# My mice :)



## Ejh805 (Mar 17, 2013)

Hey everyone 

I just joined and would like to introduce all my ladies and their baby-daddy.
I am a feeder-breeder but treat all my mice as pets.

This is Gerald, my broken recessive yellow male. He is the father of all of my girls litters.
He is actually a much deeper, glossier ginger color than the picture shows.









All my ladies look like this girl here, Molly. There are three of these chocolate girls.









I also had another girl, Casper, pass away recently. She was an albino, or REW. I'm not sure since she was just a pet store mouse and I had no way to track her lines. Unfortunately, I do not have a picture of her.

This is Molly, Marigold, and Mitzys combined first litters, which came near middle of January. I have adopted out the boys that could find homes. The others were humanely euthanized and frozen for food use with my herps.
The girls from this litter with friendly personalities and without defect are still living with me and are growing beautifully.








(Somehow a rex baby showed up? He was a peanut and didn't make it but I hope the rex shows up again eventually)

About a week ago, all the ladies gave birth again, including Casper. I previously thought she would never have pups because she was housed with Gerald for almost a month and failed to conceive. She was an amazing nanny to the other ladies babies, but enjoyed biting me any time my hand was near. I kept her for her amazing mothering skills and just let her be, not taking her out to play like the others.
She passed just a couple days ago so the other three girls have taken charge of caring for her orphaned litter.

This is the 4 girls litters as a group. Caspers were older so they are quite a bit larger than the others. As you can tell, the size is smaller than the last. I left Gerald in the tank with the girls for a little bit too long  oh well, I learned from my mistake. After these, they will be getting a much deserved rest.









This is Caspers litter on by itself.
There are two bubs that are identical which I thought would turn out white like mom. They are starting to look a pale creamy silver. I'm excited to see how it will turn out.









Thanks for looking 
-Emily


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## ThatCertainGlow (Jun 23, 2012)

I tried this morning, and now at lunch to get the pictures to load, even individually, but getting time out errors from tinypic. Anyone else able to view them?

-Zanne

*Edit* I can see them all this morning, for whatever reason.


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## DaisyTailsMousery (Nov 8, 2012)

I think the "chocolate" you are referring to is actually agouti


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## Ejh805 (Mar 17, 2013)

Zanne-

I'm able to view them both on my desk top and my phone. I'm not sure what the problem could be 

And Daisy,

I'm 100% she isn't agouti 
Her fur doesn't have any of the "barred" coloration like other agouti mice I've seen.
She isn't quite that dark in real life. The lighting in the room makes her look considerably darker. She's definitely a solid (self?) color.


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## ThatCertainGlow (Jun 23, 2012)

Well, I suppose that picture is hard to tell (she looks agouti to me too), but for sure you have many agouti babies, so you would easily be able to compare better in person.  By the way, 'albino', or more accurately PEW(most don't refer to red eyes, even if the pink is more red), are not usually actual albino. As you might be aware of now. Which is why they are called simply 'pink eyed white' (PEW).

That coloring is like a coat of white paint over whatever they really are. All you know about a PEW, with an un-known background, is that they have two recessive C dilute genes at work, because they are visibly white (c/c). The color they actually are, even eye color, is masked by the dilution. PEW's are not usually even carrying the pink-eyed gene, they just are visually so from the extensive dilution. The eye color, being black or pink eyed, changes everything about a baby's identification. No baby Casper produces could turn out like mom, unless your fellow is C/c (carrying the PEW dilute gene).

The only way there is a chance to get more (unless your main man has the recessive), is to mate a male child of Casper's, back to her. A baby needs two copies of a recessive gene, to show it. One from mom, and one from dad. However, each first generation litter, like the one you have, all of the babies should have a recessive copy (C/c).

Mated with mom, you have a 25%, or one out of four, chance (in theory) of getting PEW's (c/c). It doesn't always work out that neatly. You should get some, though, in a reasonable size litter. 50% should also be carriers (C/c), with 25% being C/C (not a carrier). Eye color can be determined on day one. I have trouble with it in pictures, after the fur comes in, because lighting can shade or wash out the area, making eye slits appear the wrong color. Pink eyed carriers (P/p) can be found in a similar way, with any baby showing up who is pink eyed, but not PEW. Once you have another PEW, you can mate two together, and reliably get more PEW's. Both parents will have two copies of the recessive version to pass on.

Obviously if you start breeding like that you must be careful to concentrate on health. There will be less and less genetic diversity, helping to mask health problems, which would affect their quality of life. Most pet store mice are not known for getting through that sort of un-masking very well. So, you might not want to do that with these particular mice. Being a breeder for food, however, you might be fine taking a short stroll that way; provided you don't adopt out any from such litters. That's just my personal thoughts on the matter though.

Recessive genes are written in the lowercase, to indicate a lack of dominance. Thought I'd add that in case you didn't already know. You probably have picked up over half, to all, of this info by now, from reading threads here, so sorry if I'm going on about stuff you already know. 

I just recently realized, as a US breeder, that it is essential to learn all this; and it helps me to try to write it out. (Meaning: please someone correct me, if I veered off course somewhere.)

-Zanne


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## Ejh805 (Mar 17, 2013)

There are quite a few agouti babies for sure  but there are also many that lack any kind of banding or barring on the shafts of hair that make up their fur. I'm guessing my trio are probably a very poor chocolate. They have no barring either, but the color isn't super rich like some I've seen on here. More like a milk-chocolate color, if that makes sense lol.

As for PEWs, they are not a favorite color of mine. Casper was picked up as a feeder from a pet store that my snake refused. Winter fast and all...I'm not looking to get any more PEWs, I'm just curious as to what her babies could turn out like. There are two in particular that are kind of vexing to me. They're about the same shade as a not-quite-completely-bleached bone. Here are a couple pics where the babies have more fur than the previous pic.


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## ThatCertainGlow (Jun 23, 2012)

If I'm not mistaken, that color name is not, er, set in stone, so going to bow out, and let someone else name that. I only realized it would be good to look up a bit about the genetics involved with how PEW is inherited, even though it's not a color/eye combo I'm really excited about in it's basic form either. Thankfully, the genes look pretty normal.

US mice carry so many recessives. Especially PEW. Often even with breeders, because one person is working on something, from these mice, but not breeding for them. The next person, with some of those mice, is working on something else, and yet again, not breeding for that color/coat/lack of coat/etc. So the mice are still carrying all the previous background. It's crazy.


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## Ejh805 (Mar 17, 2013)

I do appreciate your insight into the genetics of PEW.
I knew that it was basically a "whitewash" over the true color of the mouse, but I wasn't aware that it isn't true albino 

I went home on my lunch break (I'm at work. Shame on me lol.), and checked on the babies again. The little bone-white male is super glossy, and the female is normal looking. So, is it safe to assume that the male is satin like his sire? I'm considering holding onto him and possibly crossing him back to his sister once they are older and their colors have come in more completely. These photos just don't do them justice.


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## ThatCertainGlow (Jun 23, 2012)

If he stays super glossy, and his teeth are white or clear (not yellow), then not only is he satin, but the mother is a carrier. So, you could just cross him to his mother. Satin (s^a/s^a), another recessive, but one that makes me universally happy.  Can't think of a color I don't personally like this coat on. (Some colors do not exhibit to standard well, with the darkening/deepening of satin.)

Is that top photo on hair?


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## Seafolly (Mar 13, 2012)

They might change as they develop. Satin makes colour ID really difficult I hate to say. He does look bone (or cream, depending on what colour lingo you prefer) but I've seen those mice turn into a champagne colour. They're far closer to bone than my actual bone babies are, haha!


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## Ejh805 (Mar 17, 2013)

ThatCertainGlow said:


> If he stays super glossy, and his teeth are white or clear (not yellow), then not only is he satin, but the mother is a carrier. So, you could just cross him to his mother. Satin (s^a/s^a), another recessive, but one that makes me universally happy.  Can't think of a color I don't personally like this coat on. (Some colors do not exhibit to standard well, with the darkening/deepening of satin.)
> 
> Is that top photo on hair?


Can I check his teeth now or do I need to wait til he's older?
And sadly Casper passed about a week after having her babies. I honestly think she was kind of old. I would have loved to have had the chance to cross her to him, but this was her first and only litter while she was with me.

I'm going to get a tank set up so that I can keep him and figure out what's going on with these genes instead of giving him away like I do with my other "pretty" bucks lol.

And no, its not hair. Haha  I thought someone would ask that. I do felting. It's dyed wool


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## Ejh805 (Mar 17, 2013)

Seafolly said:


> They might change as they develop. Satin makes colour ID really difficult I hate to say. He does look bone (or cream, depending on what colour lingo you prefer) but I've seen those mice turn into a champagne colour. They're far closer to bone than my actual bone babies are, haha!


I think I like the term "Bone" more. It's a very spot-on name for what they look like in person. I'm hoping that if the colors do change that it isn't drastic.

If I were to cross this buck and doe, being siblings from a PEW mother, would the babies all or majority be PEW?


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## ThatCertainGlow (Jun 23, 2012)

I think you can check his teeth now? I admit to never trying it at that age. I rarely checked, and only needed to on some of my blacks, which I did at about two weeks.

Ah! The hair of sheep. 

Ack! I wrote mom, before (a few different times!) but earlier I gave the inheritance of siblings.


ThatCertainGlow said:


> Mated with mom, you have a 25%, or one out of four, chance (in theory) of getting PEW's (c/c). It doesn't always work out that neatly. You should get some, though, in a reasonable size litter. 50% should also be carriers (C/c), with 25% being C/C (not a carrier).


 :roll: (NOPE. Not mom. Sibling!)

I think my brain kept wanting to pair a son to mom, for better genetic diversity, even though I did read you stating she had recently pasted.  Sorry about that.


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## Ejh805 (Mar 17, 2013)

So I checked them again. And I'm thinking the girly may just be developing a little slower than the boy. It looks like she may be satin as well. She is also a slighty darker shade than him. What little bit of teeth they do have at this point is white. Ill check again around when their eyes open to be sure


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## Ejh805 (Mar 17, 2013)




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