[ian]

Sorry no pictures yet, the babies are 2 days old and the markings are there but obviously not showing colour yet. There were 4 does and between them have produced 31 babies, only 8 of which have been removed as they are selfs. So there looks lilke some fairly decently marked rump whites considering they are the second generation from a rump white x blue self.

And there are two surprising babies which have am a bit flabergasted by, there are two broken bucks both look like they will be blue. I've been breeding from the line of rump whites for years and the blue self cant have been carrying broken can it? So very odd I'll try to get pictures this evening when I get back from work.

 

[Cait]

Sounds interesting...

 

[SarahC]

my blues 100 % definately didnt have broken in them but maybe somewhere many generations ago the r/w could have.Since they are marked it could be a shared ancestry.

 

[Cait]

My rumpwhites have never had broken in or been mixed with brokens at all. They came from John Luft and to my knowledge he didn't keep brokens either. They have never produced any markings other than rumpwhite in the years I have bred them. I will be interested to see photos of the markings when they are old enough to see properly on a photo. Did you use anything else in breeding in the past? I know you had rumpwhites and tans from Dave as well, but again he wouldn't have put broken in - it's a mystery!

 

[SarahC]

what would r/w have been produced from originally though?Thats what I meant rather than anything recent.They must have come out of another marked varriety.I wasn't casting aspersions on your pure blooded r/ws

 

[Cait]

Ha ha I know you weren't! Rumpwhite is its own gene, you can't produce it from anything else. Therefore a rw could carry another marked gene but not be 'made' from it, which is why I was pointing out that broken has never been bred into my rw in any way (i.e. they don't carry it).

 

[SarahC]

ah,I see :roll: Ian you have either produced something new or petshop mice :lol:

 

[ian]

My guess is pet shop mice rather than something ground breaking. I havent produced anything like this before and the first time I've inbed this closely, its a brother sister mating intended to instigate the blue colouring which is carried by both. Actually thinking about it this is only the second time I've had a buck good enough to keep for breeding from this line so potentially a larger number of the does have been carrying broken unnoticed. This line included genes from your blues sarah and your rump whites cait but also blues and black genes from another breeder and theres also a few unmarked tans which were used in some of my first matings way back. The tans and blues/blacks were from NMC breeders and they were meant to be from show lines so I'd have to asssme they were not carrying broken either but it would appear that the route of it comes from one of the mice. I can't imagine where else it would have cropped up.

I think I read that the rump white gene was created by using radioactivity in a lab, im asusming the base gene would have been an unmarked mouse.
I can't find my camera any where, but when I do i'll try to get pics, the markings are definately broken and not just mismarked rump whites, I've seen lots of mismarked rump whites before although the markings are just around the head not the rump so maybe they are broken rump whites.

 

[Cait]

Maybe there's a headspot gene involved rather than broken? Not that this helps!

 

[ian]

I've had a head spot issue before actually, it looks quite different in these though. Heres a picture anyway, I think the markings show quite well considering they are 3 days old:

and two of the rump whites:

 

[ian]

I've kept these two bucks because they are really nice, I've always been a bit tempted by brokens. So anyway if anyone is looking for some brokens with pet markings but a bit more of a show size and type, let me know. I think they are blue but fur hasn't come through yet so can't be 100%. Will also have a load of rump whites coming up in the next few months if anyone is interested, mostly does but a few bucks as well.

 

[Peteyandthegang]

Id definitely be interested, obviously :lol:

 

[ian]

Thats fantastic, I'll keep you posted, are you planning on going to any shows in August/September maybe even October time?

 

[ian]

OK so the colour is fairly obvious now and I have 3 blue rump white bucks which ahve quite good markings but will ahve to wait on the unders but only 1 blue rump white doe . I've got 5 black rump white does from the litters as well so hopefully a few of them are carrying blue, 2 of them are quite well marked too. I'm thinking the two broken bucks are black not blue as I had initially thought.

 

[Benjamin]

Im so tempted by the rumpwhites, Especially after seeing Cait's beautiful chocolate in Preston last weekend. How dominant is the gene??

 

[ian]

Its very dominant, I know some rump white breeders who only do rump white to rump white crosses but I have used rump white to self crosses inorder to develop new colours and to widen the genetic pool. It can take a couple of generations to get the markings back fully but there is dramatic improvement with each generation. It is quite a difficult but rewarding variety, I find rump whites really helpful when selecting youngsters for breeding or for showing because its so obvious which ones are good and which ones are crap.

 

[Cait]

The gene is homozygous lethal (any babies inheriting two copies 'die' in utero and are reabsorbed a couple of days after forming). This is not dangerous and does not affect the health of the mother. The same happens with fawns and reds. As for breeding them, I only breed rw x rw myself. They aren't easy, like most marked, and you need to keep a good number to get any showable individuals. As Ian says, culling isn't too difficult with this variety as in the darker colours you can tell fairly early who to get rid of (including any non rumpwhites).

 

[Benjamin]

Oooohh I may have to get hold of a starting trio - I really like the look of Chocolate's or Blues - maybe blues would be the best bet seen as I already have a few self blues knocking about

 

[Cait]

I don't have any blue rumpwhites but if you want chocolates then get in touch.

 

[ian]

I might be able to part with one of my blue rumpwhite bucks but I only have one doe at the moment so must keep hold of her. I dont know if anyone else has blue rump whites at the moment that I know of but hopefully soon I'll have lots.