Himalayans or Californians?

So I mentioned in a different post that my neighbors have decided to get out of rabbits, and offered us their last two rabbits hutch and all, for free. I'm not sure if they are himis or Californians. The buck, snowball, intrigues me though. His tail and the tips of his ears are light brown. Here are the two rabbits. The doe has the darker markings

I'm leaning towards Californian, or pointed white mutts. Any info on weight, age, are they siblings?

No info other than they got them from a friend <br /><br /> __________ Sun Jan 07, 2018 6:46 pm __________ <br /><br /> Estimating their weights, the male feels roughly 6-8lbs, and the female roughly 4-5, but she is also very underweight

Its a mixed breed. It looks like its color is agouti pointed white (on the buck at least, cant tell on the doe), which neither himalayan nor californian can produce. Type wise, it looks a lot closer to a californian. Californian x new zealand white is a very common cross for meat rabbits that produces this color of rabbits, if I had to guess I'd call it californian x NZW or just californian cross.

Thanks SableSteel. I honestly expected crossed rabbits, but I knew one of those two breeds had to be involved. What kind of color genetics does agouti cause? How often does it cause the light brown tipped ears?

Agouti causes tipped ears, the fading of the points is what can turn those tips brown (or it could be chocolate based, so chocolate agouti pointed white, but chocolate is rather uncommon in meat type rabbits). normal pointed whites are self based, agouti is dominant to that

That's interesting. What do you think would happen if crossed with a broken black vienna carrier?

you'd get chestnuts, broken chestnuts, vm chestnuts, maybe some blacks (in those markings) too. maybe more depending on what they carry

Okay cool. I will definitely be doing more genetic experiments assuming quarentein goes well

Aside from the odd cylindrical breed of himi it is just a color. Californians are himis. They are himi colored with the same gene as every other himi colored rabbit. They are bred to have a meat body type and only the himi color to define it as a breed. The himalayan breed is the same color genes but bred to have a unique long body type. Same as you can make mutts with champagne d'argent silvering. It's often not as extensive and you start mixing weird colors like my silvered tort but the color name does not define the breed as it can be put on any cross of rabbits. If you don't have a pedigree listing rabbitry names or a specific recognizable body type to go with it you just have some himi colored rabbits. Since breeds are not regulated with closed registries like in many show animals though you can take your himi colored rabbits call them californians and in 3 generations you'd have a pedigree of recorded californians that qualifies for everything. Whether they win or not at any shows is another matter but that's all it takes to recognize a rabbit as a breed in the ARBA. Who knows what a rabbit of any particular color truly has for a background without a known history even when you do have a pedigree.