# Tricolor/Splashed and the c-locus...



## Pandapop

It was here on the forums where I learned that, in order to get more tricolor, I'd need a mouse with the splash gene, pied gene and two c-recessives. I could breed my tricolor doe to one of her sons, or two siblings from her together and hope for the best. My tricolor doe finally had her last litter of 13 (I kept 10, she has a splash doe helping her nurse) and out of those at least 4 were definitely tricolor! There's one brownish doe that only seems to have two colors... from the photo, beige and chocolate. Mom looks to have black, blue and beige.

Mom:

















Babies:










Tricolor Doe x Pied Blue Buck
x7 Tricolor
x5 PEW
x1 Pied Blue

_Side note, the pied blue buck (her son) had to be put down after he aggressively attacked me during cage-cleaning day. My index finger on my right hand swell up three times its normal size, and was incredibly painful. I've been bitten dozens of times by my mice throughout the years, but this was the first time I actually had to go to the ER at 9pm because the swelling wouldn't go down. I was put on antibiotics, taken twice a day for seven days. It was only on the fifth day that the swelling started to go down, and the pain went away. Crazy, eh? Anyway, that type of behavior was NOT okay with me. I think he got defensive over his 'woman' (his mother) and saw me as a threat. It's strange though, he was one of my most docile males... he just snapped._

Anyway, it's clear that the doe carries the blue gene (which makes sense, since she has patches of the color) if she passed blue offspring. She's had agouti, black, blue, chocolate and now PEW. Up until this most recent litter, she didn't pass any pink-eyed babies. I read around and found that the splash gene often throws PEW though? I'm trying to figure out if she actually has the pink-eye gene or not. I'm a bit confused.

So, back to my main question... *how to tell or find out what c-recessives she may have?* Since I won't be breeding her again, I could test out combinations with her offspring.

What exactly is a merle mouse? The one baby I mentioned above may actually be tricolor, just incredibly poor... but if not, what might she be?


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## PPVallhunds

PEW isn't normaly caused by the pink eye gene is albino and caused by the c gene. So as splash only shows on c diluted mice if two were bred together that both had the albino c gene and both only had one splash gene you would get some pew.


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## Pandapop

So one of the two c-recessives I've got here is albino?


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## PPVallhunds

by the look of it yes, both parent has an albino c gene.

you can get mice who look pew but genetically arnt albino but are a pink eyed mouse with c dilutes but as you didn't get any normal pink eyed colours its more likely all the pew are albino.

check the babies for points in the noses. 
as the sire is C/c and the mother is ?/c you just need to work out what her other c gene is

either cch/c (on black would various shades from a mock choc to light coffie), ch/c (Himalayan) or ce/c (cream)

from the colour of her c dilute patches id guess she is cch/c, which would make the tri babies also cch/c


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## Pandapop

If the albino babies ended up with points, it would come a bit later as they age, correct? I guess I'll have to see later on if they develop any points or not.

If mom is cch/c, then that chocolate baby might be a mock-chocolate or coffee as you said. I didn't keep it as it was male, so I guess I won't really know now. Most pet store chocolates are pretty light in color, so it'd be difficult to tell them apart from mock chocolate unless bred... but if it were in fact mock chocolate/coffee and mom was cch/c, I shouldn't be expecting points on the albinos, right? Or would I still get that?


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## PPVallhunds

If mum is cch/c then no the whites won't get points as they would need ch gene for that. 
They could be himi yes, if they do get points then one parent has ch. If all the tri and white babies get points dads C/ch if only some or none of the tri get points and the whites do mum has the ch.

If mum turns out to have the ch gene she may be either cch/ch or ch/ce. If you find out she does have the ch gene I'd lean more towards her being ch/ce on her shade.

Once you know one of there genes for sure you can use her shade of colour to guess at the other.

So once the babies are only brought for points to be seen better you will know more.


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## Pandapop

So turns out I had a pied chocolate doe from the tricolor mom at the top of the page. The father was a silver self, and she's now being bred back for more chocolate since he obviously carries the gene, and I don't really have any other chocolate carriers besides possibly the baby tricolors... I'll keep watching the mom's four PEW/albino babies to see if they get any points. I'll be really stumped if they don't.

I took a couple pics of the one 'tricolor' baby that is confusing me. She has two noticeable patches of color, chocolate and beige. I don't see a third, though... other than the white.


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## ShootingStar

I thought that *was* Tricolor -- two base colors and white. :?: :?:


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## SarahC

it is.Chocolate/beige and white are all that's desired on a chocolate tri.Best to remove the ones with four colours if you want to maintain them as tri colour.You get all sorts of variations in colours from the splashed gene and it's much easier to get wishy washy colours than it is 3 distinct patches of colour.That's the challenge.


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