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.

Bumper Sticka

It's here!

A little while back I made a bumper sticker using Zazzle.  I saw it in a store, and it was brilliant yellow with two "yuck" faces and said "Friends don't let friends fund H$U$."  Then I found the customize button.

I used a photo of a dog I transported from shelter-to-home a little bit ago, messed with it a bit, and voila:

 For those of you wondering, the Zazzle store is woofnwhinny (and it's not my store).

I'm desperately hoping it isn't interpreted that I hate dogs and people shouldn't pay for them, ha.  What I meant when I made it (and before I clicked the order button and realized it could be misinterpreted) is that people who want to help dogs shouldn't attempt to do so via funding the HSUS.

I've always found myself fighting the HSUS when they situate themselves against things like keeping pets, transporting big snakes, complaining about farming or science, or like the current battle, demanding that chickens not be in cages of any size despite the prevalence of disease in non-segregated birds.  I never see any science behind their arguments, and why should they give any?  They have always seemed an organization founded externally on blind passion and internally on dollar signs.

In any case, disagreeing on core methods of animal treatment and welfare is just the reason we disagree.  Why do I hate them, though?  I hate them because they make life more difficult for animals.  They start problems and don't finish them, leaving messes for unfunded and unaided shelters to clean up.  They take dollars away from needy rescuers by misrepresenting themselves.  It's that kind of playing dirty that has no place in the world of animal care.

That fact is widely unknown here.  I don't have anything to give (more than what I am now) to my local animal community, so I'm giving knowledge.  Here the majority of people still believe the commercials and ads - that if you give money to the HSUS they use it to give pets blankets and food.  In reality, they ramble on about what a great, reformed guy Vick is and lobby, lobby, lobby against pet and livestock ownership without ever having gotten dirty themselves.  Oh yes, I'm passionate.

You are 100% welcome to do your own research and make up your own mind on the HSUS.  I am NOT telling anybody what to believe, just ranting about my own thoughts.  If you didn't know anything about what they do before now, let my crazy ramblings get you googling a little about how they really spend your cash.  Just as HSUS's own website is its own end of the spectrum (biased source - pro-HSUS), Humanewatch.org is a website on my end of the spectrum (biased source - anti-HSUS).  Never, ever trust one source - go read everything you can!



Oh, side-note - did you know French bulldogs can't reproduce?  I didn't! Just learned that the other day.  All the puppies come from artificial insemination.  I just think that's really cool.

It makes me think about the topic of dog breeding.  The more I associate myself with people heavily involved in rescue*, the more I find myself standing alone in a crowd of people thoroughly AGAINST animal breeding.  That is not me, that is not my view.  I do understand that by looking simply at the numbers, one could believe that NO breeding should continue EVER because we clearly have enough.  This is like taking guns away from people with gun licenses - only the people who have them illegally will be left with them.  Do you want the illegal, under-the-radar, inhumane backyard breeders to be the only ones cranking out puppies?  Really?

There are absolutely responsible, ethical breeders of dogs and cats.  The dogs you see at huge dog shows with perfect conformations and health, those are from good breeders.  Their dogs wind up at shows, are only bred if they are the lowest risk with something great to ADD to the breed.  Good breeders only pair animals when they have a valuable way to improve the offspring.  If they were forced to stop, not only would a ton of people have their talents and callings taken away from them, dogs and cats would be taken away from all of us.  You'd either have the most rotten, deformed, unworthy, feral animals taking over the genetic pool, or you'd succeed in your mission and drive cats and dogs off the planet entirely.

I'm not anti-breeding.  I think what we've done with most dog and cat breeds is perfected animals for a purpose.  Working animals, companion animals, animals that coexist the best with the variety of human populations of which we consist.  Every time I see someone bash breeders as a whole and insist NO animal should be bred, I wince.  It's stupidity.  It isn't thinking for yourself - it's seeing too many needy animals put down and searching out a scapegoat.

Oh well.  I've never bought from a breeder, but that's because I'm pretty darned poor.  That, and what would I do with an impressively bred animal?  Nothing to better the breed, that's fo sho, which puts them on the SAME (not lower) level as shelter pets.  Just way more 'spensive.  And with a more clear health history.

Honestly, if I were to buy an animal from a breeder, it'd probably be a mouse.  Mice have their own problem though - everyone breeds mice with unknown histories willy nilly but the amazing, long-bred lines are kept strictly to themselves.  Breeders never sell those mice to the public - only to other breeders with whose practices they agree.  I get irked at that, too, but then I get questions from people who wonder why their mouse pups are all dying and if they should breed mom again and then I understand why.  *rolls eyes*

Okay, rant over!
-Mouse



*see: crazy people.  Don't get me wrong, I think people who rescue are caring, amazing people, but every single one I have ever met is a little bit crazy.  Or a lot crazy.  You see what humans are capable of doing to animals, and how some people view them, and you lose a little faith in them.  It just changes you.  I'm going to do my best to not go nutty, but when you work in animal rescue, you kind of start to think of them like your children.  And who wouldn't go a little crazy when somebody does the things to your children that people do to dogs and cats?