longhair mice have greasy fur

Hi Guys, I know this is a diet problem, but I don't know how to remedy this. Please tell me what not to feed and of course what to feed. Right now all my mice get mixed seeds, nuts and a block of food. Thanks for any imput. Oh, I should note these mice are 1/2 pet store mice. My other longhairs don't have this problem.

So you feed ALL the mice the same thing but only some have greasy fur? And the only ones with greasy fur are pet store-mixed longhairs? If this is true, I'm thinking its maybe just the texture of their coats. I've had some poor longhairs from Petco which had a choppy, lifeless, greasy look about their coats which was worst when they were young. I'll check and see if I have any pix of them.

Oh yes they are young. I breed the pet store Dad longhair to a longhair himi doe of mine. Really crazy thick long wild hair they have. Nice hair, need to improve the size.

What seeds and nuts specifically? Some seeds are useful to condition and suppliment, grains are better as a main dietary component, but nuts are just high in fats aka oils. I don't feed any nuts at all, and only use seeds as supplements. Try removing the nuts and seeds and replacing them with cereal grains, oats, wheat, barley ect...

You can get oats at the feed store. I use steam rolled oats[the feed equivalent of old fashioned rolled oats you get at the grocery store]. You can also get whole oats, rolled or crimped oats.

You can get barley at some feed stores, but not TSC. I've gotten 50lb bags of barley and wheat from specialty grocery stores, organic or whatever they're called.

And just a heads up since I'm talking about grains don't get Scratch Grains or Sweet Oats if you have any pet store animals or descendants from them. Pet store mice are often sensitive to corn, and both of these have corn. I do feed corn but my stock is not sensitive to it and I've fed corn for years.

Should I still give the mouse pellets too? Also what does TSC?..

Here's the pix of my greasy-looking longhairs (please pardon the top hat lol). Is this similar to what you're seeing in your mice?

As babies:



Growing out:

Worse. But it seems the older they r getting it is a bit better

The mice in the pix are actually quite an improvement over my original "greasy" mice. They are three generations out from them. The first litter of them I had were so greasy-looking I was alarmed! Like you, I assumed something was wrong with their health or nutrition (even though no others showed similar symptoms). They do seem to pretty much grow out of it. By selecting the least greasy-looking coats to breed (and adding higher quality mice to their line), I've definitely seen an improvement in the texture of their coats.

And lunalady, this little blues are the brother and sister of your PEW texels

madmouse you were inadvertently selecting for mice who were able to tolerate your diet better than those original mice. We all do it, either intentionally or just by coincidence.

TSC is a feed store, Tractor Supply Co, not sure which one you go to but it's one of the more common ones so I figured it was worth mentioning. Yes I'd continue the lab block, but I'd give free choice of a plain steam rolled oat as well.

m137b: Haha! That makes quite a bit of sense. I never thought of it that way. Is it simply the length of the long coats that makes the greasiness show? I'm actually excited now to work on correcting their diet- better nutrition will be a much quicker route to better coats rather than breeding for grease-resistant mice lol

Yeah the long hair is harder for the mice to keep clean, they have to spend a lot more time grooming and excess oil is hard to get out of hair so you see it more readily on them. Excess protein actually increases the metabolism and can cause more frequent molting, in long haired critters that means less time to grow out the coat between molts.

I prefer to take the long route and mold the mice to my wants/needs/expectations, instead of molding my practices to their quirks. But I like the challenge, lol.

OK, Thanks for the input. I will be making some changes.

Luna, perhaps your greasy-haired mice should switch shampoos!

Yes, but is the only one available for longhaired mice.