Black-Eyed White - Color Change

I mentioned this in chat last night or so and thought I'd show some pictures to further illustrate what I'm talking about.

A couple of months ago...out of the same line as my newly emerged satin mice, I found a lone female white mouse that looked substantially different than the other white mice I've ever bred. It was a cream color, not the snow white color than an albino mouse is. And the black eyes were unmistakeable.



I raised her up and bred her back to her father, my first satin mouse. What came out were some darn fine looking mice. They were nice, big and healthy. I got some satins, some long haired satins (not very hardy so far), a chinchilla colored male, and several more black-eyed whites (BEW). An interesting thing to note is that all of my satins from this colony are high strung things. Scared of the slightest movement and quickly run and hide in the corners when I open their tub. The BEW's and the chinchilla and all subsequent babies that aren't satins in nature are the most friendly mice I own. They come out to greet you and chitter their teeth and squeak while you hold them in your palm. Don't mind being picked up and are just a general pleasure to have when cage cleaning time comes around.

Here is a picture of that same female above in a baby picture a couple of months later..



See what I'm talking about? Its like delayed melanism production. I'm sure a few human females would LOVE this little perk. Its 100% natural, but the pics don't do it justice, it looks like she's been sprinkled with grey wood ashes.

Here's a comparison picture of her and one of her eldest daughters..
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She looked just like her daughter for over a month and then wham, I just notice it on the last cage cleaning.

Any idea whats going on? Not that I mind, but mouse genetics are a complete mystery to me. I don't think they're the true "black-eyed whites" I read about, but honestly I've no clue. I guess until a mouse genetics whiz can pinpoint me, I'll call them Hypercolor Mice.

Here's a picture of her son, the Chinchilla colored one.


He's as sweet and cuddly as he can be, and so far seems to be doing a great job of fathering several batches of fat healthy babies.

I have some mice like this, I think it has to do with the a(vy) gene, which is a gene which produces fawn colored mice, and brindles.... when you get a mouse with the A(vy) gene and c(e)/c or c(e)/c(e) gene on the albino locus, you get this look... they sort of molt into a new color. I've seen in in yellow mice too... they start to molt to a different color.

by saten mice, what do you mean??? :shrugs:

Satin mice are mice with shiny fur... let me see if I have a picture...

Here are three pictures....

I have one breeding female that is white and has black eyes. She is grown up and is completly white, except little black spot on the back.
I must say she looks really great, so white and black eyes.

Satin mice are just like satin sheets, shiny and silky fur. They're really quite interesting to look at, and so far have proven themselves hardy within my colonies despite hearing otherwise from a few other people who own them.

Here's my first Satin when he was a 6 weeks old:




And another at adulthood with one of his babies:


And one with a regular furred female:
[/img]http://www.mainecoon.net/~rain/Snakes/Rodents/Mice/Sheen1.jpg[/img]

Sasheena, do you know of any website that has pictures of the majority of the color/fur morphs of domestic mice? It'd be nice to know a little bit about some of my oddballs.

Well I have a lot of pictures on my website http://www.geocities.com/mousedomousery/ and the afrmc website (www.afrmc.com I think) has some too.

nope, that wasn't the right link, maybe it's www.afrmc.org?

nope, it is www.afrma.org... silly me

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

when you were saying satin i was read saten, like the devil :crazy02: