Herefords with poor markings?

It is unlikely that you have herefords.

Well yes. I know it's very un-likely. And I almost deffinately don't. :roll:
But what I'm asking is, what's a common fault mark (if any) on a hereford?

I also wonder if it's possible to breed mice that look hereford, even though they aren't. I have a bunch of broken brindles, that all come out with almost the same broken patterns. White triangle on face (like herefords) white line on the stomach, almost always with a small piece that comes up (like a belt but not quite), and a small spot of white on the shoulders. I have some that look like collared gerbils too, which is neat, almost like a dutch brindle.

I am 99.999999% sure I don't have herefords, like I said. But I'm just asking questions.

I have a broken marked doe who has the markings of a hereford, but she is just broken marked.
You can breed broken marked mice that look like herefords, but it will take a long time to get the markings right.

Awesome.
I'd love to see pictures of her.

Oh yes! How cute!

Herefords when bred to standard don't just have the head blaze, they also have to have a belly stripe too, like a berks marking. Not sure about white feet though...

W xx

I understand they have the head marking, white feet, and a white stripe on their bellies.

The AFRMA standard calls for: White blaze,white feet, white tail tip & white belly marking

Every hereford I've ever seen has been tiny. Not just small like is common to most marked varieties, but even smaller than that. This is one fault, though not related to color or markings per se.

I think Herefords and Dutch are the smallest show mice I have ever seen... even smaller than the smallest pet mouse I have ever had LOL

At the last show I went to, one of the breeders remarked that despite the fact he had been purposely breeding for both markings and size in his dutch for a long time, they had not really gotten any bigger... he remarked that it was like they were a different 'breed'

W xx

If any mice could be considered a different breed in the sense that dogs and cats (and rabbits) have breeds, I think Dutch would be the best contender.

Isn't Hereford just mice with the Irish Spotting gene selectively bred to look a certain way? We have the Irish Spotting gene running rampant in the U.S. Fancy (I've owned it many, many times from several sources including breeders and pet stores).

If its just Irish Spotting, why couldn't someone take their s^i mice and breed them to look like Hereford?

Irish spotting? What exactly does that refer to?

"Irish" is the term for a specific modifier that causes head spots, mostly.

Ooooh. Okay. Isn't there one in rats that's also describes something similar?

http://littlerodent.tripod.com/id12.html

There is some information here on it... There are lots of sites that discuss it, but few that discuss it specifically for mice. Most of them are for cows, rats, and dogs. The gene seems to be the same in most situations (there is still debate on the dogs).

This is the gene that causes the recessive white spotting (piebald, if you will, although piebald is actually a modifier s^p) we see on most of the mice in the fancy:

http://www.informatics.jax.org/javawi2/servlet/WIFetch?page=markerDetail&key=18673

Click to expand...

I have had mice that were Irish Spotted (proven with test matings) that had white markings from a headspot, white feet, white belly, half white tail to a full white collar and blaze, white stockings, white belly, and half white tail.

Well, yes and no (and maybe, lol). There's one person in England (whose name unfortunately escapes me) who I talked to last year who insists that both hereford and Dutch are separate alleles from (though maybe related to) recessive white spotting. He observed that if he crosses a Dutch to a self, he gets (poorly-marked) Dutch in the first back-cross to the Dutch parent.

What I suspect might have happened is that both Dutch and hereford are variations on recessive white spotting but that, over time, somewhere, many or all of the modifiers have become linked and are inherited together usually, which would cause (poor) Dutch mice in the second generation after an outcross.

This is my own theory, though DNA testing could prove it one way or the other, if anybody wanted to test it.

I bred my "hereford" marked doe to another chocolate and got all chocolate selves, and havnt tried breeding the babies yet.
I no longer have the doe, otherise I would of bred a son back to her.