Varieties

Tans

V - Silver Tan (si/t)

a^t/* B/* C/* d/d p/p, or
a^t/* B/* C/* D/* ln/ln p/p

"Eyes pink. The colour should be a soft dove grey. The tan belly shall be a rich golden orange hue, as rich as possible and there should be a clear line of demarcation between top colour and tan running in a straight line along flanks, chest and jaws. There should be no brindling or guard hairs. Colour of feet should be inside tan, the remainder of foot the same as top colour. Wholly tan feet considered a greater fault than feet all same colour as top."

Breeding information below the pictures.

	SH silver tan buck Rapunzel's Requiem b. & o: Anniina Tuura pic: Arttu Väisälä
	SHS silver tan buck SNL Ch Rapunzel's Teliko b. & o: Anniina Tuura pic: Arttu Väisälä
	Rapunzel's SH silver tan does b. & o: Anniina Tuura pic: Arttu Väisälä

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

Quick Look

.First of all, it should be noted that the best show silver tans tend to be dove tans, bred to have a lighter top and not actually pink eyed blue tans. This way it is possible to have mice with the required top color as well as with a good tan. These "silver tans" are often bred in conjunction with dove tans and they do improve each others in the hands of a skillful breeder. Those mice who have been selectively bred to have a light top help to keep the dove tan top color light and dove tans help to keep the "silver tan" belly darker. Light noses should not be bred in, as they are hard to breed out.

"Proper" silver tans suffer from the same difficulty than it's black eyed counterpart, the blue tan. The blue diluting gene reduces the depth of the tan belly. Starting from a scratch, you will need to introduce the pink eye gene to a blue tan. Sadly, blue tans aren't popular themselves, so you may need to start from a silver to black tan cross. Using leaden instead of blue dilution, will give better tan.