My elder statesman, my Blake, died Monday. He was my introduction to breeding, he started off my mouse family. He was around eight weeks old when I took him in on 20 January 2012. A couple of months down the line I decided to breed from Blake and the pick of my two girls at the time. Sadly I got off to a rocky start when Krystle died suddenly during her pregnancy. I thought it wise to spare her poor sister the same fate and a short while later in May I got two new girls, and Blake and Dominique welcomed a litter of six on 15 July 2012. A couple of mishaps happened later which resulted in three more litters before the end of the year giving Blake a total of 30 grandchildren, of which I still own eight of them. Some died young, most were rehomed. In his long life, Blake has outlived Dominique, her sister, and sadly his daughter Caress and her daughter Sybil. Recently I've seen him rapidly decline from the very lively little boy he once was, and he fought a good fight to hold on while his body slowly shut down over the course of about a week. On the morning of 27 January, before heading off to work, I said a very fond goodbye to my little one knowing his time had come. I placed him down gently, and as expected I came home to find he'd gone. I've buried him in the garden, just across from his family.
He wasn't a prize-winning beauty, the little hair he did have he lost a few months ago and he was a thin, wart-ridden old boy all his life, but he was the sweetest, gentlest, smartest, most lively, friendly and sociable mouse I've ever known. I'll miss him terribly. He was nightmare to photograph, but here's a sneaky one I took last summer.
Blake, November 2011 to 27 January 2014
He wasn't a prize-winning beauty, the little hair he did have he lost a few months ago and he was a thin, wart-ridden old boy all his life, but he was the sweetest, gentlest, smartest, most lively, friendly and sociable mouse I've ever known. I'll miss him terribly. He was nightmare to photograph, but here's a sneaky one I took last summer.
Blake, November 2011 to 27 January 2014