Hybrid Update

Question
1). The wilder ones have escaped,.    I do not know their fate as we have an excellent mouser.
2).  Daddy mouse (wild mouse) was finally caught and executed by said mouser.
3). The surviving 7 hybrids tamed up nicely.  I am in absolute love with a very dark gray coated one named Basil.  Dad was a very dark mouse.  He is the sweetest mouse in the world.  He being the only boy got seperated out.  Most of the others have a mixed light gray and bown coat.  One of his sisters has the dar gray coat.
4).  We are going to set up a 55 gallon tank for the ladies.  They are now in two attached habitrails.  I don't trust the habitrails as the little side pods don't always shut properly, leading to the great escape.  Oddly, it was the biters who all made the break.  No tears were shed as they caused many a bleeding finger.

Answer
Hi Susan,

Thanks a million for the update!

How interesting. It really seems like a second generation instead of a first generation...... Do you have a male mouse in a cage with bars, where a female might have snuck in to get pregnant? My babies were all the same color and presumably looked like their Dad. Also, it makes sense for there to be some sweet ones because if, very roughly speaking, the "gene for wildness" is dominant over the "gene for tame ness" it makes sense to have all wild in the first generation, but for carriers of the tame gene to mate and produce 1/4 tame mice. But of course you have only one father, so we would know he had both genes. He would be wild but on average, 1/2 of the babies would be tame.

My one tame mouse would be some sort of a minor mutant.

And the coloring makes sense too. He would have one "gene" "for wild color" and one "gene" "for fancy mouse coloring." Of course your fancy girl has many, many different color genes in her, if she is not from a private breeder. So, different colors would be expected. And on average 1/2 would be wild coloring. It would not have to be the same mice who had "wild" and "tame" genes.

So think hard-- is there any, any possibility that a female wildie got into your male cage? They can fit through extremely small cracks. Or that your mouse had a small litter that you never noticed? She could even have just had one, which would have been well hidden until he was about 12-14 days, after which time he might have just left. Or sometimes came back at night.

My wild ones bit too. That's why I released the one I did.

I am fascinated. Could you send me photos of the mom and the babies you have left? It is terrific that you have seven left! And that is a nice big environment, too.

Remember I said that one girl who took mine told me that they had escaped and had a litter in a suitcase under her bed... I wonder if she tried to handle those second generation ones. Of course she wouldn't know if they mated with an outside mouse. Too bad I lost her contact info.

Thanks again!

Squeaks n giggles,

Natasha