test-breeding my double brindle doe

I want to breed my double brindle doe The Mouse in Question (TMIQ) to prove she is both A^vy and Mo^br by having her produce both kinds of babies. I know the best thing to breed her to would be a PEW, and I have a typey PEW, but then I thought, all those babies...none of which I'll want, unless by some slim chance I get another double brindle.

THEN I thought of Golden Monkey, my A^y buck. I could breed TMIQ to Golden Monkey and have a shot at red x-brindles, which I really want (thus saving me a separate litter to get red x-brindles), at red A^vy brindles, which would be cool, and the slim chance of more double brindles, plus I'd get separate x-brindle and tiger brindle babies to prive TMIQ is both. (And wouldn't an A^y/A^vy Mo^br be super cool?)

Are there any drawbacks to this? TMIQ's A^vy gene has good, dark stripes. I had thought perhaps some of the A^y babies would be indistinguishable from A^vy and there would be in conclusive results.

What do you-all think?

Hmmmm..... I would think it would be very hard to distinguish A^vy from Mo^br to begin with so I am sorry I am not of much help here.

Christine, the A^vy will all be orange with black stripes (A^vy/a). The Mo^br will all be black-based (a/a). If I should be lucky enough to get A^vy/a Mo^br/mo, it would look like TMIQ. I have a thread here called "Double brindle pics!" where you can see TMIQ. She looks like an x-brindle but with orange stripes (that don't show very well except in strong light). (I think that means Mo^br is epistatic to a and the A^vy is epistatic to Mo^br.)

You *should* be able to tell A^vy from Mo^br on a blak mouse....but I don't know how easy it would be on an A^y mouse...Honestly I've never even seen an e/e or A^y american brindle......lol They wouldn't have black though. A black would be the ideal choice to breed to to determine the brinde type in the offspring.

I would say based on TMIQ that neither gene is fully epistatic since both are visibly expressed.

A^y is dominant to A^vy. Does that mean an A^y/A^vy would have its black stripes diluted to orange, the same as its background? I was hoping it would just intensify the redness of the orange background.

Thank you for telling me that black would be the ideal choice for the test breeding. I don't have any black bucks. Well, Bluetrie is apparently a/a, but he's got c-dilutes. I guess that wouldn't matter for the first generation of the test breeding. But what will I do with these baby mice, none of which I will particularly want or need? The A^vy babies would be suitable for breeding into tris, but they won't have any c-dilutes I need (I think). I could always breed them to something pied to make pied brindles for Roland. Bluetrie has a wonderful body type. Just don't like the idea of creating living things who are not exactly...wanted. Um, and if Bluetrie does, indeed, carry b, I might get a chocolate x-brindle. Or a chocolate tiger brindle! Hm!

A^y is dominant to A^vy. Does that mean an A^y/A^vy would have its black stripes diluted to orange, the same as its background? I was hoping it would just intensify the redness of the orange background.

Honestly I'm not sure...lol It's possible A^y/A^vy and A^vy/* e/e would just look yellow/red...that would explain why I don't recall ever having seen a mouse that looked like a yellow/red A^vy brindle. It would definitely remove black stripes....it *could* produce darker yellow/red stripes on a lighter yellow/red background...but I'm really thinking it would probably just look yellow/red.

I guess you *could* use whatever you wanted...since x-brindles almost always have at least a couple kinked whiskers...but beyond the whiskers a black base would be easiest to tell by color/markings what they offspring were.

I'm not as concerned about not being able to identify the x-brindles as I am the A^vy brindles. As you said, the whiskers will identify the x-brindles. But if A^y might erase the stripes on A^vy, then A^y would be a bad choice to test breed to. I don't want to waste any lives. (I also sort of want to be able to use the test breed litter in my projects, which would make them not "wasted," either.) What would an extreme dilute x-brindle look like?

beige stripes on a likely white background.

Ah, I learned lots from this topic as well!

Stina wrote:beige stripes on a likely white background.

Um, not what I'm after! It's going to take a long time for me to remove c^e/c^e as a desirable thing from my head!

Very interesting thread! Learning lots