What is everyone breeding for, goals, side projects?

Hey guys, I'm just wondering what everyone's focus is on now-a-days?!?!

What is your main breeding goals and what are you doing to achieve them?

Also, what neat side projects are you working on??

Love to hear all about it and see photos!

I'm just starting out so I don't have anything impressive by any means. I am focusing on self blues, broken blacks/blues/chocolates(all I've got are pieds so far though) and dutch. I've got a blue merle buck that showed up in one of my litters so that is my side project if you want to call it that. I'm not real optimistic that he'll give me any more merles in any other litters but I guess we'll see.

This is one of my two blue bucks. He's a satin blue that I bred in December. I've also got a BEAUTIFUL big buck from TinyHartMouseries, I just haven't gotten any pictures yet that do him justice.


These are my two bucks I'm using to work towards dutch. I've obviously still got a LONG way to go, but these are a start. I started with a PEW buck & a blue banded doe so I'm pleased with how far it's gone in just two generations. Dutch is one of those ones that I am well aware it's more luck of the draw than anything else but I like them because they are a challenge. It's going to be hard to get the black off their faces because from everything I've read, the face is the last place to loose it's coloration.

Darcy


Cheeto - Doesn't have nearly as good markings as Darcy but I'm hoping he'll have better type than Darcy as he gets a little bigger. It's kind of a wait & see right now.


Overall, my goals are just to continue to improve my type and markings.

I have three going now...and two more to come. I would say that is crazy but they are small groups! LOL!.

1. Trying to save the imported tan lines. Both imported tan does failed to have a litter that thrived and have died. I still have the buck so I bred him to an Ay red and am breeding back his daughters to him in order to hope for healthy strong black tans.
2. Ay reds. With a goal of improving type and in particular breeding them with the intention of spreading the gene. The nice part is I have not seen any obesity problems with this line.
3. Blues. Work on type with a goal of bigger is better. Big ears big size Big deep color.

After rodentfest I will be working on....
4. Colorpoint. Just for fun and giggles.
5. Dove - this will probably end up being my primary line.

I have three, maybe five goals going depending on how you look at it. I tend to group the blacks and blues together.

1. Maintain and improve the blacks. All are crosses from the original imports. We've run into a few walls with low survivability of pups.

2. Improve the ears and color on the blue selfs. Low birth rates hurt that line.

3. Improve color and type on the blue tans.

4. Improve color and type on the black tans. The doe never produced, the buck did. Unfortunately not many times though.

5. Improve type and consistency with the splashes.

The recent move killed quite a few of my favorites so I'm going to have to be really careful about bringing the population healthy and sound for a while.

I like to limit my varieties I focus on to just a few, which Ive finally settled on:

Splashed:
a) Improve type & size by breeding into my PEW/Cream line.
b)Weed out the himilayan(ch) and turn to cream(ce/c) based at some point.
c) Consistently get black and chocolate splashed, rid out the pink eye dilute

Dove Self:
a) Improve tail sets
b) Select away from light noses and tail sets
c) Possibly turn into argente at some point if I get a hold of some nice coloured/"pure" agoutis

Champagne Self:
a) Get numbers up period! My nicest mice and Im down to just bucks due to finicky breeding. Paired them up to a few dove does to save the line, just confirmed a pregnancy the other day!

I also have a true hairless/Swiss Webster line that I may or may not continue in the future. Or just use the does as foster mothers for my nicer mice since they are really good mothers...

I am breeding
-blues, self and tan
-black tans, with the occasional dove or silver tan
-angoras, pet type and show ivory

and fun little dilute tris maybe once or twice a year.