Caught mama Ragu in her dish when I came in early this morning. She is looking very healthy and she even hopped right into my hand to be taken out...




This time I took out her four Broken Agouti pups, wow their coats are really coming in nicely...




They look so pale, the four Skewbalds, but they are very healthy, it's just that their Pearl siblings are so dark now in comparison. You can really see the detail in their markings now...




They still enjoy being held and snuggle right in. The only thing they didn't like was me lining them up so you could see each of the four properly...




Safety in numbers and all that, I guess, plus they like the cozy warmness of a little dog-pile.

__________________

they are cute!!!!

__________________
Animals love you forever and ever and will never stop!
Don't abuse animals!

Join some groups called:
Guinea Pigs Rule
Cockapoo lovers
Dog lovers

If you want some more come look on my page!!
My pets!
Rocky: Cockapoo
Fish: Juicy fruit ( but he died )

Thanks. I love them at this age.

__________________

My Golden Agouti Amber appears fully grown now and is doing very well on her own, she's been seperated from her mom for awhile now..




The pretty doe's coat seems to get glossier by the day, she literally shines now...




Amber has such a nice personality too, she loves to be picked up...




She is still very jumpy and squeaks in fear if she doesn't see the hand coming, but she never runs away, it's just her nerves.

If we hadn't of handled her so much as a pup she would most likely be very wild now, one of those mice who hides all the time. From what I've read about Golden Agouti mice, them being jumpy and nervous is quite common....




Odd tempermants go hand-in-hand with some of the rarer-coated mice, like the infamous Self Reds for example. It's one of the reasons breeding to bring out unique types should only be attempted by somebody ready to deal with high maintenance mice.

But Amber is a sweetie, I'm lucky.

__________________

Your mice are so nice! Do you generally have to start handling them from a young age? I've read you do but I got my mice from a breeder at 1 week old and I was so scared that the move had upset their mum that I didn't touch them until they started waddling about with their eyes open a week - 1 1/2 weeks later. And I can't keep them off me now and they are 4 months old! Very happy. If I was closer I would love to see your mice first hand - well done on your breeding lines!

__________________

Run free my beautiful rainbow babies. I love you.

I'm glad your taming worked out so well.

I start handling the pups at three days of age and keep increasing how long I have them out and how many times a day I take them out all the way until they are weaned at around 3 and a half weeks. Then there tends to be a period of 2-4 where I have to give them their space and only pick them up if they actually want to be picked up, like if they actively seek out my hand when I am changing food and water and climb aboad. If they don't then I leave them alone until they are ready.

Amber went through a period like that but she is past it now and loves to be plucked out of the tank for a pet.

__________________

I love having lots of mouse pups, ten is always more fun then five.

I seem to have been showing mostly pics of the Broken Agoutis lately, but that doesn't mean I'm ignoring the Pearls, oh no...




It's just easy to get focused on taking pics of the marked Skews because you can actually tell each one of them apart. These Pearls all appear identical, and each is equally friendly...




Once the time comes to seperate the bucks from the does it won't be hard to tell them apart. Plus they aren't all mine to keep, at least not yet, as I have promised a friend that she could have some, probably half of them. She especially wants a Pearl buck to hand-raise...




They're all so cute though, I'm hoping that there is at least one doe that I can keep...




I have two adult Pearls right now, but they don't like to be handled, so a tame girl would be delightful...

__________________

One of my more interesting mice was out this morning when I came in, her name is Arcee...




Arcee is the only Red-Eyed White mouse I have, so where she would be the most common creature in most any pet store, here amongst my colony she is completely unique...




Not that Arcee wouldn't stand out amongst other white mice, as she has a split left ear and only half a tail. She didn't lose it, she was born that way, it ends in a rounded stub...




While on the outside Arcee might appear to be far from perfect genetically, on the inside everything must be working just fine because she is now more then a year old...




I have had many mice from private breeders who never even came close to that age, and besides REWs around here don't tend to last beyond 3-4 months, thanks to too much inbreeding, poor food and bad conditions. I don't know what Arcee's secret is, but I wish she could share it with all my other mice...

__________________

I was finally able to sex Ragu's Broken Agouti foursome...




They are all so calm now, it was a perfect time to do it. I just love their complex markings...




Each one is completely different then the rest, so unlike the identical Pearls we will have no problem telling the Skews apart...




It didn't take long to figure out that there are three girls and one boy. The male is the one above, closest to the camera at the bottom of the picture...



And that's him again, upside-down on his back, isn't he a sweetie.

I'll be keeping two of the girls while my friend gets her wish and gets the buck and the remaining doe. Now she just has to pick her favorite from among the trio of girls because if it was my decision I could never make it, I'd want to keep them all.

__________________

Things are going great in Amber's tank, she and her two new roomies are best of friends now...




A little while ago I put in two rescued mice who are coming along well. The first was a little brown and white doe called Sui:




And the second was Vena, a red-eyed mouse with beige spots:




Amber was very scared of them at first, but after about a week I started seeing them out playing together...




I'm glad that Amber can make friends with other mice, because I was worried she might be too shy and jumpy...




But Sui and Vena seem to really like her, as you can see:




I'm going to let them settle in together for a bit, and then perhaps I will merge this trio with another tank of three does, Sventlana's gang...

__________________