Varieties

Ticked

Agouti (ag)

A/A B/* C/* D/* P/*, or
A/a B/* C/* D/* P/*

"Eyes black. The agouti shall be a rich ruddy brown with even dark or black ticking all through. The belly shall be a golden brown, ticked as on top and the feet shall match the body in colour and ticking."

Breeding information below the pictures.

	Good colour. SH agouti mouse b. & o. Maiju Collan pic: Arttu Väisälä
	Great colour for a satin agouti. Shs agouti mouse from the Thapsus mousery. b., o. & pic: Meri Orrainen (Click the pic for a larger image.)
	Double champion quality long hair agouti. Lh agouti buck DCh Moranan Kostja. b. Mirva Vuorela, o. & pic: Meri Orrainen (Click the pic for a larger image.)
	Satinization darkends agouti. If this mouse was short hair, it's colour would be quite too light. Now, it could show a more clearly black ticking. SHS agouti doe Knuspergardens City Girl b. Maiju Collan o. & pic: Anniina Tuura
	This mouse shows a quite common fault of agouti mice: ticking is quite too heavy on the back, while the sides lack it. The back of the mouse turns too dark, the sides light. This is an example of a so-called "umbrous-agouti" (with a sable background). SH agouti doe Noddyn Keiju b. & o: Satu Karhumaa pic: Arttu Väisälä

Note: This article is old and waiting to be rewritten.

Quick Look

In my opinion agouti is one of the most beautiful varieties of mice. Being dominant (over all other colors but red) it's fairly easy to produce but hard to get perfect with the rich red colour and even black ticking. Most common faults with agouti are uneven ticking, 'black stripe' along the spine, uneven and light coloring along with light feet. It's also difficult to combine good size and type with the best possible coloring. Big agouti mice often lack in colour and best coloured mice in type and size. Best mating is agouti to agouti and only the best mice should be used for future breeding. The evenness of coloring should be monitored closely, as it is very hard to breed out uneven ticking.

There are several options for an outcross. Outcross to red helps improving the basic colour, unfortunately often at the cost of size and type. Mating to cinnamon can improve size and type, but in the first generation the youngsters are usually poorly coloured. These should be then mated to an agouti to improve the colour. If the agouti lacks ticking, it can be mated with a black tan. Here again, it may take several generations to get the basic colour right again. Also this combination results in agouti tans. Another problem with using black tans, is the possibility getting umbrous agoutis. These have the typical sable shadings on agouti. That is, the ticking is concentrated highly on the back and diminsihing cradually to normal ticking along the sides towards the belly.