Pied Dark's babies, one step away from my goal?

Pied Dark (doe) is presumably a^t/a c^ch/c^e (and a few other things) and Dandelion is presumably A^vy/a c^e/c^e.

This litter had a PE bub, whom I have culled, which indicates that someone carries c^h. There have been four different shades of pigment which came in on succeeding days. I am at a loss to explain the seemingly black fox. Is it c^ch/c^e? I know there will be different shades of c-diluted a/a which will be darker than the different shades of c-diluted A^vy.

I am breeding for A^vy/* c^ch/*. Can anyone tell me how I can tell which ones are c^ch from looking at these bubs? Today is Day 7 (actually, they were born about 9:30 p.m., so technically it is still Day 6) and I need to cull some and I really don't want to make any mistakes!

Preface: I don't actually have much experience with c-dilutes other than ch and c. What follows is from FinnMouse research.

I don't think they could be ce/ce and cch/ce AND P/P P/P. That wouldn't spit out that dark of a mouse, or a pink-eyed mouse. Two or three babies that don't fit the genotype means to me that the genotype is wrong somewhere. ce/ch is a black-eyed mouse. cch/ch is a black-eyed mouse. Either your pink-eyed mouse is p/p, or BOTH mice have either ch or c. ch/c would be a pink-eyed mouse, and many ch/ch mice start out pink-eyed. More on that in a bit.

Back to the dark babies. ce/ce + cch/ce would only give you ce/cch and ce/ce babies, neither of which could be as dark as that black (who looks like a tan to me, imo). Sepia is a not unreasonable guess for that color mouse, but sepia is a/* cch/cch. Would that be possible? It would mean both mice have cch. If so, a/* cch/ce would give you mock chocolate, a reasonable guess for your all-brown mouse.

So, if it's possible that both parents have cch, and sepia and mock chocolate are reasonable guesses for those two mice, then the question is this:

Is it more important to isolate the cch, or to gamble the cch and try to have both it and brindle, by keeping the brindle babies instead of the definite cchs?

You know the mostly-white mice are likely to be brindles, but they're also likely to be ce/ce, since ce dilutes the orange color of a brindle more than the darker colors of agouti or black.

And none of that explains the pink-eyed pup. Is it possible that it simply had no eyes at all? I recently had a pup born missing an eye. O.O or, I guess O. - It seems unlikely that both animals would have ch or c, given that both likely have cch, and both were previously believed to have ce. They can't have three slots. But P/p also seems somewhat unlikely, given that it was the only one of so many. Hm. I don't have an answer for that part.

My suggestion would be too keep the two darkest (since they're most likely to be cch/*) and any definite brindles. Pied brindle is easy to breed back into a non-brindle cch/cch mouse, and you might luck out with one of the brindles being cch/*.

Two things Cute babies and I'm not even showing Logan ;-) LOL

I'm so glad that you are getting closer!

Can anybody help me with the genotypes of these babies?

Day 11:

Bub 1 (Mask One) (c^ch/c^e? tricolor?) How did it get two colors on its face?



Bub 2 (a^t/a, c^ch/c^e, Spl/* ?):


Bub 3 was culled. BEW satin with faint traces of yellow. Assuming it was A^vy and c^e/c^h.

Bub 4 was culled. PE. Assuming it was c^e/c^h.

Bub 5 was culled. BEW. Assuming it was c^e/c^h.

Bub 6 (splashed brindle? Darker than me c^e/c^e brindles. Hoping it has c^ch, but what's the other one?):




Bub 7 (Mask Two) (c^?/c^? tricolor?)
Whoops! Mask Two is a tricolor of a hue midway between Mask One and Mask Three. You can see Mask Two in the group shot at the end of this post.

Bub 8 (assuming A^vy/*, c^ch/c^e self):


Bub 9 (gee, c^ch/c^h?, sa/sa):


Bub 10 (Mask Three) (A^vy/*? c^?/c^? tricolor):


All three Masks together for comparison. See how the color on their butts is lighter than the color on their heads? What is that??? (What are the odds that the three Masks would all be tris, all satin, and all bucks?)




Anyway, there are seven babies and I'd like to cull if I can. I just don't know which to cull. They're all does except for the masks. (Which of the masks might be brindles?) I'd love to be able to cross a brindle with c^ch to a brindle with c^ch (yeah, and s and Spl).

Mask Two has some orange on the fur just on his tail set! Here's a picture of his rear next to the splashed brindle's rear. This means that...the color Mask Two mostly is is the c^ch/c^e dilute of A^vy, right?



So does this mean that Mask One, who is larger and has on his wonderful two-tone face both the colors of Mask Two and Mask Three, is a brindle tricolor?????

Bub 6 is cute! Love the colors!!

Orange on Mask Two's tail set:



Mask One:



Mask Three. Does anyone see brindle stripes on his nose?



The brindles:

They are sooo pretty!

Thanks!