Merle Piebalds

Hi, here is a comparisson of the first tan merle in my stud and the new generation:
Type and tan are better now.
I have three major Merle lines now:
- Tan Satin line (shown here) has the best type and nice tan colour
- Black Merle Piebald (is black, grey and white) with bad type and pale bellies
- Extreme black Merle have very dark ears and tails, but lose the black markings easily and have pale bellies.

My goal is to combine the advantages of the three lines without combining the disadvantages.

Roland

PS: Thanks for the compliments. For me the most beautiful mice are the UK mice, eg Sarah's. Type is all what counts, colour is less important.

Mymouse said:

Very beautiful mice you have there

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Thanks to all for the nice comments!

"Mymouse", is it difficult for you to import mice from other countries? Three breeders in your country are not much for keeping a broad genepool and many colours.
Ok, you will have to use a ship anyway, but if you do so, UK, Norway and Sweden and Germany are not far away.

You are invited to visit me and my mice in Germany and get some cuties for free!

Best regards, Roland
Chilloutarea Mousery - Tricolor , Splashed , Merle , Recessive Red
The place where science meets fun!

moustress said:

Those tan piebald merles are so nice; I keep thinking about them...how did you improve the tan bellies? Or are they two completely different lines? Just wow. I agree with Rhaputin; they are just stunning! I'll stop by and fill my pockets one of these years.

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Hi,
the red bellies of tans depend on the amount of pheomelanines. In Europe the variety with more than 100 years of selection for pheomelanine enhancing or enriching factors is dominant red (Ay/*). As discussed elsewhere the Ay/* often have health problems or are at least fat and infertile, but since they are a lethal mutation, they never breed true. You always get some A/* instead of Ay/* from breeding dominant reds, even when you breed Ay/* x Ay/*. These Agoutis are called Golden Agouti, because they carry the pheomelanine enhancing factores without the health problems.
We are sure that in Europe the good tan lines (good means dark bellies here, not good type) have some Ay or Golden Agoutis in the ancestry.

Since there are very dark Ay/* and Golden Agoutis in the US now (Jack Garcia) it will be only a question of time until the tan bellies improve in the US very much too.

As mentioned before elsewhere, I think dominant reds should not be bred for the broad mass of mouse lovers and pet shops, but they are of course valuable "material" in the hands of experienced breeders like Jack, and I trust on his skills as a breeder and his knowledge of human nature ;-)

Ok, back to the question: I got one single tiny merle buck from the USA only. This single buck is the forefather of all Merle in Europe. I crosed him to seven not related European showtype mice to get several lines and since I thought merle is dominant, I hoped to get many merle offspring, but I got hundreds of black mice only. After several backcrossing experiments I noticed that the variety of merle, which is here, is recessive. It took some time, but I used and still use the following method to improve them:

Merle x Good Tan -> pale bellies in F1, only black (tans), no merle, but all are carriers for merle.
F1 x F1 -> F2 = Some Black Tan merle.
Black Tan merle from F2 x Good European Black Tan with dark belly -> only black (tans), no merle, but all are carriers for merle, and the bellies are a little better...
... and so on and on in circles.

Best regards, Roland
Chilloutarea Mousery - Tricolor , Splashed , Merle , Recessive Red
The place where science meets fun!

Thank you, you are welcome.
Btw, it is very easy to lose the pheomelanine enhancing factors, which have been collected in the dominant reds or Golden Agoutis by many generations of mouse breeders for more than 100 years now. You just have to cross a dark setter red mouse with a very typey PEW or Champagne with the goal to improve the type of the dark red mice, and you will get a heavy drawback to pale red. That is the milestone, where the skilled breeders get separated form the beginners. It is not easy to keep the dark pheomelanie AND add good type. On the other hand you should never continue inbreeding of the dark red line for a long time, since inbreeding depression will kill the line sooner or later. The balance between outcrossing and backcrossing, and heavy selection is the way to improve colour AND type AND health.

Regards, Roland
Chilloutarea Mousery - Tricolor , Splashed , Merle , Recessive Red
The place where science meets fun!

I only wondered why LOADS of people aren't into buying mice from out of their continents, because to me, expanding the gene pool like that can only mean exciting things!

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There are a few reasons really.

Firstly, the cost is very prohibitive. It costs hundreds, sometimes thousands, of pounds to bring in mice from another country; even if you only consider the car fuel and ferry to drive over.

Secondly, mice are fragile and don't take the stress of moving all that well, and quite often can become sick upon arrival to their destination. If they die, that money is wasted which makes it a rather expensive risk.

Thirdly, bringing in mice means that you are bringing new germs and bacteria. Mice in isolated groups, like any stud of mice, carry all kinds of illnesses and bacteria to which they are immune. Bringing in new mice risks your original stud, which have no immunity to the new germs and bacteria. Even if one quarantines, they are just keeping the same conditions and the new carriers of illness may appear to be in perfect health for months, but as soon as they move into the main stud an outbreak of illness may occur in your original stock. Likewise, the new arrivals have no immunity to the germs and bacteria in the stock you already keep, and could all die within days of arriving into the stud.

So you see it is a big risk in many ways and can be fruitless!