[Jack Garcia]

Those are classic places where tan markings would show.

The only thing that confuses me is why it wouldn't've been there before. lol

In that first picture her facial expression is so cute!

 

[Jack Garcia]

I don't know.

Could it have been there before without you noticing, since it's so small in both places and you would normally concentrate on her markings (I know that's the first thing I look at)?

 

[Jack Garcia]

Haha! "I don't know" are good words to say sometimes (when you mean it).

I have a friend in New York who bred a black mouse who had an orange spot like this one but on her back. It never reproduced and was written off as something random like chimerism, but it was there from birth.

Has she produced any tan babies, by chance?

 

[Jack Garcia]

You'll have to keep us updated with pics as to how the babies turn out!

 

[Jack Garcia]

Sometimes if that happens, you can take her out for a week or so then add her again. I don't know (there I said it again!) why, but sometimes that helps. Or try her with a different male.

 

[Jack Garcia]

I wouldn't say her belly color is "deep." It's somewhat oranger than most washed-out tans you see in petstores, but this is what a deep orange looks like:

(picture taken at a show I went to)

 

[Jack Garcia]

Yep, that's the color you should breed toward, I think. The line of demarcation itself has problems that would be faulted, though. It's not supposed to have those "bumps" in it that you see. I remember some mice being faulted for this whose belly color itself was good, but I can't remember if this mouse was one of them.

Sometimes colors do change a little bit with molting. Maybe the original poster's mouse is molting and before it was a paler tan. The only reason I'm pressing the tan possibility is because of the location.

 

[Jack Garcia]

Yep. The line of demarcation (edit: which means where the orange/white meets the top color).