23.06.11 > Things have been very busy for me over the last couple of months with the mice and work. The Dutch are doing extremely well, both in the stud and out at shows, and I'm thrilled with their progress. Their type is really improving without much detriment to their markings, so that's good. The population of Himalayans and Abyssinians here is still low at the moment, though I have had litters of both in the last fortnight so hopefully their numbers will start to pick up.

I've been working towards breeding Dutch in argente and dove, which is a seperate project to the black Dutch show stock (although derived from them). The first dove Dutch was born from my lines a few weeks ago, bred by Mick Shutt from a trio of black Dutch I gave him. He very kindly offered her back to me.

05.04.11 > Big news! One of my lovely little Dutch bucks won best marked at the Manchester show on the 2nd of April. I'm so chuffed - it's my first best in section and my best show result so far, and it means I now have 4 points accumulated. I've got to say, I'm really rocking the Dutch. They really suit me as a variety and I feel very focused. I have all kinds of ideas and plans for them. I am currently keeping three lines (which has involved investing in a load more cages!):

Line One: I'll breed self-bred Dutch bucks to some more big self does, the biggest I have. I have discovered that Dutch buck to self doe is definitely the way round to it; the self does do a lot better at raising young than the Dutch does. This will give me black and chocolate selfs carrying Dutch for the next round in three or four months time.

Line Two: I'll breed these same bucks to their self-bred sisters/half sisters/cousins in the hope of keeping the size whilst producing better markings.

Line Three: I am keeping a line of pure-bred Dutch completely seperate from the self bred mice. This is partly for comparison purposes and partly because I am a bit obsessive when it comes to inbreeding -outcrossing of any kind makes me quite nervous. I don't know what mixing these genes up is going to produce in the long run and I don't want to lose all of my stock if something nasty rears its head in my self bred Dutch.

The Abyssinians are having a population crisis at the moment. I had respiratory sickness in the stud about a month ago and had to cull a lot of stock, including all of the Abyssinians but one pregnant doe. She remained healthy and had her litter, and now they are four weeks old. Last night, some of them were rattling and wheezing. These have been quarantined and I may consider treating them. I've put so much work into improving this line that I just couldn't face starting all over again if I lost these ones.

My small group of Siamese/Himalayan mice have all had to be treated for ringworm recently. Ringworm is easy enough to treat with rabbit anti-fungal spray and athlete's foot powder, it just takes quite a long time and looks manky...

I've also had an entire litter of Abyssinians with six rosettes each! One either side of the tailset, one on each flank, and one on each shoulder. They are currently three weeks old which is when the rosettes look at their worst because their baby coats are so fluffy.

15.03.11 > I have so many ideas for breeding and improving my Dutch mice that I am going to have to focus almost solely on them for a while. I shall keep my other varieties slowly ticking over for now until I have settled on ONE variety to run as a second line...

09.03.11 > There's so much going on in the stud at the moment with kittens popping out of does left, right and centre. My Dutch have had a population explosion; last autumn I was so worried about losing them that I bred everything I had available to Dutch bucks, and now those outcross mice have produced their litters of Dutch babies. The silvers and doves are also still going strong.

I also picked up a Siamese buck from Sarah Cudbill at the Harrogate show with a view to making some pointed Abyssinians by breeding him with my pink eyed white Abyssinians. I have also put him with some of the pink eyed white and cream show self does that I keep around for outcrossing the Abyssinians and he's produced some extremely pretty black eyed Siamese and Himalayan offspring.

The next show I'm attending is the West Country show on the 20th of March 2011.

28.01.11 > Whoohoo, I'll be showing at Harrogate this weekend! The whiskers on my tans have grown back enough to show. I'm so pleased :)

I have had a few litters of Dutch born recently from black self does which carry Dutch. There are actually a couple of showable babies in there, which has surprised me, and there are Dutch mice with saddles that come up to the middles. This saddle issue has become a bit of an obsession of mine, but I think that mice with a saddle up to the middle (as is called for in the standard) are far more attractive than mice with a pair of coloured 'knickers'.

15.01.11 > Well I bloody knew it! I knew something would happen to my tans before Harrogate! They have all had their whiskers chewed off and may not be able to be shown at the end of this month. I'm hoping so hard that they'll grow back enough to get away with, but I'll just have to wait and see. Urgh.

On a higher note, my Dutch experiment produced interesting results. I had been researching into the Dutch mice of the olden days and noticed that a lot of them had much higher saddles than we tend to find today. I want to try and see if I can raise the saddle so it is 'well up to the middle' as the standard calls for. I needed two piebald does with colour all up their backs for my experiment and I knew I wouldn't find these in the sheds of marked mouse exhibitors, so I sought out and bought two pet does. I bred them to two Dutch bucks and their litters were born 8 days ago. All of the babies turned out to be pretty recognisable as Dutch-marked mice, and there are some quite promising ones. The saddles are reaching quite high and although they are nowhere near perfect it seems like a good starting point. I shall be keeping these mice completely separate from my show Dutch mice as they will take many generations to be showable, but I am very interested to see if the saddle can be raised, with a belly marking to match, and a straight demarcation line.

10.01.11 > The wait for the Harrogate show at the end of this month has seemed interminable! Partly because there has been no show since November but mostly because I have some smashing tans which I'm really eager to show. At the moment they are bright eyed and in excellent shape, but who knows what the next 20 days will bring?! Anyway, if you're going to the Harrogate show on the 30th of January, come and say hi!

Otherwise things have been fairly quiet in the stud. Some lovely tans have been born but no Dutch this month as I have no does of breeding age. The last Dutch litter all died aged 2 days old, still looking like newborns. I have had a couple of experimental Dutch litters born but as they are only a couple of days old at the moment I shall post about them when there's actually something to see. I'm interested to see how my theory turned out, anyway.

13.12.10 > The second Dutch litter was born yesterday from the same dam as the last litter and a different sire. The dam only had 5 this time, so they should grow quicker than the last litter. I'm hoping there will be some entries for the U/8 Dutch class at Harrogate in January, but I shall have to wait and see. It's rather exciting (albeit in a sad way LOL).

The PEW Abyssinians are also doing well, with two litters born from show mouse cross PEW mothers and a PEW Abyssinian buck. These mice might even be showable, depending on the rosettes of course.

While the Dutch and Abyssinians are progressing nicely towards my goals, I'm feeling kind of lost and without proper direction with the tan lines. I like the dove and silver tans (because we all know how much I love dove mice!), but I also like the cinnamon/agouti tans and standard agoutis. I'm not sure where I shall take these mice yet, so I am breeding them all for a little while until a decision is made. I don't have the space to continue doing that long term though, so I will have to make a decision fairly soon. I've always been pretty focused on one or two varieties, so it's a bit strange for me to have so many varieties at once. I'm looking forward to making a decision that I'm happy with and being able to focus again!

Anyway, it's very nearly the start of my third year breeding and exhibiting mice! I currently have two points to my name from my BOA self and satin back in October, and I'm hoping I can get a few more in the next showing year. The Dutch are my main showing and breeding priority for 2011 but I have some nice tans to show early next year.

01.11.10 > The very first Blackthorn Dutch mice were born ten days ago!

The stud has been very busy and very full, with an explosion of dove tan and Abyssinian kittens born, and at the end of this week 13 of my mice will be heading off to forge new lives in Poland. Sadly there's only one more show for me this year, which is the Shareshill show on the 21st of November, but I'm currently working hard on my stock in order to hit the show bench in the New Year with my best mice ever. Well, that's the plan anyway, we'll see how it actually works out!

14.10.10 > Whoohoo, my girls won BOA Self and BOA Satin at the Peterborough show last weekend! I'm very proud of them, it's my best result yet. Another point of tremendous excitement for me was the arrival of the Dutch mice. Keith Berry brought me a pair of Dutch and Mick Shutt loaned me the Dutch buck he was showing that day. Very kind of you both, thank you! All in all, a great day at Peterborough :)

05.10.10 > I have spent a lot of time thinking about my stud and showing future over the last few weeks, prompted by arriving at the London Championship show a month ago and finding my dove selfs were, once again, alone in their class. I love my dove selfs and I really do think they are the most beautiful variety, but I breed solely to show and the doves aren't doing that. It's not that losing bothers me, it doesn't. Even when you lose you learn, in fact you learn more when you lose than when you win. There's certainly no shame in being beaten by a better mouse! I'm just a bit tired of the lack of competition in AOC Self. So after a lot of thought I've decided not to show dove self any more. I have kept the best mice and bred them into my dove tan line (which is coming along very nicely by the way) to improve type and try and keep the Blackthorn dove head shape in the stud.

So. I now have time and space for a different show line. I've decided to take up one of my dream varieties and I shall be picking up my first trio of Dutch mice at the Peterborough show this Sunday. Having been an admirer of Dutch since I first saw one at my first show, I'm very excited and looking forward to the challenge of a marked variety :)

This weekend's show at Peterborough marks my first aniversary as an exhibitor. I can't believe how quickly a year has gone by and how improved my mice are! I'm even confident that by this time next year the Abyssinians here will be ready to be shown in the unstandardised classes! I'm so pleased with their progress, when I started with them I thought showing would be years and years in the future.

31.08.10 > It's been a busy few weeks in the stud, I've had a dove and Abyssinian baby boom. Vast improvements have been made to the Abyssinians this generation, and I also have a beautiful litter of show type ivory satin x Abyssinian satin kittens. The dove selfs are better than ever, but the bloomin' tan vents are proving as stubborn as always.

Sadly, I lost all of my blacks to a sickness to which the doves and Abyssinians were immune. Every single black went down in a matter of 48 hours and I had to cull the whole lot, including my young kittens. I was pretty cross and I have no idea what happened. It was possibly the horrible 'New Shed Syndrome' but I'd had them for a few weeks before they became unwell. I will have more blacks as I really do find them attractive but for now I have some beautiful dove tans to play with. It'll be good to be able to show in two sections, and since my cham tans were all wiped out last year before I could really get started, I'm pleased to be able to have another go at a pink eyed tan variety.

I'm looking forward to showing at the London Championships, it feels like ages since I showed last. I don't have any particularly spectacular adults available for showing in the stud (my best mice are currently pregnant), but I have got some nice mice that should do OK. The biggest let-down my doves have are the tan vents, but I've got a couple of young mice with pretty clean vents.

09.07.10 > Naomi and I went to the Summer Cup show at Enfield last weekend and, despite the fact that my beloved car broke down and had to be towed home, we had a lovely day chatting, meeting even more people and sitting in the sun. Unfortunately, my mice were the only ones in their class again, so they won default first, second and third. Congratulations to Sam Irving for another stunning Best in Show mouse, and congratulations to Heather for winning nearly everything else! :)

I came back from the show with a good stock of black mice from Seawatch and Rollesby studs and two satin bucks for the dove line from Sam. All fantastic mice, I'm really, really pleased with them. I'm hoping that I will be showing Blackthorn-bred blacks for the first time at the London Championship show in Reading in September.

The abyssinians have produced another round of lovely kittens. No improvement on type from the last generation, but the rosettes are much better. I shall be doing a show mouse outcross for the second time next time round to try get some size into them. The mice that have a show mouse grandparent or great grandparent are bigger with much better ears and headshape than the mice purely from the pet-type abyssinians. On the whole I'm seeing a lot of improvement, which is very encouraging.

My dove numbers are slowly recovering, but I keep getting nice big litters with only a couple of does in each litter. I would usually keep four does from each litter so that I can breed only the best does, and the lack of baby girls is driving me mad! :D

28.05.10 > Lots of exciting things have happened in the stud over the last month, some good, some bad, but never a dull moment! Firstly, I was incredibly thrilled to have been awarded third place in both my classes at the Enfield show. My doves were competing against seven of Sarah Cudbill's rather stunning fawns and I fully expected the fawns to snap up 1st, 2nd and 3rd in both classes, so I was chuffed to bits that my doves got third. I think they are my proudest awards to date - they may not be first prizes, but the competition was of the highest quality I've been up against so far. Incidentally, one of the fawns won Best Opposite Age in Show, so congratulations to Sarah C.

I have had some beautiful Abyssinians born in the last couple of months. The doves have been on a go-slow breeding wise and I've had various disasters with my blacks, so the number of show mice coming up to breeding age is incredibly limited. They all seem to be picking up again now, but I think it'll be a few months before I have any mice for sale again. The worst thing that has happened this month is that I had to euthanise a whole cage of young dove satin abyssinians due to an unidentified 'tail rotting' disease. I have no idea what caused it. It was NASTY and I was incredibly worried that it would spread through the whole stud, but thankfully I have had no new cases.

28.04.10 > I'm off to the Enfield show with my mice this weekend, in my own brand new Maxey show cages! I have some really lovely dove does under eight weeks old to show, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that they don't moult or fight before Saturday.

I have recently decided to breed black self for exhibition. I brought in a few black selfs purely to help get rid of the tan vents and belly lines, to darken the doves up and produce a more consistant dove colour, and to hopefully stop silvers popping out all the bloody time. I have fallen in love with the variety. Exhibition quality black selfs are incredible, they are so unbelievably black that it looks like you are looking at a mouse-shaped hole. I will get pictures up as soon as I can, but nothing compares to actually seeing one.

Four more abyssinian litters arrived in the last fortnight, all various colours. There are some with quite nice rosettes and a wide variety of colours. I have posted all of the baby pictures in the gallery. I only have baby pictures at the moment and they are quite poor as they were taken on my phone, but I plan to have a big photoshoot with the camera asap to update the dove gallery and to get pictures of my blacks and abyssinian adults.

19.04.10 > What a lovely event the Swindon Mouse Show on Saturday was! Gorgeous weather, fantastic company, lovely venue, and an enjoyable drive there and back with my lovely friend Naomi. I met Dr Fischer and he took seven Blackthorn bred mice back to Germany with him. He truly was a lovely man and I thoroughly enjoyed his company throughout the day. Heather from Loganberry Stud took Best in Show with a beautiful little argente satin U/8, and she very kindly brought me a very manly stud buck. Naomi, Roland, Heather, Sam Irving and I all went to the Fox in Hermitage for an awesome lunch. It was, in short, one of the nicest days I've had in a very long time :)

I've had bit of a mouse explosion here at home with four abyssinian litters born yesterday within six hours of each other, and two dove does currently looking about ready to explode!

14.04.10 > I have entered the NMC Spring Cup Show in Swindon this weekend, and I'm very much looking forward to going and saying hi to my friends in the fancy. I am also meeting Dr Roland Fischer, a mouse fancier from Germany, at the show. We've been emailing back and forth for a few months now, and I'm looking forward to meeting him in person. He will be taking some of my doves and silvers home with him, it's quite exciting to think of mice I've bred going to live in Germany!

09.04.10 > The argente abyssinian litter had a couple of surprises! Firstly, there was a chinchilla doe, which is a colour I really appreciate. Secondly, as the fur grew through it became apparent that one of the 'argentes' is actually an argente creme! This is one of my favourite colours and it's incredibly difficult to breed due to the c-locus and p-locus linkages, which means that a mouse that shows both chinchilla and pink eyed dilute (argente) can only happen randomly when the links cross over. Once you have one, you can reproduce it but it sometimes takes generations to get the first one. So, I was incredibly pleased at the fluke luck of having one in a litter I thought would be entirely argente and agouti! Unfortunately the dam ate the chinchilla at 10 days old, so I have fostered the argente creme doe to a show dove doe with a litter the same age. So far all is well, although I am gutted to have lost the chinchilla doe - especially since she had the best rosettes out of both abyssinian litters.

All of the other litters are growing on very well indeed. I have some show doves with no belly lines and limited tan on their vents, so I'm really looking forward to showing them at the Swindon show on the 17th of April.

01.04.10 > The dove abyssinians are now just over a week old and thriving. I have a mix of satin and self abyssinians and I'm extremely pleased. I also have an argente abyssinian litter now, they were born four days ago and I'll post pictures of them when they have hair.

23.03.10 > January and February were difficult months at Blackthorn Stud in terms of breeding, out of the thirteen does I mated up (show doves and abyssinians) only three does managed to carry their litters to term. Most of them reabsorbed their litters at about 16-17 days, but I had to euthanise a couple of does that had breached babies stuck during labour. When you have an animal with as short as breeding span as a mouse, you really do start to worry when you're not producing litters for a couple of months! But the spring equinox came and brought it with the first of six litters, and the remaining five followed over the next couple of days. I also have another two pregnant ladies due to pop any day now, so it appears we are up and running again.

Yesterday saw the birth of the first Blackthorn dove abyssinians! Sadly, eight of the babies were stillborn, but there are three bucks and three does that are healthy and thriving. I will post pictures when the babies have grown hair.

On the 6th of March I picked up a lovely silver satin buck from Willow Walk mousery and he is currently in with his first wife. Hopefully we'll be seeing some dove satin litters in a few months. I am excited about this because dove satin breeds compatibly with dove self and carrying satin has no effect on the quality of the self dove, which means I'll be able to breed one line still but show in two sections; self and satin.

01.02.10 > I went to the Bradford Excel Championship show in Harrogate yesterday. It was an almost 6 hour round trip (at least 4 hours of which was spent on the M1), but worth it! My young doves won first and third place in AOC Self U/8, which I was very pleased about. I spent a long time watching the judging, and stewarded for the AOV judge in the afternoon. I learnt so much in that time and saw a lot of varieties of mice that I have never seen in real life before, including black foxes, chinchillas, variegated and siamese. I'm absolutely smitten with the siamese variety, such pretty mice with their soft pastel shadings. One day I'll have some siamese, but for now I have enough on my plate!

10.01.10 > Blackthorn Stud is now embarking on our second year breeding exhibition mice. 2009 was a fantastic year, I've learnt so much and met so many lovely people. The doves have drastically improved in the past year, and have done well in the few shows they've entered. I plan to be much more active with showing this year and show my doves at as many as posible. I'm still working very hard on this line, and it's paying off; the tan on the vents and the belly lines are shrinking and there are improvements all over with every generation. Improving and showing doves will remain my top priority throughout this year (and probably for many years to come).

Sadly, my champagne tans were wiped out in a recent respiratory sickness in the stud, when I lost 13 mice in total including a few of my doves. It was a bit gutting, but it happens to everyone and could have been far worse! The bulk of my stud are in good health and spirits.

I have purchased three abyssinian bucks (a dove tan satin, a blue fox, and a chocolate tan satin) from a lovely lady in Cambridgeshire, and thankfully these remained unaffected by the epidemic. The dove satin buck, who is by far the best of the three, is currently in with some dove does. The abyssinians are rather small and have poor type, so it'll be a careful balancing act between outcrossing the mice to my doves to improve type without watering down the abyssinian modifiers too much. Abyssinian is a simple recessive gene, but appears to need to be rather concentrated (bred abyssinian to abyssinian for a number of generations) to get good rosettes, so I can only expect very poor rosettes from this outcross but it should improve the overall shape and size.

I'll next be showing at the Bradford Excel in Harrogate on the 31st of January. I'm very much looking forward it, shows are a great place to meet like-minded people, see existing friends in the fancy, and see some beautiful mice. I should be showing in my own Maxey show cages, which I am currently in the process of making. I am not DIY minded in the slightest so it's an uphill struggle!

03.11.09 > Well, my youngest dove ladies made appearances at two shows last month, and did me proud with one first in class, one second in class, and two third in class awards. My dove line seems to be off to a very good start. Buoyed by the success of a particular doe, I re-mated her mother in the hope of producing more doves as good as her, and all of the resulting babies are champagne, which is rather annoying as I'm trying very hard to get rid of the pesky chocolate gene in my dove mice. Anyway, all of the latest dove does will reach breeding age in another 3 weeks or so, and I'm very excited about the mice they'll produce.

Also, the very first champagne tans were born here last month - and out of three litters there were fourteen bucks born and only four does born!

Lastly, I have a new project, about which I'm very excited. I have been given some mice to start off an abyssinian line! Abyssinian mice are like abyssinian cavies, the coat has a number of rosettes that create swirls and ridges in the fur. I've wanted abyssinians for a very long time, but sadly they died out in show circuits a few years ago. A few have recently popped up in feeder and pet breeding lines, which is where the parents of my mice came from. The trio I have to breed with are smooth coated agoutis, but they carry abyssinian. As these mice are originally from feeder/pet lines it'll take a lot of work to improve both the general type and the quality and quantity of the rosettes but I love a good challenging project. I'm very pleased indeed :)

01.10.09 > It's been a busy couple of months in the mousery. My doves are still coming on really well, and we're preparing for our very first show on the 11th of October at the East of England Show! I'm taking five of the latest female dove kittens and a silver doe kitten that I've bred. This last lot have been the best so far in terms of dovieness, and they also have very nice type. I don't expect that they'll do all that well as the self classes have some spectacular mice in them and my doves still have rather obvious faults, but I won't know until I try :)

Also, I've been thinking about starting a second line with another variety, so last month I picked up a complete stud of champagne tans from Heather. They are beautiful little mice, much more delicate than my whomping big selfs, with the biggest, beadiest eyes. They have fantastic tan, a real deep red, and good tan placement (ie it's not spread all over the feet and behind the ears). They do have champagne throat spots that will need breeding out but on the whole members of this tan line have been doing very well at shows and I feel rather fortunate to have them. I had a bit of a scare as the move to my stud proved to be a bit much for some of them and they had to be euthanised due to a stress-induced respiratory disease, but there are more than enough survivors to continue the line. I will add pictures asap.

17.07.09 > The doves are coming really well, I'm really thrilled with them. I am now on to my second generation and the third generation should be born sometime around the end of August. The second generation involves dove mice from my first generation matings crossed with some spectacularly typey silver mice from Loganberry Stud. I now have 4 stunning dove ladies currently running on, and some more doves born in the last week. My 4 dove ladies still have their faults as exhibition animals, such as slight tanning to the vents and small lines through the middle of their belly fur, but they are a big improvement on the previous generation. The girls all hit breeding age in late August.

Heather kindly invited me to visit Loganberry Stud a few weeks ago. I learnt a hell of a lot from her in the few hours I was there, saw a lot of stunning mice, and came back with yet more strapping silvers.

I have also recently acquired a chunky black satin buck and a huge black doe from Humbug Stud. Both mice carry dove and have really big bold eyes, which I'm hoping they'll bring to my doves as I do feel the mice in my line could have bigger eyes. They have been mated together and the black satin buck has also been mated to a silver doe in order to provide me with some doves carrying satin. If all goes well the first Blackthorn Dove Satins will be born before the year is out.

02.05.09 > I went to the show today to meet Heather and pick up my silver buck and found that she had brought me 2 gorgeous dark silver does to go with him! I was thrilled. The man-mouse is every bit the testosterone filled beast. I have them back home now and I'll get pictures up as soon as possible. The does are breeding age and will be going in with my best dove buck some time in the next week, along with the argente doe from Humbug Stud that I picked up on the 21st of January (who has previously had a black tan litter with the sable buck).

01.05.09 > Jenny's second litter has arrived! There are 13 healthy kittens, 8 bucks and 5 does. I have taken the 8 bucks out and left her with the 5 does.

28.04.09 > I got in touch with Heather of Loganberry Stud yesterday regarding a manly silver lad. I had seen pictures of bucks she has bred and they are CHUNKS! Heather has very kindly agreed to sell me a couple of suitable bucks and I'll be picking them up at the LSCMRC show in Enfield this Saturday 2nd May.

10.04.09 > It could be a while until I can get a suitable buck and I have only one dove doe at the moment, so I have put Jenny back in with the best of her two dove sons to give myself more doves to work with. Kittens should be due end of this month or very early next month, and Jenny herself is looking very fit.

03.04.09 > The dove kittens are now six weeks old and they've turned out very nicely. They have a lovely warm, soft grey top colour, very nice faces and large ears, and they are incredibly tame and friendly. On the down side, they all have such bad tan areas around their ears, ankles and vents that I will have to find a suitable outcross. I spoke to Dave Safe (an established fancier with much success with showing champagnes amongst others) and he very kindly answered my questions and gave me a lot of advice. Dove selfs are, for some reason, very unpopular on the show bench and no-one else breeds specially for them, so Mr. Safe advised me to aquire a silver buck that was too dark for showing as silver to clean up the colour of my doves. Mr. Safe also stressed the importance of the buck's size - he said the does should pretty princesses and the bucks should be chunky, rugged, bull-like mice to keep up the size of the offspring. So my next mission is to find a big, manly, dark silver buck with minimal tanning.

13.03.09 > Jenny's kittens are now 3 weeks old and they're running and jumping about like mad things. I can see why this stage is called the 'popcorn stage'. The kittens have been out to play in a tub every day for the last week and they have become so tame that they will walk straight on to my hand to be lifted out of the breeding box. I've achieved this by resting one arm in the play tub and allowing the kittens to explore and climb up on to my shoulders as they please.
I had been hoping for champagne kittens to kick off a line of champagnes, but I didn't get any. This has worked out just fine because the dove kittens in the litter (1 doe and 2 bucks) are the most beautiful mice I've ever seen, and I have decided that dove is the variety I'll be breeding to exhibit. I had only seen pictures of dove mice before and I hadn't really thought much of them, but seeing them in the fur is totally different. I would advise anyone planning on picking a variety to breed and exhibit to visit shows and breeders and see as many different mice as possible before making a decision.

20.02.09 > Jenny's litter has arrived! I have only peered in the top of her tank, but it looks like there are 8 healthy little kittens with good milkbands in the nest. I have had to remove the other doe as she was stealing the babies. Jenny's attempts to recover them resulted in a tug-of-war with one kitten, who thankfully seems unharmed.

15.02.09 > Jenny is looking lovely and round, and very fit and healthy, so she's moved back in with her girl friend to get ready to have her litter. I have removed her toys and given her a massive handful of shredded paper to make a nest from, and she seems very relaxed and happy.

27.01.09 > Jenny has moved in with the same argente buck, so hopefully there'll be no problems this time. I'm expecting argente, dove and champagne in the litter still.

21.01.09 > I've just been and collected my new argente doe and a gorgeous sable buck from Humbug Stud. The new doe has gone in with Jenny with no problems, and both new mice have settled well. The sable in particular is lovely to handle - very docile and calm.

08.01.09 > Unfortunately I've had to cull the older doe today. She'd been in with the buck for a week and a half, but had started to look very thin and listless. If she was pregnant, there's no way she'd have been able to kindle in that condition :(

28.12.08 > The older doe has moved in with the buck, so fingers crossed for babies in three or four weeks! I'm expecting argente, dove and champagne in the litter.

10.12.08 > I've just collected my first breeding trio. They are argente, show type but not show colour, from Humbug Stud. The older doe can be bred from the end of this month, the younger doe (her half sister whom I've named Jenny) can be bred from at the end of January.

01.12.08 > Unlike the rat, cavy and rabbit fancies, there is not that much information available on-line about the mouse fancy, and breeding to show in particular. So, as a new exhibition mouse breeder, I've decided to keep this blog of all my experiences as I learn about breeding and exhibiting mice. I have had pet mice for many years now, so I also intend to fill this website with everything I know about keeping mice as pets. Hopefully there'll be something here of interest to anyone interested in fancy mice.