 | mobile - desktop |
|
| mobile - desktop |
|
 |
 Available Now at RodentPro.com! |
News & Events:
|
Posted by sasheena on April 28, 2003 at 19:51:41:
In Reply to: Genetics ? Silky/Curly = poor survivability? posted by JM on April 28, 2003 at 13:52:39:
The silky (satin) gene does cause a slight depression in killer t-cells (or something like that) which can cause them to be more susceptible to illness. As far as I know the curly genes do not produce weak babies. However, there are any number of OTHER genes that could be causing this.
If you REALLY want silkies in your colony, I would take the healthiest strongest of the silkies you have, breed him (boy is best) to as many of your "Good momma mice" parents, and then keep those babies to go back into your colony. As you spread the silky gene throughout your breeding colony, in about two or three generations, you'll start getting them popping up all over the place. A good 25% of my feeder mouse population is silky. When I only had a few I seemed to notice a bit of a higher drop off of babies, but once I had silkkies EVERYWHERE in my colonies, I never really noticed any sort of drop off. Since I produce more mice than I need, I don't really notice. I've never really had much luck with curls though... I do get a lot of long haired curly silkies that just seem to not produce well. So I feed em off and continue from there.
~Sasheena
