Litter Update #2

[Jay_Bunny]

The babies are 1 week and 3 days old. Some of them have light colored bellies and some have dark colored bellies. They look like black selfs, except for the few that have a light belly. I will take pictures today and post them and maybe I can get an idea of what color/marking they are considered. I lost 7 babies. But I have a good number of females. I have 4 males and 8 females. I plan on keeping all of the females for future breeding. Their future boyfriend, should they survive to breeding age (12 weeks), will be an agouti self.

[Jay_Bunny]

The nest. You can see one of the moms buried in there with those babies. She is blue and I'm pretty sure all the babies are black.


One of the females. You can see her belly is the same color as the top of her, so she must be a black self.


One of the males. He is not lacking fur on his belly. The fur on his belly is a cream color. I'm wondering what this marking is called.

[kc261]

If it is a white belly, it is called fox. If it is a tan belly, it is called tan. Apparently some "tans" can be so washed out they look almost fox, except for the border between the white and the top color (black in this case) will have some tan color.

Here is a link:
http://www.afrma.org/micetnfx.htm

[Raptor]

It's fairly hard to tell at this age. Additionally, the pups will change color slightly as they get older.

[Mike Schultz]

Pretty cool. My last litter was about 9 albinos, one black, one brown, and one random mouse that is white with black spots. I have no idea where that came from as the mother and father were both brown mice.

[PyramidPythons]

Definitely most look like black selfs, but that one with the lighter tummy could be a tan or fox. I'd say keep an eye on it and if the markings become more precisely fox/tan, keep it and use it for breeding. Don't see many fox/tans around here.

[Jay_Bunny]

They are definitely foxes. The bellies are white and cover their chins, chest, bellies. They are 2 weeks 1 day old today. All have their eyes open and are bouncy! I plan on keeping one of the male foxes and all females whether they are selfs or foxes. They are weighing in at around 8g. They will be weaned on the 18th and will be breedable as of April 15th. I am very excited and I'm wondering what I should breed them too. The mothers are both blues so the babies carry blue. All parents were satin, so I'm guessing these babies should be satin as well. The father was himalayan and long-haired. One female was long-haired. Some of the babies are black foxes, the others black selfs. (as far as we can tell). So what would be an interesting color or marking to breed to them? What would happen if I bred a black fox male to an agouti self female, given the known genetics.

[Jay_Bunny]

Did a count on the babies. (one bit me and one of the mom's bit me! )

The foxs' bellies are looking white (though some have hints of a yellowish orange. Not sure if it will develop into tan or stay fox, but we shall see. I have 3 fox females, 4 fox males, and 5 black self females. They all look satin (when you look at the black self bellies they appear really shiny like their mothers' fur.) I see some longer hairs on them so they might all be long-haired from what I can tell. I'm going to keep all females (8) and keep 1 fox male. Updated pictures coming.

[kc261]

They will be weaned on the 18th and will be breedable as of April 15th.

I checked your earlier posts, and it looks like these litters were born around January 20. That is 4 full weeks until your weaning date, and 12 full weeks until your breeding date.

I don't wait nearly that long with my mice. I wean them when they are about 3 weeks old. When I put them in breeding colonies is pretty variable, depending on what I need at the moment, but even leaving a female in with the colony to grow up & be bred as soon as she comes in season seems to work ok. I've also done the reverse, leaving a boy in with his mom.

[Jay_Bunny]

I like to wait until the females are fully mature and wait a full 12 weeks before attempting to breed them and I usually wean at 3.5-4 weeks. I don't think this is too long.

I also do not inbreed. I don't think it is wrong to inbreed and I may do some in the future to get certain colors but as a rule I do not inbreed. Just a personal preference of mine.