Hollands and Harlequin

So I have a very "diluted" Tricolor Holland doe (Bonnie). She barely has any black in her and practically looks like a broken orange. Her mother is a tri color who also has very little black and her father is a blue tort. I was thinking to breed her back to her dad and see what colors I could get but what I'd really like is to get some Harlequin and tricolor with more black. Bonnie's mother has had 2 harlequin kits by the same blue tort buck before I got the pair.
So my question is: Will breeding a Harlequin buck to Bonnie produce harlequins and tri colors as well has add some more black into the Tri color kits? If this will work I will try to find a Harli buck instead of breeding Bonnie back to her father to further dilute these tri's. Not too sure on all this genetics but I do know (or I've been told lol) that tri is the broken of harli so I know they go hand in hand so to speak...Harli is the solid form correct? So if you bred 2 harlis you'd get nothing but harli's and if you bred tri to harli you'd get 50% chance to get both etc? Just want to make sure I'm understanding this correctly...

Breeding back to the same tort will not add more black to the kits pattern as he doesn't have the genes for it. You need a heavier patterned rabbit to breed to than what you have. She's not diluted, she just doesn't have a lot of pattern. Using the word dilute is very confusing, means she should be a blue tri or other dilute tri.

Breeding to a tort has to be watched, you can end up with a whole bunch of torted tri and harlequins. It can be phased out (breed torted tri/harlequins to an agouti like chestnut or orange and keep only clean kits the next gen to use, but that's ideal circumstances where get perfect 1st time around) but it isn't easy.

Harlequin is the solid version of tri. Tri is just a broken harlequin. Chances are the same as if breeding a broken to a solid etc.

You can end up with torted harlequins, however, you can get aa tri's as well. Even, atat tri's are possible. What makes the difference is whether the rabbit is ejej or eje. eje will be torted while ejej will not be regardless of what the rabbit is on the "A" locus.

Here is a website that explains how it works. http://thetruthabouttris.weebly.com/the-basics.html I don't have any direct experience with these as I have yet to get ejej torted tri's but I believe this guy knows what he's talking about because the original paper on the location of ej mentioned that the rabbits tested were a mix of AA Aa and aa but that the phenotype didn't vary. The researchers in that paper also theorized that eje harlequins and tri's might also have less black than ejej harlequins and tri's however, I have heard contradictory information from breeders so I don't know if that is really the case or not. So, it's possible that your eje tri has less black in part because it's eje, but I also believe that there are other "black adding" modifiers in play as well. I have wondered if they aren't the same modifiers that make a fawn or tort "sooty" but I have no evidence either way.

Now, if you want to increase the amount of black in you tri's you need to find the right modifiers. If the doe is light then the changes are fair better than fair, that her father does not have the correct modifiers for lots of color. You would just have to breed them and see what comes out. I'm assuming tri's or harlequins are hard to find in Hollands? If that is the case, and breeding the sire back to the daughter does not produce the results you would want, I would try to find a sooty fawn, or even a dark sooty tort and see what results those give you. would then keep back a buck with the best markings + type and breed that back to the tri doe.

Good luck!

Are you certain Bonnie is a tri?

To me she looks like a light coloured broken black tort

Can you post pictures of her black spots and her parents to help clarify ?

Thanks guys...but no one really answered my question. :lol:
Will breeding a Harlequin to a tri with little black add some more black into the Tri color kits produced? And breeding a harli to a tri you have 50% chance of getting a harli kits and 50% chance of getting tri kits...correct?

Dood":3ndivzg7 said:

Are you certain Bonnie is a tri?

To me she looks like a light coloured broken black tort

Can you post pictures of her black spots and her parents to help clarify ?

Click to expand...

Yes, I'm pretty sure she is a tri....she is absolutely ORANGE...
She doesn't really have black "spots" just some black ticks on her ears and bottom. I don't have any pictures of that all I have is this: But I can try to get better pictures of her black later.


Father: Blue tort


Mother: Tri blk/org/wht (She has small black spots on her other side/back not seen in this photo) I have bred her multiple times to the same blue tort buck (above) and she has produced: solid orange, tri and apparently Harli according to the person I got this pair from.

She looks a broken tort to me from this picture too - even if she is a tri, that means she is a torted tri, which isn't showable

Breeding tri x harlequin usually produces about 50% harlie 50% tri, but possibly with a chance for things like orange or tort (especially common in Holland lops)

The markings/amount of black in the tricolor & harlequin is largely random. I bred two grand champion harlequins, and some of the babies were black with just a little orange, and one was almost solid orange, with just a few hairs behind the eye, for example. The chances are higher, however, if the harlequin you breed to has more dark spots than her, and it also helps if he is a true harlequin, not torted, like she is (torted harlequins & tricolors - which have tortoise-like shading on the head and ears, often has a very small amount of black spots, and are very orange heavy, like her)

The modifiers that influence how much black will show in harlequins and tri's are not well understood so there is no way to know if such a breeding will improve the pattering or not unless you try it

It's possible that she is a lightly marked torted tri, but I do believe she is torted as well. I have had kits with NO visible harlequin markings that, from the genetics of the parents (known from previous litters), had to have been eje.

Since she is torted, by breeding back to the tort sire you won't get the tri's you want. You will get either torts, broken torts, torted harlequins, or torted tri's. Assuming of course that she is a very light eje. If you really want tri's from this doe, you need to find a heavily marked harlequin buck or tri buck. I'd go for a harlequin because, since the doe is broken, a tri will give you a 25% chance of charlies.

Okay, so assuming she is a torted tri, or even just a smutty orange, would breeding her to a harli produce harli kits? (she has the background for it, like I said before, her mother and father have produced: solid orange, tri and apparently Harli according to the person I got this pair from before.) Just to see what would happen, I bred her back to her dad and it looks like she's produced 2 broken orange and a broken blue tort which makes sense.... I would really like to try and get some Harli and tri kits. But if there isn't a chance, or not a very large chance of getting that with her if I breed her to a Harli buck then I think I'll just get a new tri colored doe and sell her.

Breeding her to a harli will probably give you a chance of harlequins/tricolors