Friday, March 11, 2011

The Case of the Prego Squeakers

I finally have something vettish to talk about here, and of course, I didn't even learn it in my classes.  Ah well!

So I answer questions on AllExperts.com about mice.  Why do I do this?  Because mice basically rawk.  Also, because I've spent the past couple of years absorbing every piece of information about them I could get my hands on, from breeding forums to books on genetics and showing, to papers, seminars, and texts from the Jackson Lab.  I worked with them in a lab, I studied colony management in my free time, I bred them in my office, and I still keep them as pets.  I even attempted to do my own research on a color gene before I realized how difficult that idea is without money or a lab.  I'm writing a book on them.

Maybe it started when I kept one or two at a time as pets in high school, or maybe it started before that when I'd play with the ones at the pet shop.  Or maybe it really started later than that, when I realized how poorly informed feeder breeders were and felt a desire to light and spread the wildfire of ethical mouse breeding for food.  Or maybe the real beginning was the first time I answered a mouse question on Yahoo! Answers and got a response telling me that I'd saved their mouse's life.  I think that moment was when I decided to be a vet tech, or even a vet someday, too.  That is a powerful feeling.

Whatever - whenever it started, I wound up here and now, still studying, and now helping other people online.

I get mostly idiotic questions.  A lot of people write in asking things they could easily have googled, or asking how to dig themselves out of a very messy hole they made by pairing mice before they had any idea why they were even doing it.  I answer every question the best that I can, because it doesn't matter to the mice how they got there, and the more information I can spread the more comfortable those people's mice will be.  I almost never get cool genetics questions, and most of the time if genetics are brought up it's something like:

"If I breed my white mouse with red eyes to a colored mouse what colors will the babies come out?  Because I did that.  So what color will the babies be?"

If you're brand new to mouse breeding that IS a hard question.  But all it takes is a little research to figure the answer out.  AND, why would you ask me that after you've already bred them?  Why would you breed them if you don't even have a goal?  It's even harder to answer, though, without going back to the beginnings of "what is a dominant gene?" and "what is albino?"  I can't just say the doe is c/c and her other loci will determine the color of the offspring.  It's times like this I just want to answer:

"Black THEY WILL ALL BE BLACK."

No, they won't all be black.  It just gets frustrating.

Anyways, today I got asked the COOLEST QUESTION OF ALL TIME.  And she had no idea she was asking it, either!



Okay, so she had written me awhile back wanting to know if it was safe to breed her.  We determined it would be, and went over all the possible things that could go wrong so she'd be prepared.  What she didn't tell me was actually what caused the problem, though.

This time when she wrote in she was worried because mum had bled about 17 days into pregnancy.  She "bled out," but hadn't been presenting a big prego belly or anything, and was now discharging a clear goo.  What I wished she'd told me before was that her mother and another mouse related to her had gone through the exact same thing, only to have a small litter a few days later.

It took me a few seconds to realize this, because at first I was thinking regular old complications, a different pain causing her not to groom up the discharge/blood or a premature birthing, or a non-pregnancy related issue.  But then it hit me - lethal genes.

Some genes in mice are lethal.  The mice will develop to a certain point, start to express the genes (if they received it from both parents), and then pass away.  Sometimes this happens shortly after they are born, but with many lethal genes, they die in the uterus.  If they die soon enough they can be reabsorbed, but if they die later into the term, they need to be expelled in order to protect the mom and the other pups from infection due to decomposing in the womb.

She was getting smaller litters with excessive bleeding and discharge a few days before birthing.  I'm about 99% positive her mice were having normal litters but losing several of them before they were born, making it LOOK like they were having one or two pups when really, those were the only pups who did not inherit the deadly genes or gene combo.

It's unfortunate, but it's better than finding out she couldn't pass the litter, or wasn't pregnant but had a terrible GI problem, especially when you consider the fact that none of her local vets take mice seriously and offer to put them down for her any time she comes to them with a question!

And if you ask me?  It's cool as hell.  I've NEVER run into lethal genes before, except the immunodeficiency problems associated with satin mice.  And even then, my only problem with them (thank goodness!) was one premature litter that all survived and thrived thanks to momma Emma (RIP) being basically amazing!  :)



-Mouse



Miss you, Emma girl.

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