man. He's an adult satin pied blue agouti, and is so affectionate. I think his ears are a bit weird, very widely set and facing downward. He loves getting under my collar and sometimes climbs my bandana to the top of my head. You can see that he has very soulful eyes and a multiply kinked tail.







These are adult long haired does of various colors and markings. They are about 7 months old. I'm trying to decide which to breed. The blue is nice, I think.


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## jadeguppy

Soul man's ears look similar to a dumbo rat's setting.


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## moustress

JG: That's what I thought, too!

I took some new pix of Tracker, my #1 tricolor stud. He's getting on a bit, and starting to show his age in the thinning of the hair around his eyes, but he's been given a new partner after a couple of weeks rest from the two does he'd been in with for a LONG time with no results. He's an affectionate old thing, both with me and with his mates and babies.









I call this one Cornucopia. Big girl; diluted brindle, possibly tri or splashed. Don't quite know what to think of her, except she's pretty and pretty fat!


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## moustress

It's been awhile since I posted in here.

First, a young agouti tri buck, about 2 1/2 months old.



Here's one of my mature does who is waiting to be Tracker''s next mate. She's a pied black and white satin from a litter that included tricolors. He's a fairly big boy, but I think she's bigger than he is!


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## Autumn2005

Lovely mice... is that agouti buck a tri-color? And I just ADORE that doe... I know you've said before, but are English mice crossed into your lines? I know you don't like all of the English qualities, but I was just wondering if you got those lovely mice from pure American lines, or is English mixed in there?


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## moustress

Autumn2005: Thanks for flagging that; I left out the word 'tri' in error; that was sort of the point of too!  I've had agouti tris before, but this one has good contrast between the agouti patches and the diluted patches.

Yes, there have been English mousies incorporated into my stock. That's where the wide ear stance and some of the size you occasionally see came from. I was lucky, early on, and got some meeces from a pet store that were of considerable size as well. I can't vouch for their lineage.


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## moustress

I've shown these before, but I enjoy them so much, I thought I'd share them again. I used one of the short haired curly blue does for breeding; I never purposefully bred a curly mousie before; these are so friendly and healthy that I could see no reason not to breed one of them.


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## Laigaie

What all is going on with that brindley-orange poofball? He looks awesome!


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## moustress

:lol: Both of those long haired curly brindles are way over the top, aren't they! As if they need all that fur on top of the fatness.


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## Laigaie

Oh! That's two different mice! I hadn't noticed that one was darker than the other. Seriously over the top! They're almost like longhaired curly guinea pigs in shape, because they have no legs!


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## moustress

A few of my misc. boyz.


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## moustress

Here are some adult does that came by the way as I extracting the recessives needed to restore my fawn line. 
satin pied black [
url=http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/32/funmousies001.jpg/]







[/url]

same as above


splashed argente? or fawn?


same as above


pied argente


pied black


cream splashed


pied red


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## Shadowrunner

All of them are super cute and large compared to my mice.

The curly blue mouse from a previous post is friggin adorable.


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## moustress

SR: Thanks! I thought that blue girlie was cute enough that she was bred; she's mother of the curlies in the litters that were supposed to be all blue and blue tri/splashed.


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## Laigaie

I still really like the paler splashed mice. I know the darker splashes are more striking, but there's something about the subtlety of the argente/fawn splashed doe you've got. It's very... feminine? delicate? sophisticated?


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## moustress

L: I like the lighter colored tris and splashed a lot too; one of the meeces in the 'mystery' litters is a satin splashed champagne; posted already in another thread..here she is again...I just plain love the looks of her.


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## moustress

I'm still fascinatd by this splashed young champagne doe. The other is from the same litter and both of these are from the litters off the roanish/merlish meeces that I think are tricolors or splashed or a little of both. I gues they'd be tricolors with marbling in the colored patches...again, I have to wait until they are all grown to see what's going on there.


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## moustress

Here are couple of young adult does from my blue agouti/blue litters.

I thought doe #1 was really kinda ugly when she was little, but now that she's full grown, I think she's impressive.

#1


#1


#1


And doe number two is the only nice clear blue tricolor from those two litters:

#2


#2


#2


I know some of you won't see the blue; it seems like blue is the hardest color to photograph. She's amazingly silver, lilac and very dark blue.


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## candycorn

Those first ones definatly look more merle than tricolor to me..but it's probably so close it's hard to tell by just the mouse alone. But either way they are incredibly beautiful! 
I particularly like this one...


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## moustress

I am fascinated by the way the colors in those tri/merle/roan change and develop. It's definitely acting like roan in that the contrast between the colors and the deepness of solid patches grow with the mousie. The mixing of the white hairs in those meeces fades in part and the fur gets lighter or darker until you can see no mixing...it's very weird and endlessly thought-provoking.


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## moustress

Post moved to breeding plans.


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## moustress

Here's the whole group of agouti based tricolors; I hadn't realized I posted solo pix of a couple of these, but I had to take the opportunity to do the whole group as I was cleaning out.


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## moustress

Meet Ditzy, one of the oldest meeces in my mousery. She's a pied long haired agouti, about 2 years old. She used to be quite wide, but has slimmed down a lot in the last half year. She had an ear problem that her tankmates were aggravating by trying to groom it away, and when she was well, they wouldn't accept her back into the group. I'm going to set her up with some young does one of these days soon, but for the time being, she is my fave playmate.

She's much bolder and interactive than just about any other doe I've had. She scampers up my arm, back down, loves to play games with hands. In her tank, she runs away and then turns around, raises her head and ogles and sniffs, then comes back to sniff The Hand. She doesn't crawl onto my hand, but she does love to play. She has a lot of attitude, just like me!


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## Tikmio

Ditzy is adorable! Wow, very old.


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## moustress

Ditzy is sis to Ferguson; they both survived the incident a year and a half ago, and she gave me one of the litters in the process of recovering the genes for my fawn meeces. Ferguson was pts s few months ago, as he had an ear problem too, and then he just lost condition lost, weight. He had been my best ever shoulder mousie. Ditz is too restless for that; she wants to go down my back and off to the races.

I've been very reluctant to pts any of the ones that survived the accident. There are probably about 10 or 12 of those left, and they all get a little special attention from me. I still cringe when I think about that night...


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## moustress

It's been way too long since I pt up some pix of random meeces that I have. hese were sired by Teddy, a curly LH that maybe a LH fuzzy hairless. His fur clumpy it tight balls with bare skin showing and he produced the fuzzy hairless shown here. this mousies had no hair whatsoever for the first three or four months after it was born, but I was so relieved to see it grow even this sparse a coat. The black one is satin, the fuzzball is just cute.


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## moustress

Arghh! It's been a month since I posted in here!

These are the boys from the same litter as my last post. The shaded (?) Siamese had been light overall, but in the last month or two the coat on the body has been changing, getting darker at the tips unevenly and changing in that respect even as I watch, it seems. Teddy made some interesting babies. There is the splashed gene running in this line, so maybe that's what's causing the weird changes on the one with the points.

Teddy had tightly curled long hair that rolled into little clumps with bare skin showing through all over. I've been wondering if that's a manifestation of the fuzzy genes that showed up in the one doe from this litter in the previous post.


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## Serena

very pretty- as always 
I'm a little jealous of your collection ^^

the shaded one looks like a colourpoint beige to me. The eyes look black. Siamese usually have a little lighter/more reddish eyes.


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## WoodWitch

Loving the orange fur balls! :love1


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## moustress

These guys are half brothers to the fuzzballs in the two previous posts. I bred Teddy, the LH curly (fuzzy?) to one of my tricolor does, and thus got this splashed buck (Ruffles) you see. I see he needed to have a drop of water wiped so his nose would dry. He tried to hide under the water bottle...his LH curly and LH brothers are also seen. I am always pleased to see what I made of the meeces that came via mousie train several years ago. (thanks, nuedai!  )

Here is Ruffles as a youngster:


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## moustress

Ms. Bigg is getting bigger by the day.


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## Miceandmore64

Awwh! Love those fuzzy orange things.
I think they would be a good kitchen mop (just joking  :$ )


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## moustress

Thanks!

Did you look at any more of the old photos in this thread? Sometimes I just sit and scroll through the five or so years worth of semi-random mousie photos.


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## Miceandmore64

I certainly will but I have to get ready for school. Had a outbreak of RI so haven't had much time on forum apart from gathering a bit more info


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## SarahC

Can't believe it's been 5 years.Mice are looking good .Jealous of the curly orange ones.


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## Miceandmore64

Sarah,
They are not called curly orange ones they are kitchen mops!


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