Quote Originally Posted by amon View Post
Your "lab rat" should be the same as my PEW, they were specially bred to use in labs (so I heard) and they're supposed to be better breeders than fancy, healthier and with bigger litters. So your situation sounds right according to what I've read.

Unfortunitely my situation is just the OPPOSITE!!!
First, PEW is just an albino. Unless you got it from a lab, labeled as a certain strain of mice... their aint nothing special about it unless you take your time over the generations to make sure you hold back the best breeders, and the best mothers.

Don't automatically assume that the feeder you got from a pet store is going to be a good breeder because it's PEW. I think that may be where your disappointment is coming from.

Remember a PEW still could be a black, brown, yellow or brindle mouse. The only exception is that the albino gene stops the production of any pigment in the body, it doesn't stop any of the bad effects from any genes related to a certain color. The genes for megacolon or diabetes or morbid obesity are still there, just you can't see the related colors to those genes because of the effect of the albino gene.

The labs still had to selectively breed for the best PEW's, just like you will.

I say, do some hard selective breeding for hold backs, and within in a few generations, you should see a marked improvement. If you were able to, I would feed off all of the non-producing PEW, and stick with the best mice breeders and mothers from the colored group.