Champagne Silvering Question

So I have a litter of champs now that are ten weeks old. They are a bit smaller (I've gotten spoiled with my older doe, she throws kits that grow like NZ) but still growing well for a heritage breed. Out of the litter of six, three were born with white marks on their heads. They aren't definitive spots like I thought they were when they first showed up (as soon as the fur started to appear around day three) but more or less just patches of silvering that seemed to appear early. In their junior coats, these rabbits are technically showable. Now, this is where I get confused.

I know that solid white 'SPOTS' are a definite DQ and would be culled. But as these are patches that are silvered, not pure white, are they still showable even if it's not the typical silvering pattern (they don't typically fill in around the ears until they are about twelve weeks or more) ? The standard doesn't say anything about it. Or would it be considered that they are more likely to throw actual solid white spots if they were crossed back to line breed or perhaps crossed with another line that are more predisposed to throw spots. If that is the case, should it be considered unethical to sell them as they may throw spotted kits? I'm really not sure where to stand on the subject since I'm still fairly new to the breed, and don't really have any mentors on what to look for. I just select who to keep by what has the closest conformation to my doe that has won legs, but with more typey coloring. I haven't had to deal with this kind of thing yet.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

I would warn the buyers that this trait has cropped up in your line and it will likely continue to do so unless you select against it.

Champaign D'argents are genetically self black rabbits with silvering and should NOT have any white hairs in their coats at all - but the silvering gene has likely made it easy for breeders to keep passing on this trait as it can become hidden amongst the "silver" hairs

I believe it was mentioned that some bloodlines of Silver Fox are also born with a spot of white hairs on their forehead that unfortunately doesn't always disappear or get blended in with their silver fur, mainly because they are not as heavily silvered as Dargents

And I occasionally get white spots on my meat mutt kits that is quite noticeable on my black self chins but blends in completely on my chinchilla coloured ones

So just to confirm, what your saying is that it's not that they've gotten some patches that have silvered early, but that it is a defect in their actual coat and they possess?

This was the first litter I've seen this crop up in. It's from a line that's already fairly line bred, and it was a daughter to father breeding, since I didn't have my new buck yet. I'm just trying to conform best I can to breed standard and showing/selling kits that will be good producers. I'm just as happy to put these guys in the freezer, but no one has been able to answer my question yet and I couldn't find anything about it online. I have sold one of the showable (born without mark) kits and the buyer was in full disclosure of the marks on the siblings and was fine with it.

So just to confirm, what your saying is that it's not that they've gotten some patches that have silvered early, but that it is a defect in their actual coat and they possess?

Click to expand...

yes

Stray white spots and hairs have plagued purebred rabbits for decades and are not acceptable in any SOP but they can hide (and therefor not be culled for) in REW, Himi, and Broken. The defect can hide in the coats of some adults of the silver breeds but IMHO any black kit with white hairs should not be used for breeding as they may grow out of it but will still pass on the genes responsible and eventually a litter will be born that does not grow out of it and they will have a DQing white spot

Thank you, guess we'll be making more rabbit andouille sausage after all, woot!