[bethmccallister]

I have a few Agouti popping up in my lines so now I will attempt to identify them and get their genecodes figured out. I need pictures of any type of Agouti you all may have...just to look at pretty please. I will get pictures of mine and posted here in a few hours...charging the camera.

 

[Jack Garcia]

Like the first mouse here: http://www.hiiret.fi/eng/breeding/varieties/agouti.html

Petstore-derived agoutis (and wild agoutis) are grayer, duller, and less vibrant in color. This is the "default" color which protects mice from predation. When people say "golden agouti," they usually mean a show mouse who has been bred for richness and redness in its fur (they get darker and the color gets "fuller" as they age). Some of them can look a lot like cinnamons but they're supposed to retain the black ticking, whereas cinnamons have no black ticking.

And therein lies one confusion. In some countries, "golden agouti" actually means cinnamon, or so it seems. Language barriers have kept me from determining this for certain.

 

[bethmccallister]

Oh wow Jack, that's definately not what I expected but I can now see where people might use these for their lines and in improving color. My Agoutis might all have c(h) too but they are definately pet store variety. I have to give some of my efforts credit however because even though I've got the colors all wrong the type is starting to improve in only a few generations. I'm going to spend a lot of time on this site you sent me too...I've been there before and then lost the link. TY!

 

[Jack Garcia]

You're very welcome!

I've had agoutis for years. Here are some pictures (of varying ages) of agoutis.

WNT Myrna, a white-bellied agouti (Aw/A). The phaeomelanins which make her top fur red also make the Aw/* appear creamy. She had a lot of faults but she was enormous (just over a foot long and ~100 grams) and I have dozens of great great grandchildren from her.

an agouti bred by Christine Fogu

another agouti bred by Christine, very dark toes with lots of black pigment

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v15/g ... C09896.jpg
an agouti who developed a tumor overnight (but you can see the ticking on her belly clearly) bred by Robin Anderson
(WARNING: picture of an enormous mammary tumor, which is why you have to click that link to see it)

some petstore-derived agoutis

a petstore agouti with white spots

an agouti with its PE-counterpart (argente), who I bred. This agouti is way too dark and way too gray. It lacks warmth, and it has off-colored chin hairs, pink toes, pink nose, and a million other faults.

Hopefully these pictures help show how much the color can vary in agoutis.

 

[bethmccallister]

Pet store variety is certainly what I got, dang. Actually I think I see points like a siamese/himalayan but maybe I'm making that up, the Agouti are all under 5 weeks so I guess we'll see if they darken up a bit or not. So at the moment I think I will concentrate on improving the type in the Brindle pair that I picked up from a breeder in NY. They have beautiful markings but not the best type. I have a recessive yellow doe of good type in with the brindle pair now to see if everyone can get along and make me some pretty babies. I have a couple other lines going as experiments and I'm getting some weird colors for which I may want to bug you about later...will attempt to make my best educated guess first of course

 

[Jack Garcia]

On particularly poor agoutis and cinnamons, as babies at least, their noses look darker. It's not acromelanism like you see in himalayans, it's just a common "clumping" of ticking near the snout (it also commonly occurs down the spine).

With recessive yellow and brindle, you might want to be careful because a mouse who is Avy/* e/e will be solid yellow and you won't necessarily know if/when you lose the brindle because the mice will be all yellow. This is how some American breeders lost dominant red, actually. This is assuming you're talking about Avy/* brindle and not sex-linked brindle. Are they from Mike Chiodo? If they are, they might be sex-linked, in which case you can ignore this.

 

[bethmccallister]

They are from Megan Sanok in Alden. She wasn't a show breeder and I'm not even sure she was going to continue breeding. She had bought a pair of mice to breed feeders and then some beautiful Brindles popped up. She's a forum member on here. My profile icon is the brindle male buck at 3 weeks, he's soo affectionate and decently big but has small ears, his sister is also a brindle I got with him but she's small but also very affectionate.

I would say they are Avy/* ....and not sex linked. Sounds like if I get any yellow mice out of these litters to not use them in any future breeding plans just to be on the safe side which I had no idea. The father of these guys was an unmarked brindle and the mom was a BEW so who knows what she was hiding..maybe ce/ce P/*.

 

[Jack Garcia]

Yeah, those are American brindles then.

It's not as big a deal if you lose brindle in your stock because it's in petstores all over the continent, but I thought I'd point it out because a lot of people don't realize that brindles who are also recessive yellow will be a clear yellow.

 

[Roland]

these are Golden Agoutis from Germany. Notice the high amount of red pheomelanines. Dark Agoutis, which do not have a high amount of pheomelanine but eumelanine only, ,are not called Golden Agoutis here. Some of the dark Agoutis are just umbrous. One of the mice shown here is a cinnamon from the Golden Agouti Line.

Regards, Roland
Chilloutarea Mousery - Tricolor , Splashed , Merle , Recessive Red
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