I don't think anyone blames you for wanting to breed mosaics. I'd breed mosaics even if they were worth less then a gray because the color is SOOOO fascinating! I have 2 minimally-marked mosaics and with my boy's first joeys he had a GORGEOUS rintail mosaic(which I kept, of course, much to everyone else's chagrin, lol) and my girl who is minimally-marked(from sterile lines, she's now retired) just had a platinum(almost white) mosaic! If it weren't for his teeny patch of gray where his stripe should be then he'd be considered a white mosaic.

So, yeah, I, for one, could never judge someone for wanting to breed mosaics, lol. They're addicting and amazing!

Stacie Jolley has 2 mosaic males: one for $1500 and the other for $1800. If I remember correctly, Stacie has had alot of platinum and white mosaics from that line, so you've got awesome odds of getting some really amazing mosaics from both boy!

Here's a link to her available joeys: http://thejolleygliders.com/pb/wp_d26e5e36/wp_d26e5e36.html

Here's a gorgeous female mosaic she's got for $2000: http://thejolleygliders.com/pb/wp_d26e5e36/wp_d26e5e36.html

Male mosaic for $1800: http://thejolleygliders.com/pb/wp_d26e5e36/wp_d26e5e36.html

Male mosaic for $1500(he's been taunting me forever!): http://thejolleygliders.com/pb/wp_d26e5e36/wp_d26e5e36.html

Stacie is highly-recommended in the glider community.

I hope that one of those babies is in your price-range so that you can get a non-sterile mosaic.

Thanks Nicole. Priscilla does have several non-sterile mosaics. I'm just working out lineage & pricing with her. That one mosaic male that Stacey has is pretty though & I'll keep him under consideration. The biggest reason we were going with Priscilla was so we could get a whole trio from one place & hopefully drop the price a bit for getting all of them together.

It's hard not to fall in love with the mosaics, huh?

I'm with you. I'd just only breed for mosaic if I could. It's just I don't want to get them and then not be able to sell them. If the demand is that bad in the current price ranges, I don't want to have to drop my price a lot and drive the market down or make people hate me....lol. So I need to know that if I'm going to breed them, there's a decent chance of finding good homes for them at a decent price.

*still drooling over the non-sterile uber-pricey white mosaic*

Misty

Is this going to be your first breeding gliders? If so, I'd HIGHLY recommend going with a pair. Trios have a low success-rate, even with sisters. :\

Also, if you're worried about not being able to find homes for all the babies, then a pair would be better because you'd have fewer babies.

You could always keep one of their mosaic babies in the future to put in a trio if you want to do a trio, but I highly suggest doing a pair for now.

This will be our second set of gliders. Our other set is a pair of 100% leu hets.

Thanks for the warning. I have done my research on trios. If we found that we were having problems, we would assess it & take out one of the females or do whatever we needed to at the time.

It's one of those things we just have to balance out. We want to increase our changes for more mosaic babies, but we also don't want to have so many that we can't sell them. We're also wanting to try out a few WFB with the male. one of the WFB that we're looking at is a lion color & Priscilla said she might have some champagne mosaics. But I really want a regular WFB too. We also don't want to have joey rejections and that kind of thing, so it's definitely something we would want to watch carefully. Being such a small breeder, I think we'll be able to keep a good eye on them to know if something's wrong & my husband works at home, so he's there with them a lot.

I will consider your advice for sure.

I found a few more pretty mosaic brothers on Priscilla's site listed for $1900. I'm waiting to hear back about lineage. If it's good, I might consider getting one of them. I'm still totally drooling over the $5,000 white mosaic though! Woah man, he's beautiful!

Misty

Hi, just wanted to post to clarify about the sterility in the mosaic line. Contrary to previous thought where once a sterile or possibly sterile male proved out then ALL his offspring beyond that generation are all non-sterile, it has been pointed out to me that this is not necessarily 100% true.

A little background, I purchased a Mosaic female listed as "Non-Sterile", she came from a Proven Mosaic Male, Goliath, who was 4rth Gen out. Goliath came from Tuck and Juliet. Juliet came from Shakespeare and Ribbon. Goliath's grandson, Knox, I assumed would be "Non-Sterile" since Goliath proved out, but upon further researching found out that this wasn't the case all the time. I contacted Stacie and also Priscilla regarding this. The following is the e-mail I received from Stacie that Priscilla wrote to her:

"Hey Stacie,

I have usually had to wait for a fifth generation to feel that sterility has been bred out. To know the answer to your question I would have to have
bred to a 7th, 8th or 9th generation and I am not quite there yet. As you know this would require keeping a large number of gliders and this would not
be something I have the room to do.

I think with each successive generation there will be less to no change of sterility. Visually I can see how much better the males have developed with
each generation they are bred out. I still think that these gliders can be sold as producing with a guaranty should anything unforeseen appear. Goliath is proving out his line nicely.

If a male is an early producer from a sterile line, he could still throw sterility. Early producer meaning he is not a 5th or higher generation bred out from sterility.

I hope this helps.

Priscilla"

This was sent to me on Jan. 2, 2009. I am unsure if there are any more developing info on this and if there is please let me know. I thought this info was already known in the community as I would think P would let any potential owners that are interested in sterile or possibly sterile males know. If it hasn't, I should have brought this info out earlier.

Stacie expressed to me that all of Goliath's sons and grandsons have all proven and like myself was very surprised by this new info. Regardless, Knox is neutered and staying with me since I don't believe I could ever sell his line as "Non-sterile" as I wanted. I believe now all of Goliath's offspring are listed as "Producing Sterile Line".

I don't believe anyone can say for 100% guarantee that the sterility can be bred out without concrete research. I also contacted my vet Dr. Ness about this and this is his professional opinion:

"To my knowledge - it is typically the male that is affected with this sterility in the Mosaic line, but I'm sure that the female may also be affected in some cases. Some claim to be able to "breed out" the sterility gene, but I do not know if this has been completely effective, or just reduced. I believe that the sterility is NOT a definite in future generations, but just a higher incidence. Unfortunately, I do not know of anyone doing semen analysis on sugar gliders - which is how this could actually be studied. As you know, there are other environmental, nutritional and medical causes and contibuting factors that may lead to sterility."

Even if a male from sterile or possibly sterile lines develop normally, there are so many variables that we cannot see or know, for example, sperm morphology, sperm count, sperm dispersal and insemination. Any flaw in one or more of these processes can lead to sterility, even in a normally developed male.

Misty it sounds like you are doing a TON of research and that is terrific. Just do as much research as you can and contact as many breeders with questions, the more info given to you, the better

Despite all the skeptisism there have been no occurances where sterility popped up again. Talking with Priscilla yesterday, we have came to the conclusion that we jumped to conclusions to quickly.

We are now under the impression that once a male is producing we won't see it again. It is still a good idea though to say it is producing from sterile lines just incase we do see something.

Woah Katarina, thanks for all of that info.

I'm kind of looking at Stacy Jolley's gliders too. I think I'm going to email her.

Yeah I feel like I'm getting researched-out! Haha.

Misty

I just wanted to thank everyone for your help. You all helped me sort through my questions. I may start a new thread to show off our new joeys (maybe I'll wait until after we get them)...but I thought I'd tell you all that we decided to go with the ridiculously expensive white mosaic (with no sterility in the lines). I'm just waiting to hear back from Priscilla, so we know all 3 gliders that we want are still available, so we can pay for them. I think Tyler will be bringing him and our 2 girls up to us at Judie's event next weekend. We are really excited about it. He is very pretty and has good lineage that's producing a lot of white mosaics. He has 50% leu het and we're pairing him with at least one WFB 50% leu het, so maybe we'll even get a leu one day as an unexpected surprise. I am hoping we'll have some beautiful babies to brag about later this year!

Misty

Congrats Misty. Priscilla has wonderfully sweet babies. You won't be dissapointed. Can't wait to see pics.

Congratulations!