[Jack Garcia]

Here are some dove and psuedosilver babies from a line of English mice I got from another breeder. You can see the different shades of dove (a/a p/p) that somebody asked about a while ago, which can be shown as dove and/or silver, depending on the shade. This particular line has ok type but a big problem with orange vents. It seems the lighter in shade you go, the oranger the vents become!

Anyway, one baby (the lightest) is younger than the other two.

The business card is for size comparison. The older two are 12 days old; the younger is 9.

The lightest is a pale even silver color, "the color of an old coin" that the standard talks about, at least in my interpretation. The middle one is darker but mealier, and the darkest is... too dark, and too brown*.

*About three years ago, these doves had a champagne in their ancestry and anyone who breeds them is still paying for it!

edited to clarify that "dove" means "pink-eyed black"

 

[Cait]

Just checking before I leap in that when you say dove I am thinking of the same thing - PE black? I am aware that some people in the US call this lilac and don't want to confuse matters with any of my comments!

 

[Jack Garcia]

Yes, you're thinking of the same thing. The club I'm part of (VP soon, hopefully) uses British (worldwide) standards.

There's only one club left in the US that reverses dove and lilac, but they happen to be the biggest, oldest, and most respected.

 

[Cait]

The palest one would probably be called dove here, or something between the palest and the medium mouse pictured. Silver here is very pale, although as has been said to me - 'give a judge two shades of silver and they'll want one in between!'. :lol:

 

[Jack Garcia]

LOL! It's like that with champagne here. The exact shade you need is always a little bit different. Some judges want darker, some want lighter.

 

[Cait]

The mice below are three silvers bred by another NMC judge. You can see how different the shades can be...

 

[Jack Garcia]

Thank you for that picture! It's really helpful. The top one in particular--looks almost white!

Do you know what they are genetically? I've heard that some UK and European silvers are actually PE lilacs (a/a b/b d/d p/p)...

 

[Cait]

I don't know what they are genetically unfortunately - and I dare say the breeder wouldn't know if I asked him I suspect they may be dove (PE black) though due to the fact that someone whose foundation stock came from this breeder (to my knowledge) has not been able to produce blues from them.

 

[moustress]

The really dark one looks like a very odd blue. I think silver looks best in satin as it brings out a pale bluish cast that is just fabulous.

 

[julieszoo]

Wow, the middle and top "silvers" in that picture don't look silver at all, very suprising.