Recessive Yellow, Poor Reds or something different?

I love this colour (with a dark eye) and I'm trying to get it on to my Dutch and Broken mice. But I'm not 100% what I'm working with. Is there a test cross that anyone could suggest that would help determine what I have (I'm in the UK so I'm not sure if that has any bearing on what genes I'm likely to be playing with)

The picture of the litter in the nest is the result of the satin doe (pictured, who is also the full sister of the group of does also pictured) crossed with an Agouti Dutch buck.

You are in the UK, right? Chances are very high that you have dominant red/lethal yellow/red (all the same gene) because recessive yellow is either non-existant, or extremely rare in your part of the world.


Similarly, over here in the US, almost all of the reds and yellows are recessive yellows.

Oh- they are beautiful!!! I know where my next vacation will be- your house stealing the mice! Haha!!!

And I do agree with Rhas, even though they do look like recessive yellow But we must also think about your location when determining colors.

Keep up the good work!

To improve the variety you would want to breed in your darkest Agouti and Chocolate to get some Cinnamon. Have you noticed a decrease in litter size when breeding two reds together? Ay is lethal when homozygous Ay/Ay and the babies will die in the womb. The mom had pink eyes and so the babies will all carry pink eyes and will potentially produce more like mom.

[whistle!] Gorgeous!

Christine, Let me know when you go on that vacation. I would love to visit her house too. LOL

Very nice looking mice.!!!

Haha! Will do!

Thank you for your replies (I wasn't ignoring them - I've been away from the computer for a few days)

That's great its good to know what I'm working with, but of course I now have a few more questions.

The pied red doe I have was crossed with an Agouti buck and have produced this little doe, her colour is "muddy" not agouti but not a clear red/orange either - I'm assuming this is cinnamon?. Also in the litter there are black and clear red/orange "dutchesque" mice.



As my Reds are bred from pet shop mice and I am keen to improve type they were bred to a huge PEW buck. All the does are full sisters and have procdued (from the babies left after reducing to dark eyed babies only) Chocolate tans (where the tan is really poor), self "muddy" reds (cinnamon?) and a clearer self red, but not as bright as the mothers.
I also have a litter where I left only the pink eyed babies and these are just getting their fur and appear to be a clearer red.
The older litters are now ready to sort through and decide who is staying - are any of them useful in terms of improving the red colouration?

Thank you in advance.

Benjamin.