# Slowly improving :)



## Lyra (Mar 1, 2013)

I've bred mice some time ago, then sold them all and got a long break, concentrating on my rats. After all this time, I really regret doing that - they didn't have the best type, but I think I did quite well with piebald markings, and all of them were calm and friendly. I guess I would have them in great type and size by now, if I've kept even few of them... Anyway! About year ago, I've got myself new mice - I've searched for them anywhere I went, and I'm quite pleased with the results. By the way, only 1 of them was bought in the town I live, others came from different places, the furthest one for now being 500 km (~310 miles) away. It might seem normal to some, but as I don't have a car it took me some time to organise their trip 

Let me introduce my favourites 

My favourite buck, from pet shop, though breed by it's owner as a hobby. I'm not interested in breeding piebalds anymore, so I try to breed him with self does only. I have a strange feeling someday I will curse the sight of perfectly coloured piebald does in my litters, but on the other hand, he's the sweetest buck I've ever seen. He's very social and accepts every mouse I introduce to him, so when he's not with the females, I keep him with young bucks that were just weaned. I think he's addicted to grooming others. Aside from that, he's quite big comparing to my other mice, and has great eyes that I love. The problem is, only does seem to inherit that trait after him...
Doing silly faces:

















A little skittish, but nosy black tan doe. She's from a pet shop, but I think that someone just left her there, as she was the biggest and the only non-pew in that cage. She's genetically banded, although you can't see that at first sight - the only white marking is the "heart" on her belly. Checked and proved after her last litter with my piebald buck. Luckily, not carrying piebald gene  She's huge compared to others, even bigger than my buck. Quite nice eyes, ears and overall type. Of course still needs improvement, and I can't wait for her pups to get bigger (were born 8.05) 
She was terrified when I've put her on the glass, so I took very few photos, and this is the only one that looks ok:









Satin red, a dream came true - a really, really lazy buck. I've his sister too, a mirror image of him. They are the first mice I have that seem to be content doing nothing more that eating, building nests and eating. No escaping, no upside-down hanging from the wired cage lids, no jumping. At first I thought they were sick, but few weeks, one vet and parasites treatments after, they are the same they were  I quite like their ears, but they were bought mostly for the satin gene really. The eyes are tiny, though...









Girl bred by me, a/at c^ch/c S/s, I think  The best doe produced in my current litters, big, with great eyes and quite good ears. Friendly, nosy and sweet.
She's currently with her Aw/a c^ch/c S/s brother - I'm hoping for some chinchillas in their litter. Her father was my piebald buck, and mother a white bellied agouti. I'm really glad she got her type after father - the mum is sweet and big, but her type is much worse than most pet shop mice I've seen (from feeder line, bred for big litters with big pups).
Trying to reach my fingers:









My goal is at the moment at/at c^ch/c^ch d/d - blue fox, preferably in satin. Never saw a chinchilla with my own eyes, so I'm wondering about them too 
I've just got a pregnant blue piebald tan doe from my mom (ha, she didn't know she was pregnant when she was buying her ), and I'm waiting for her litter to grow up a little and I'll be able to pick best babies for the blue gene. Black foxes are "in the making", as well are satins. 
I have been breeding piebalds for type only as a side project, but I'm not sure if they will be good enough to introduce them to my main project. It'll take me some time (and cages) to get to the goal, but I find it fascinating 
The only problem for me is red - I wasn't expecting to get red mice, as the breeder told me they were golden, so I was expecting argente. And the red's are sooo pretty, and sooo not good for achieving my goal, that I have no idea what to do with them 

I'm sorry that the pictures are so big - I have no idea why that happened, as I resized them in photobucked :?

And a picture of my old piebald, bred by me long ago:


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## Seafolly (Mar 13, 2012)

I too am car-less so getting mice 372 km away was a HUGE deal, haha.

The only thing I miss about piebald is the ability to tell them apart. 

The black doe's eyes remind me of a rat's! 

I have the same problem with RY. Tiny eyes. I'm still kicking myself for not breeding my HUGE eyed RY doe last year. Fail. But they sure are sweet. Love the last doe too!


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## TwitchingWhiskers (Feb 2, 2013)

Beautiful mice! Good luck with breeding them, and I am in love with your last doe!


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## ThatCertainGlow (Jun 23, 2012)

The pictures are not big at all on my screen.  If you think they were big when you posted them from photobucket, even after resizing, then there may be hope for me yet.  Having a time with the massive photobucket pics.

I too will be working toward blue foxes. Main initial problem being the cch, of course. Most varieties of mice I've never seen with my own eyes, either, and I also wonder about them.

I adore RY's, (and the fawn version), but I had to think carefully beforehand about the amount of cages/mice I was willing to manage. Apparently I can't do without varieties that do not combine. Again. :roll: Good luck with your decision on what to do with yours.

I despise traveling. (Only person I know who has been to England, and really would have just prefered to see someone else's travel photos, and hear their stories.) I'm heading to a place approx. 660 miles (over 1000 km) from home, to get mice. It's a big deal for me too, and totally not normal. LOL


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## Lyra (Mar 1, 2013)

I'm glad you like them 



> The only thing I miss about piebald is the ability to tell them apart.


That's so true... And sometimes they throw really interesting markings, but I find them too random for my taste 



> I have the same problem with RY. Tiny eyes. I'm still kicking myself for not breeding my HUGE eyed RY doe last year. Fail. But they sure are sweet.


I've read somewhere that red's have usually worse type than other varieties, not sure why and if it was about dominant or recessive gene, though. I'm not even sure if I'll try breeding that colour (they are Ay, I suspect) because I've heard a lot about their health problems and obesity and it scares me a little. As I need satin, I can just leave agouti/blacks, they seem like a safer option. Um, and blacks won't mess up my plans (breeding two different varieties may traumatise my boyfriend forever).



> The pictures are not big at all on my screen. If you think they were big when you posted them from photobucket, even after resizing, then there may be hope for me yet. Having a time with the massive photobucket pics.


I was resizing them like mad - I'm sure they looked bigger when I posted them! Evil thing, photobucket 



> I too will be working toward blue foxes. Main initial problem being the cch, of course. Most varieties of mice I've never seen with my own eyes, either, and I also wonder about them.
> 
> I adore RY's, (and the fawn version), but I had to think carefully beforehand about the amount of cages/mice I was willing to manage. Apparently I can't do without varieties that do not combine. Again. Good luck with your decision on what to do with yours.
> 
> I despise traveling. (Only person I know who has been to England, and really would have just prefered to see someone else's travel photos, and hear their stories.) I'm heading to a place approx. 660 miles (over 1000 km) from home, to get mice. It's a big deal for me too, and totally not normal. LOL


Great! I'd love to see your progress in breeding blue foxes 

Blues were the mice I've always wanted, and totally impossible for me to get my hands on. I gave up finally and was planning to breed chinchillas for awhile and imagine my surprise when after visiting dozens of pet shops and breeders my mum called me and was like: "You've told me you want a blue mouse, how do they look like exactly, are they anything like blue rats? Oh, because I'm looking at one now, would you like me to buy it for you?" 

About travelling... yeah, I hate it too. When I'm visiting my parents for holidays, it takes me 9 hours, and I travel by train, two buses, and a ferry. It's not that far, as I could make than distance in 4,5 hours if I had a car, but there are no direct trains... I'm getting motion sickness just by thinking about it.
What mice will you be bringing? I suspect they have to be really impressive to make you go that far after them


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## ThatCertainGlow (Jun 23, 2012)

If you found your 'red' mice anywhere that didn't involve someone importing them, you have recessive, and no health issues with breeding those. (Just to throw a wrench in your easy out...lol)

I'm going to collect my foundation mice.  Black, blue (well, one buck), and recessive yellow (RY). I'm also acquiring a few tans, and other improvers/builders (hopefully). So, first to get tan on blue, then hope to goodness the breeder is able to part with a cch gene, so I can then move on from there. LOL I doubt I'm going to be showing any pictures for a good bit.  I'll kept trying to take the photos though, so I might have a timeline like thing to share if I can ever learn how to photograph mice, and then actually get the pictures to post without eating the screen.

I'm making my life complicated with the RY's as well, as I'm planning to pink-eye (fawn) a section of them, along with angora fur, and satinizing. Depending on how showable those are, after all that, I may decide to 'peach' or 'apricot' a side line of them, because that is so lovely to my eye. Can't show that color as anything though.

A lot depending on that one blue buck. One of the mouse varieties I've not seen in person, but really good blue cats take my breath away. Funny thing, when I was a teen, I found out about blue mice. Had no idea that was basically grey (no internet created yet). So.. was just all daydreamy about a rich cobalt blue (!) mouse. :lol: Totally made sense to me that someone would be charging $50 for one of those! The laugh I had when I first saw pictures of blue mice...


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## Seafolly (Mar 13, 2012)

I can't decide between blue and RY either.  Blue really makes more sense for me. But RY is such a happy colour, haha. And every RY I've met is a sweetheart. Maybe they'd just be harder to downsize then. -_- But I should be able to get a semi-decent texel and both colours look amazing in texel.

My RY doe is actually pretty fat. :/ Her sisters are large but not round so...no idea what happened there.


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## Lyra (Mar 1, 2013)

Well, I'm not sure if mine are dominant or recessive - while I live in Europe, they can be from imports. It'll all crear up when agouti doe has her litter with the red buck, anyway  I'm going to have a hard time deciding whether I should try my hand in breeding reds or no... I'd love having a bunch of shiny, deep red mice (as this one http://hiiret.fi/pics/Npointoforigin1.jpg), but I'm really not sure if I can manage with the space... If it's dominant, it would be easier for me, as I could just keep a one red buck with a doe or two, and increase their numbers after the blue foxes would start to breed true. That's the theory, anyway :roll:



> My RY doe is actually pretty fat. :/ Her sisters are large but not round so...no idea what happened there.


Well, I have one agouti doe that's got really fat after having her first litter. She was really nice looking before, but doesn't seem to be getting slimmer, and it was a long time ago. I guess that some mice are just prone to obesity 



> I'm going to collect my foundation mice. Black, blue (well, one buck), and recessive yellow (RY). I'm also acquiring a few tans, and other improvers/builders (hopefully). So, first to get tan on blue, then hope to goodness the breeder is able to part with a cch gene, so I can then move on from there. LOL I doubt I'm going to be showing any pictures for a good bit. I'll kept trying to take the photos though, so I might have a timeline like thing to share if I can ever learn how to photograph mice, and then actually get the pictures to post without eating the screen.


I'd like to see your timeline photos when you reach your goal then  I love watching people's progress with breeding mice, it's amazing, especially if they start with breeding stock similar to mine - it gives me hope 



> Funny thing, when I was a teen, I found out about blue mice. Had no idea that was basically grey (no internet created yet). So.. was just all daydreamy about a rich cobalt blue (!) mouse. Totally made sense to me that someone would be charging $50 for one of those! The laugh I had when I first saw pictures of blue mice...


I had similar concept of them - I had a book about mice and there was a picture with gray, but still kind of bluish mouse. I was very disappointed when I checked all the pet shops (there were no breeders then, as it was around 10 years ago) and only mice that I've found there were albinos or black pied!


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## ThatCertainGlow (Jun 23, 2012)

Oh goodness! I'm sorry. I assumed you were in the US or Canada, because you had petstore or feeder derived mice, that you were trying to breed to better quality. :doh Well, depending on where you are in Europe, you might only have access to Ay, and RY might not even be in your country. (We have almost the reverse in the US and Canada, except for a few breeders who imported.)

I happen to think Ay is a valuable gene to preserve, but you may feel differently. They do require a bit more careful food choices and such, but I don't think it sounds that complicated, or horribly unhealthy. Have to agree with Seafolly, all the RY's I've known have been, and are, particularly sunny in disposition. No idea about the Ay's. I've not met one yet, although I should be doing so, later this month.


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## Seafolly (Mar 13, 2012)

The ones who imported are doing well with spreading the wealth.  Hoping to get some UK red in August if all goes well! I was curious about Ay personality too, haha, I will have to ask!


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## Lyra (Mar 1, 2013)

> Oh goodness! I'm sorry. I assumed you were in the US or Canada, because you had petstore or feeder derived mice, that you were trying to breed to better quality. Well, depending on where you are in Europe, you might only have access to Ay, and RY might not even be in your country. (We have almost the reverse in the US and Canada, except for a few breeders who imported.)


No problem  
There are fancy mice breeders in my country now, and two of theirs associations that hate each other... I just don't like their policy and rules, I'm afraid. All of my animals are taken good care of, and I respect them for being the wonderful creatures they are, and still I really don't like the idea of someone telling me what I can and can't do... I mean, the rulebook says that I can't breed mice without pedigree accepted by that association, can't borrow a buck from someone without their consent, can't sell mice to pet shops (and on the animal trade fairs? not sure how it's called in English, but it's a event every few days/weeks/months when all the people who sell things for animals or breed them meet - I don't do that myself, but I still don't like that regulation), can't inbreed or even linebreed, and definitely I can't cull (I'd like to see how would look my mice from the litter of 12 then). Oh, and following that, you can't be feeder breeder - and I give my culls to pacman frog = I'm evil and heartless. 
If I only could, I'd love to join some breeders association, as I do pedigrees and pick breeder pairs carefully anyway, but not on terms like this... I suspect not all of the associates there follow the rules dutifully, but I just would feel awful saying one thing and doing another  I could buy the mice from some fancy breeders and not telling them about what I intend to do with them (and I'm sure there are people like that), but that would be even worse and I just couldn't look at myself in the mirror then :/ 
So I plan to go the long road from pet shop mice to fancy, with the mice I can acquire, and then, when they are big, healthy and beautiful, I'm going to smirk at those people and proudly go my way 

I'd like to know how are other Ay mice - I'm wondering if I got an unusually lazy pair (in reality, I think they're angels, sooo quiet at night!), or it's normal for them


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## ThatCertainGlow (Jun 23, 2012)

When I first started searching the internet about mice, I was so discouraged by every mouse related site/forum I found. For whatever reason, it took years before this forum popped up in my searching. I knew I was not going to get along with the people who seemed to have a strange idea of how nature works. Or well, I don't really know what goes on in their head. I still am rather confused at the anti-breeding statements the breeders give out. Plus, the focus on what appears to be only letting 'spendy' or more than normally financially well off people breed rodents. Weird things, like a 'good' breeder has a costly website, not a free one, can't sell frozen culls to a reptile person, or specific brand name cages/food. What?!? :roll: The concepts behind that anti-breeding stance is even more upsetting to me.

Not really into the idea of captive snakes and other reptiles, on a personal level. (If I start hearing they are forming attachments to their owners, and the force feeding thing of so many stops, I would change my mind.) However, many people have them, or other carnivores, and they must eat. I do think it's a sad waste to just bury the dead, if they could have a use, first. So, I would not be able to tow the party line, and further spread that brand of discouragement. Nor would I be able to hide that thought process from anyone who I wanted to buy mice from. I wouldn't lie, and they would be shocked and appalled. Probably assume I had reptile, and was lying anyway.  Especially if they asked me my views on culling...

Almost thought I couldn't have mice again, because I refused to try starting over with the petstore mice I had seen. (I have a problem with many things about buying mice from pet stores, at least here in the US.) If I hadn't found this forum, I would still be sadly longing after mice.

I am interested in seeing how you come along with your breeding goals. That's one of the things I find very exciting to see.  One of my breeding goals is that I have mice that would interest another breeder, when I'm too old/infirm to continue. So, the ones I currently have from a breeder, who wasn't focusing on anything except cow markings (long story), would likely not meet that goal in time. Nor were they meant to.

Who knows, I could be sound minded (sort of) into my 90's, but I'm not banking on that. Nor my body working or even being inhabited by me. :lol: The mice I'm traveling for are, as far as I know, a number of steps closer to standards. Not close enough for exhibition, but a good number of years prior breeding before me, and possibly some 'type' shortcut imports in the past. I only hope I can do well by them in the years to come.

Not sure if this might be the case for you, but the mice I now have took months to settle in. They were so quiet at night that I kept checking on them. Their bedding was never rearranged, no usual crashing/banging sounds in the night. They slept, they ate, they drank, and walked around doing nothing. I almost took them to a vet, also. LOL Slowly they started owning their cages, rearranging things to their liking, tearing stuff up, and making the usual racket.  Have to admit I'd rather know they are fine, and active, then lying in bed straining to hear that they are ok.


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## NikiP (May 7, 2013)

> Not really into the idea of captive snakes and other reptiles, on a personal level. (If I start hearing they are forming attachments to their owners, and the force feeding thing of so many stops, I would change my mind.) However, many people have them, or other carnivores, and they must eat. I do think it's a sad waste to just bury the dead, if they could have a use, first. So, I would not be able to tow the party line, and further spread that brand of discouragement. Nor would I be able to hide that thought process from anyone who I wanted to buy mice from. I wouldn't lie, and they would be shocked and appalled. Probably assume I had reptile, and was lying anyway.  Especially if they asked me my views on culling...


Same goes for reptiles as it does for mice  Takes searching to find GOOD forums! So much BS to shift through. Forcing a ball to eat just to hit breeding weight early because it stopped eating for a couple of weeks? No! Scenting (mice, rat, chicks, tuna juice, lizards, etc etc), different food source, live (sorry, *cringe*), waiting it out while keeping an eye on the weight with a scale, etc etc. I'm glad to have found a good forum for both!

Of course I keep it simple, I don't keep ball pythons & have species that are bottomless pits 

Part of why I didn't handle my first litter that much & had moved around them like I was walking on glass was due to TheFunMouse being the first website I found which sounded like good advice 

I'm very disappointed. Being in Florida, I thought it would be easier to find fancy mice breeders, but it's proving to be a challenge. Looking like i'll be stuck working up from pet store stock.


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## Lyra (Mar 1, 2013)

As the title of this topic says, my mice are improving, although veeery slowly. 
For now, my goal is to get helathy, nice typed lines, 3 blue foxes and 2 reds, but I suspect it'll take me many generations... I'd love to breed them as long as I can and then pass them to another breeder, but I guess he/she would be tired of me always calling and asking how are they doing :lol:

I haven't breed yet my blue pied tan females yet - they are 5,5 months old, as I wanted to observe them for some time before breeding - their parents were closely related and I wanted to make sure they will be healthy, as I don't know the line much. They've never had any problems with health, so now both does are waiting for my newly acquired sepia male with great type to grow up a little, and I will be one step closer to blue foxes  
Does:


I'm planning another 2 separate but related lines of blue foxes, as I'm planning to breed my newest cch/c does with satin blue tan buck with nice type, and my little cch/cch males are waiting for me to find them some nice blue does too - for now, I'm thinking about breeding one of them with nice typed splashed (cchc or cchcch) doe to improve the type and introduce splashing. I have to admit that I'm curious about blue splashed.
I posted this photo elsewhere, but here are the stones and sepia (in the middle, between two blacks):


Ay reds are more of a challenge, they are ALWAYS obese and it's hard for me to improve their type. Just had a litter from two cousins - pups share common red grandfather and 2 great-grandparents. I know it was risky to pair them, as they originate from my favourite buck and doe, cch and c carriers, but other reds got too dominant and I decided not to use them anymore. I got exactly what I needed from this litter though, as there are 2 satin red does  There were pied pups (can't weed it out, really...) and none c-diluted, so I guess after few more generations I may be able to get them in more intense colour. The problem lies with their type, though, so red does will be paired with better typed black tan - I know this solution is not perfect, but it's the best male I have for them, as I think blue or sepia could make red even worse.
Little ones:

And satins:

It's quite surprising that satin makes poor red so much different!


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## Lyra (Mar 1, 2013)

It's been a while - I guess this topic would go better in The Lounge section, I hope no one minds I update it, as it's kind like a breeding diary to me 

I wanted to post pictures of pups from previous posts as adults, there are grownups now and I'm quite satisfied with them. I remember that parents of my first litters were ~25g when fully grown, now my young adults are around 35g each (one male from F2 litter is 45g!). I have to admit, I'm really happy with their health - in those lines there has never been a case of something more serious than little sneezing, and the buck they both have in pedigrees is now 17 months and still looking very good 


The F3 satin red (Ay/at S/s sa/sa) - she's quite yellow, but hopefully there will be improvement in next generation:
 

The F2 mock chocolate (at/at cch/cch S/s) - I'm really proud of this big boy, he's a son of my buck above - and there is really a difference!
  

I'm expecting more litters in next few days, so I'll update some more soon


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## Laigaie (Mar 7, 2011)

Your mock chocolate looks like and the genotype suggests a black fox. Mock chocolate fox would likely be ce/cch. Black foxes are often slightly off-black, as the chinchilla dilution leaves black a sepia color.


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## SarahC (Oct 3, 2008)

they look great,really bright and healthy.


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## Lyra (Mar 1, 2013)

Thank you, *SarahC*  
They are little devils, always on guard, waiting for a hand to appear so they can jump on it (and they really do jump high!) and run towards unknown freedom.

*Laigaie*, I was wondering if I could call them black foxes, but they are really noticeable lighter than blacks, like dark, dull chocolate so I was going to play safe  Thank you - black fox then, although washed-out one. I hope I'd be able to make them darker one day, though!


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## Lyra (Mar 1, 2013)

Been a while, and there are new litters now 

Reds, 2 does here:
 

I've got 4 reds in latest litter, 2 males and 2 females. There is a pair of 2 big "sables" (veeery sooty reds) and pair of smaller reds, quite sooty male and a female with a headspot... Hard choice which ones to keep, as I would prefer my reds big, without any spots and definitely not sooty :roll: For now all of them will stay till they are 10-12 weeks.

And my black / stone foxes - I think they are getting better, as I noticed they have a little broader muzzles than previous generations 
  
I have some problems with headspots and piebalds popping up, and most of the black fox pups are really poor colour (only one male from last litter is as black as he should be), but I'm quite happy with them anyway 
I'm trying to weed out piebalds, but I don't think I'll be able to not keep that one, as she is such a cutie:


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