# A^vy(???) from A^y/a X A^y/a! O.O



## love2read (Aug 30, 2011)

I've got a bit of a mystery on my hands and since he's bred down from UK Red lines I figured I'd see if any of you guys have ever had this happen before...

Mom and dad are both Red(A^vy/a)/Merle Carriers. They're from a highly-inbred line that's descended multiple generations down from an original pairing of my UK Red buck(pure A^y/A, nothing else) X Pied Black Merle Rex doe(no Brindle in the lines)/carried Umbrous.

I've only bred Rex X Red from that original pairing and at this point all I get from them are Red and Chocolate babies in self, Umbrous, and Merle.

Here's my Chocolate-based Umbrous Red Merle Brindle(?!) boy from that line:


















And before anyone asks, no, there's no chance that I got the mice mixed up.


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## PPVallhunds (Jul 26, 2010)

We don't have that brindle in the UK so it's come from the American blood, so I would guess the Pied Black Merle Rex May have actually been a brindle but not seen due to the pied, only place it could have come from, unless you or someone else have added another American mouse to the reds line at some point, so one of your red pair is Ay/Avy


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## love2read (Aug 30, 2011)

Personally, I don't think it's actually Avy, I think something else might be at play.

I got the buck directly from the UK and bred the original pairing myself and have been inbreeding the line ever since. I had also been breeding the line the Pied Black Rex Merle came for for over a year prior to that and there was absolutely no Brindle in the line when I bred it and none in the 6+ generations of lineage my original mice from that line came with. :/ That is wherein lies the mystery of it all!


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## PPVallhunds (Jul 26, 2010)

It certainly looks brindle and could not have come from the UK so only place it could have come from is the American line or some sort of spontaneous mutation. Do you have a pic of the original American mouse or mice you added to the reds?
From what I've read on finnmoise they think dominant red is dominant over brindle so once it got into the red line it could stay hidden under the red


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## YuukikoOgawa (Jul 26, 2013)

Maybe there was an undermarked brindle somewhere in the American line?

It seems to happen fairly often, actually, and they can be really hard to be sure of.

I've got one right now, a doe who is supposed to be recessive yellow but whose dam and granddam were both brindles. She has some of that brindle chubbiness, and if you look really closely at her back you can sometimes make out these really pale, almost bluish-white stripes. I don't have a very good picture of that part of her at the moment, otherwise I would post it.


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## love2read (Aug 30, 2011)

Update: he went on to produce Reds, Sables, and some Splash babies, but never any Brindles. Nor did I get any other Brindles from the line after that. So, I wonder if he was Splash and the Splash was somehow effecting the way the Umbrous gene showed on the boy? I've had Black Merles who were Splash and the Splash effected the way the Merle gene expressed on the mice, making them look marbled instead of patched. Even though you can't see Splash on a non-diluted mouse, it's not far-fetched to think that it can still effect how a mouse looks.

Otherwise, he was just a good ol Chimera. Definitely not a Brindle though.


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## SarahY (Nov 6, 2008)

Did he always look like that? If not, I'd say it was a very beautiful moult pattern, if so I'd say chimera; especially as he never produced mice like himself. All of the brindles I know of are dominant genes so you'd have seen brindles for sure in the line before and after he turned up.

Did you ever breed a daughter back to him?


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## love2read (Aug 30, 2011)

Yes, he looked like that from the very beginning.

I never bothered breeding him to his daughters. Just bred him back to mom and a couple of his sisters. When nothing came of it I took him out of breeding since he wasn't as typey as my other Red Merle bucks and I didn't want Splash in the line.


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## YuukikoOgawa (Jul 26, 2013)

Yeah, if he were brindle chances are he would have produced at least one offspring with similar markings no matter who he was paired with. That's how I confirmed my odd doe as a brindle: bred her to my typiest buck (himalayan splashed) and out popped at least three obvious brindles, and one little chocolate boy. Then the fun part was figuring out what shade of brindle she was...


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## Laigaie (Mar 7, 2011)

Given that he produced reds when put to non-red does (an important distinction. ), I'd assume you're looking at an odd Ay/A mosaic, which is thus a one-off mouse. Too bad, too!


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## love2read (Aug 30, 2011)

I only bred him to Reds Laigaie and all of the Reds he was paired to were Ay/a b/b. This line is my Red Merle line and only ever produces self or Merle Red, Umbrous Red, Chocolate, and the occasional Marten/Marten Sable(don't ask how cch/cch got into the line...sneaky little gene!) and Pied. I don't ever breed the line out, I've strictly been inbreeding them for multiple generations going on over 2 years now. No surprises left in the line, lol.


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