pictures of our mice breeders

Here are our four colonies of mice. I became concerned after reading sasheena's website because it said that mice with coats of mostly white are usually infertile... did I read this correctly? If I did, and you know how the whole mouse genetics work, please let me know. I've only had two of the colonies make babies yet (the other two are relatively new)

Thanks for looking!

Here is colony #1. The pinkies belong to the black female (skunk). The dad is the albino sleeping with them (polar bear). The tan-ish mouse (Arctic fox) is the mother to the three white little girl with brown eyes (two stayed in this colony and one moved to colony #4)

Colony #2

The brown fella is the male. He is one of skunk's offspring. His harem consists of one of his sisters (the tan-ish mouse) and the rest of the females to include reddish, brindle and albino mice.

colony #3

This is where I have a COOL mouse. She has long hair and is one of my favorites! Does any one know if this coat can be passed on easily? I sure hope so. The male is the mostly white mouse. He was one of the ones I was questioning. The colony is fairly new and he was relatively young when he was put in there... needless to say, no babies yet. Does his mostly white coat make him less prone to be fertile?

Last colony

This is our newest batch. There is a female baby from colony #1 (the tan mouse and the albino male) She (and her 2 sisters) are neat as they have all white coats with big dark eyes. Their temperament is beautiful as well. Here is also where I have mice with large areas of white, so any comments would be most welcome.
The male is "Holstein" with the white band around the middle. GREAT guy and has been busy (purchased him this past weekend) getting to know the "gals". I'm just hoping his time isn't wasted...

Thank you!

that's a beautiful array of mice right there- makes me feel kinda plain with all my albinos... . .

did you decide to start colonies to support your snake habit, or were the mice already a pet decision?


great array of colors and sizes! especially fond of holstein!

There are lots of breeders out there that breed nothing but the plain albino mice and have tons of babies. I dont think there is a fertility issue to be concerned with. Your mice are beautiful.

I havn't read anything about this in awhile, so my information might be a bit rusty, but there is a certian type of mouse (used mostly in labs) that produce very large litters... more so than "regular" mice. They are all white
Sorry I don't have a lot of information about that right now though, I'm pretty sure I read about them in a book I borrowed from the Library.

Great looking mice by the way!! You've got some real cuties

GiantBlueberry said:

I havn't read anything about this in awhile, so my information might be a bit rusty, but there is a certian type of mouse (used mostly in labs) that produce very large litters... more so than "regular" mice. They are all white
Sorry I don't have a lot of information about that right now though, I'm pretty sure I read about them in a book I borrowed from the Library.

Great looking mice by the way!! You've got some real cuties

Click to expand...

Swiss Websters, I believe...

schilsound said:

did you decide to start colonies to support your snake habit, or were the mice already a pet decision?

Click to expand...

We started our colonies to support our habit... bad decision... now we are falling in love with the mice as well, and want a hundred colonies!!! Every time we go to the pet store the kids RUN over to the mouse enclosure to see what "neat" colors are there. THEN when the mice DO have babies, they want me to let some grow up a little so they can see what colors the babies are. It is it particularly hard to use them when they are at the super duper cutie stage... sigh... just one more addiction

My info is probably a bit old too~ but I have not heard of mostly white mice being in less fertile. It's possible~ but I've not heard of it. I am sure that swiss webster is the name of the albino lab strain that is supposed to produce large litters~ and I've *heard* that outcrossing those produces some fertility issues~ so maybe thats where the mostly white issue is? I don't know.

As far as your long haired mouse~ I beleive it is a simple recessive trait. In my colony it seems to work that way at any rate. Should be if you breed siblings back to mom or each other you will get more long haired mice. There is a draw back though~ I've noticed that long haired weanling mice are more difficult to correctly sex~ the males can really suck those testes up and it's hard to tell with all that hair. I have put together SEVERAL colonies of long haired mice only to discover later that where I thought I had 1.8 I actually have 3.5 or 5.3!!!!

Good looking mice~ good luck with them!

To suppliment the "standard feeder" albinos i got locally I also grabbed a few more females and a sperm-king male from the Harlan ICR's. These are lab mice bred to produce larger littered females and a ridiculous sperm capacity in the males, so we'll see- I have a couple females impregnated by pet store males, and then the pet store females impregnated by the ICR male, and some harlan females who are bred only with the ICR male;

home fertility testing here we come!

Hi !

Your little colonies are SO cute Everytime I read your signature I laugh because it sounds so familiar!

My girls are the same way - we are always on the lookout for new mice. We are having almost as much fun breeding mice as we have with our snakes! And it gives us something to do while we grow the snakes. It's awfully fun seeing the colony all take care of the babies too Our "daddies" spend almost as much time with the babies as the "mommies" do.

Congrats -they are adorable!

-Tonya