Blue Agouti

I was wondering about how to breed blue agouti. When you have to 'create' it by breeding blue and agouti together, will they be brownish? Because they usually use red (or chocolate) to intensify the redness in agouti, I should use 'bad' agouti's to start with? And how do I correct the brown? By adding blue to breed out the brown? I have no idea on what colors to use to enhance the color of blue agouti. Maybe also other diluting genes? What properties should the founding animals have or better not have?

You would want to use the best agoutis and self blues you can aquire. The better representations of their respective varieties they are the better their blue agouti descendents should be.

Agouti (A) is dominant. Breeding two agoutis together will give you 75%+ agouti babies.

Blue (d/d) is recessive. Your first generation of agouti x blue will look agouti, but each baby will carry one d gene. Cross the babies together and 25% of the litter will be blue and 75%+ will be agouti. The babies that get both agouti and blue will be blue agouti. Breed a blue agouti to an agouti carrying one blue gene and get 50% blue and 75%+ agouti. Breed two blue agoutis together and get 100% blue, 75%+ agouti.

It would be easier to breed an agouti offspring back to the blue parent...in which case you would get 50% blues and 50% agoutis

Blue agoutis will almost always have some brownishness to them...I prefer them with it personally.

I do wonder, if we were to standardize blue agouti, what would be the goal?

Thoughts?


I've made all kinds of blue agouti on accident. I even have one here which is blue agouti, with some kind of c-dilute. It's also umbrous. So it's an off-coloured mix of tan and brown and blue hairs, with a solid blue stripe down it's back! Craziness.

I had figured out the genetics behind it and how to get blue agouti from agouti and blue, but genetically they would be blue agouti, but they might lack the blue coloring and still look brownish, or so I have read. But I was wondering if the blue agouti were brownish, how to correct the color? Is it only possible by adding blue and nothing else or are there other colors you can use to enhance the blue in a blue agouti? Like you can use red or chocolate or even lack tan to enhance the color in golden agouti's.
If I were to use a good representation of a blue and an agouti to start with, it would mean that the agouti has alot of redness to it and the blue agouti would be to brown, so wouldn't it be better to use an agouti that lacks the redness it should have?

I would think that red would not help for blue agouti, but black would.

Blue agouti is the same color as Opal in rabbits. A good opal is had an even mix of blue and tan ticking, it results in a rabbit that is not too blue or too brown. From the blue agouti mice I've bred the same concept applies.

The more even the distribution of ticking the more balanced the blue agouti will be in color. The richer the red the more golden the tan will be, but it will not make the mouse have more tan, it will just intensify the shade. The main focus is on the distribution of ticking, as this will have the most impact on the resulting color of the mouse.

I agree...I like a blue agouti with a good balance of blue and tan. I don't think that mixing in red would or using agouti from red lines would necessarily be a bad thing......but mixing in chocolate would. Chocolate would be bad to get mixed in as it will dull down the blue. Red would just brighten the tan ticking.

Ah ok, that is good news for me then When I get started on it I will post some pics maybe (May take a while though )