Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I'm a fairly new hobbyist and just recently joined this site (BTW it's a great place). About two weeks ago, my black doe recently gave birth to a litter of 5 pups sired by a black buck.

I have gotten three blackies like I expected as well but the others are puzzling. The last two are both a smokey black which fades into a dark gray on their legs.

I've never heard of anything like this before and I suppose it could be a possible genetic mutation but I was just wondering if it was possible to get this kind of coloring from two black parents. The doe, I bred myself, but the buck was a recent addition so I don't know anything about his parents and what color they were.

Both parents are fancy mice with standard coats and both are true blacks with no white toes or hairs.

I'd show you a picture of the litter but my camera is on the fizz.

Let me know if you need any more information as I'm curious to find out about this.

not uncommon at all. They sound like black fox. I can get up to 10 varieties per litter. There are many rescessives that can pop up.
Tiffany
-----
http://www.angelfire.com/alt/sublimesavannahs/

See that's what I thought at first but I happened to glance at the AFRMA website and discovered these aren't black foxes as they don't have a white belly. I've given up on postively identifying what colors these little guys are but I certainly do enjoy having such an (in my opinion) unique color to boast about.

Thanks for your input! I feel a lot better to know that having multiple colored guys in the same litter is a normal occurance!

Cougar

There are many recessive genes hidden in mice, especially if you don't know the long history of both parents. I have bred mice for fun, starting out with normal store bought mice and winding up with a myriad of offspring patterns. Even played around with black foxes and even breeding two of them together, resulted in half black foxes and a mix of other patterns/colors.

I don't breed mice anymore, can't stand the smell of the males, even with vanilla placed in the water bottle. My place now is too small to breed them, not like my old place where I had them in a separate room with a non scent odor absorber thingy (like a glade fraquence pack, the ones you lift the top partly to let the jell like fragance out. It was for cat and dog odor and I found it worked well in the rodent room without putting in an overpowering floral scent I couldn't stand. Instead it was an almost nonexisting spicy smell).
-----
PHLdyPayne