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| Name: |
Braveheart
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Age: |
Four months old
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| Gender: |
Female
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Kind: |
Fancy Mouse
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| Home: |
Brooks, Alberta, Canada
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Braveheart
came to me missing about half her hair. I thought at first she had
a naked gene, where all her hair would fall out at her age. Strange isn't it?
Hairless mice actually start with hair and it grows normally before being
shed and never growing again. It turns out however that the reason for her
having very little hair was not due to a hairless gene. I'm not entirely sure
what it was, probably barbering. Barbering is when mice living in large
groups chew off one another's hair. It is a harmless behavior but I'm sure
quite embarrassing for the poor mouse that gets a bad hair cut.
I have found to my delight that not only has it grown back, it is white! Her
natural fur color is a coffee or almond, and her longhaired gene causes her
to have both coffee and white in it. She also started out as an undermouse,
(bad pun sorry lol) the other girls beat her up so I had her in with Snoopy
Gamatasu man (a male mouse) until she grew. And grow she did! People thought
she was ill and might die, but now she is a larger mouse than most of my others.
She is the new alpha mouse of the colony. Despite her bad beginning, once I
reintroduced her to the girls at grown size, she quickly took charge. She
wasted no time putting the more aggressive girls in their place. She didn't
hurt them, but she made sure they knew who was the new queen of the cage. Her
long angora fur is extremely silky and soft, and she is a very warm mouse.
When a mouse has lost alot of hair they generate more body heat. So she tends
to have a good amount of healthy heat coming from her tiny body. She is very
sweet, more than happy to let me hold her. She was really tame from the
beginning. I have begun to find some mice like some treats and others prefer
different ones. Braveheart, while she loves bird seed and peanuts, dislikes
meat. My aunt gave me some dog kibble, some of the girls go for it with
relish. But others, like Braveheart, prefer other things. Mice have different
tastes too, just like people! One picture is her as a baby. She looked very
frail. But now she is healthy and strong in her dominant leadership role.
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