Slightly dusty and ruffled from a cage clean, but! These are the two boys who currently being used for my siamese line. The siamese boy (left) is a little darker than I prefer, but most of the males seem to be so that might just be a siamese thing. The black (right) is a/a c^ch/* because he came from a a/a x c^ch/c^ch pairing, which means he can produce visual blacks (that are het for the himalayan gene) and full siamese. I still have my full self-black line going (I JUST put the F6 group together last week, so we should see F7 born in 3-4 weeks and weaned by mid October), but the siamese were starting to have some fertility issues with the males (the does bred fine against other males). So, the black line is being crossed in a couple generations early, and that's okay.
Out of curiosity (and a little desperation, to see if some friendly competition could un-lazy this siamese male), I set up a large cage for all of the siamese to cohab in. I kept one extra siamese buck just in case in a separate cage, and then I placed these two plus my eight does into the setup. While I know that male mice can fight when breeding is on the line or after they have been breeding, I've also done some selection for temperament in that respect, and I used to do full colony breeding with multiple males that were raised together (leaving in sons/brothers) without a problem. These two had never met, though, and both were breeders. It's been over a week and so far, they're getting along great. I've caught them sleeping in a big pile with the girls, and I've found at least one doe with a mating plug, so I know they're still doing that too. I've been checking them both thoroughly daily for any signs of duress, but so far there's no scuffs and when I see them encounter each other they just do a sniff, rub faces, and go about their business. They don't seem bothered at all. We'll see when the litters are born if it worked and got the siamese off his butt or if the black is doing all the work, but I'm hopeful. If nothing else, when I separate F6 I can use that male to make some more het siamese blacks to work with.
