How the heck did i end up with red eye white?!

shop deals on amazon
Shop deals on ebay
Advertise with us
Rabbit Talk Forum

Help Support Rabbit Talk Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
W

WyoBunnies

Well-known member
Joined
Sep 28, 2018
Messages
47
Reaction score
2
I have 7 lionhead kits that opened their eyes today. The 2 whites are red-eyed! Mom is blue-eyed magpie. Dad is blue otter. He has a REW as a grandsire. Would that be enough to make these kits REW?! bah! I was hoping for blue eyes, not red.
 
REW is recessive to everything. Any rabbit can carry rew. Breed 2 rabbits with it and you get rew. It could be a dozen generations back, not show up on the pedigree, and still appear when you happen to cross 2 that both have it somewhere in their background. Meaning your doe has a REW somewhere back there and carries it as well.
 
Both parents must carry REW mutation to produce these kits. Statistically REW should be 25% of the offspring but that's with a BIG sample size of thousands progeny

Blue eyes in magpie are usually called "grey" or "marbled" and are due to the chinchilla mutation and not the BEW/Vienna so you'd not expect blue eyes from such a cross
 
Oohhh, good information! Thank you both! That's actually really interesting to know.
 
I believe her eyes would be called gray after doing some researching online. I have no idea if either rabbit carry the Vienna gene. It isn't listed on their pedigrees. Is there a way for my to figure out if the have the Vienna gene?
 
If they have a BEW parent then they must carry Vienna, the only other way to determine if they carry Vienna is to test breed to a BEW or known carrier
 
Sometimes a single vienna gene results in vienna marked (VM) rabbits with odd white marks that don't match broken pattern. They are otherwise whatever color the rest of their genetics make them but that can make it easy to tell. Provided the white mark is obviously not caused by anything else. It doesn't always appear though or could be hidden by broken, dutch, or just mistaken for some stray mark. Rabbits with the gene that don't show it then fall under VC or vienna carriers. If your rabbit isn't VM and has no BEW parent you can't know for certain. If a parent was BEW then they definitely carry it. Offspring of VM parents, known VC parents, or that have a BEW grandparent (making the parents definitely carriers) would have a 50% chance of carrying the gene. You'd then need both rabbits to carry it just like with REW to get BEW.

Unless the breed and your area are known for commonly having BEW odds aren't real high you randomly come across it. Most bluish eyes are various other color dilutions that make a grey-blue color. Even just some of the basic self colors like blues or lilacs sometimes get lightened a bit to red or grey and then the shaded colors like chinchilla (turns harli into magpie).
 
WyoBunnies said:
I have 7 lionhead kits that opened their eyes today. The 2 whites are red-eyed! Mom is blue-eyed magpie. Dad is blue otter. He has a REW as a grandsire. Would that be enough to make these kits REW?! bah! I was hoping for blue eyes, not red.
Click to expand...
Just wondering where you able to tell they were red eyed as soon as they opened there eyes? I have two kits that are all white but can’t tell eye color .
 
eco2pia said:
I had several kits born all white back when I was first starting and I kept waiting and waiting for their eyes to "turn red". I finally asked on here and everyone corrected me that they are visibly red as soon as they open. Turns out I had frosties, not REW!
Click to expand...
What eye color do frosties have?
 
Last edited:
Actually, that's NOT a REW.

A REW is an albino, so ALL white with red eyes. What you have there is a 'Pointed White' and that's caused by the chinchilla gene, not the albino gene.

A REW will be an albino and have no coloration whatsoever. All white + red eyes = REW.

White body, colored 'points' (ears, nose, feet & tail), pink iris red pupil eye and colored toenails = 'Pointed White'. Yours may be a blue point? The nose looks more blue than black?
 
hotzcatz said:
Actually, that's NOT a REW.

A REW is an albino, so ALL white with red eyes. What you have there is a 'Pointed White' and that's caused by the chinchilla gene, not the albino gene.

A REW will be an albino and have no coloration whatsoever. All white + red eyes = REW.

White body, colored 'points' (ears, nose, feet & tail), pink iris red pupil eye and colored toenails = 'Pointed White'. Yours may be a blue point? The nose looks more blue than black?
Click to expand...
Are you talking about mine?
They're Black Himis but Chip might have a frosted forehead and butt
Their markings look more lilacy when they're babies
 
Oh! Oooopers! Yup, that'd be your cute little not-a-REW rabbit! And Pointed White is the same as Himi, isn't it? Different breeds can have different names for the same color.
 
RabbitsOfTheCreek said:
What eye color do frosties have?
Click to expand...
Frosties have normal brown/black eyes. They happen when you have CchdCchd with ee--the chinchilla gene deletes all the red from the coat, and the ee gene deletes the black and you are left with white fur, but the rabbit has normal coloring everywhere else because he is not an albino (slightly more complicated than this but that is approximately what happens).
 
eco2pia said:
Frosties have normal brown/black eyes. They happen when you have CchdCchd with ee--the chinchilla gene deletes all the red from the coat, and the ee gene deletes the black and you are left with white fur, but the rabbit has normal coloring everywhere else because he is not an albino (slightly more complicated than this but that is approximately what happens).
Click to expand...
Ok thanks 😊
 

Latest posts

Back
Top