Hairless mice?

[Nevadamoon]

One of my females just had her babies about 2 weeks ago. Now, some of the babies are perfectly furred and normal, the others are significantly smaller and have very light fuzz. Are they going to be hairless, or is there something else funky going on? The babies look completely healthy apart from the size/hair. (really, they just look much younger then they are.)

[kc261]

I don't really know anything about hairless mice. In my colony, I do occasionally get babies like the ones you are describing, that grow slowly and generally don't thrive. Most of them die before they are old enough to wean.

[Nevadamoon]

The strange thing is, apart from the size they are every bit as lively as their normal-sized siblings. They're half the size they should be, but they're not thin or sickly, and their eyes have even opened now. They still have very little hair, it's short and thin and similar to a mouse that's a week or so old.

Is it generally just a fluke thing, or could it be something genetic? This is the first time this female has bred, but she had the same male mouse as other females have had, and nothing has changed as far as diet/husbandry goes.

[steveboos]

Well Crushed Velvet mice throw out hairless babies, so depending on the kind of mice you have, it could be genetic.

[Nevadamoon]

The mother in question does have some texel blood in her lines, though she's not a strong texel. (Little fuzzy, but not curly like some of the others I have.) I wasn't aware they had any hairless mice in their lines, so we'll have to see what happens in a few weeks. The babies are approximately 12 days old now, possibly a few days older.

[PyramidPythons]

I got my hands on a small group of what I believed to be "fuzzy hairless" mice. These are a little more difficult to get than the regular hairless, so I was really stoked about it. Imagine my disappointment when they slowly started getting their hair in. >.< I'd say give them a couple of weeks. If they haven't grown their hair in by then, it is likely you could have some of the hairless or even "fuzzy hairless". If they grow hair...then you were just unlucky enough (like me) to have just gotten slower growing mice.

[Nevadamoon]

Here are some pictures, though I don't know how much help they'll be. They're not the greatest. This is one of the fuzzier babies with one of the normal siblings. (the sibling is a light rex, though when it grows out into an adult coat it will probably lose all the curl.)

(Click to make bigger.)








My main concern was just if I should even bother letting the female breed again. If it's something in the gene pool, I don't want to add it in. I love the texel/rex mice and have been trying to make a strong line of them, but wasn't quite expecting babies like this.

[JEWSKIN]

looks to me like they may not be getting as much milk I have had it happen with rats when litters are too large just put them in with another mom that has a smaller litter and they'll grow like weeds....also throw her some puppy chow

[moravaguy]

i got a trio of 1 hairless mouse and 2 what the guy said was het hairless......wanna pic?

[pitoon]

i got a trio of 1 hairless mouse and 2 what the guy said was het hairless......wanna pic?

yes please post some pics....

i have some "fuzzy hairless" sub adults at the moment. their coat is so light you can see the skin below.

if you want i'll post pics of mine.

Pitoon