shades of grey and other things that puzzle me

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Rainey

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We now have our first 2 litters from our young buck. Even someone as clueless as I am about colors knew we'd get some REWs. The rest still puzzle me. The does are sisters. One is black with silvering from the SF buck. The other I think is black with gold-tipped steel plus some silvering. The kits from the first are shades of grey, from the second more blacks but some already showing the steel and some "blue" like the buck. Are there really different names for all those shades of grey? And while I'm wondering things--how do so many of you get such good photos of kits all lined up or arranged in a circle? Ours are constantly wriggling, piling on top of each other, scattering off into the corners of whatever I've put them in, scrunching under the cloth or whatever I put in to make it soft and warm for them. How do you get them to sit still?
And I started a thread yesterday when we found the second litter from a doe we weren't sure was bred because the mounting was very brief, no fall-off, no noticeable lift. I keep reading posts about what to look for when breeding and still don't know if our experience is really unusual or if we should be concerned about "abnormal" breeding behavior as long as we're getting litters every time.
Below are the two litters, one newborn, the other 2 weeks old, eyes just open, my favorite age.
 

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I do know that there are lots of names for various greys, an they get pretty specific.

I do not know how people get their popples to line up so nicely. They never stick around for me. :lol:
 
There are 2 ways to get "grey" rabbits

There is the dark sable AKA chinchilla gene on the C-locus that I work with ;) and the REW gene is also on this locus. Because they produced REW kits both parents must both secretly carry the REW gene and cannot also secret carry chinchilla

And then there is dilute, AKA blue, gene on the D-locus which is what I think you have here
 

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I can't help much from the pics.
The top one is a pretty clear blue, white, and black.
The lighting in the second pic makes most of the group look chocolate to me. :oops: Looking very closely, I think I see some black based steels, blacks, a rew, and blues?

Blue has a lot of variation, and steel increases that.

Hmm..
Blue and lilac could be seen as two distinctly different shades of grey.

They are pretty easy to pick apart as kits, and mostly in adults too. I posted some comparison pics just in case, but, the presence of chocolate is required to make lilacs. I'd been under the impression that your herd didn't have any known chocolates or chocolate carriers (and I do not trust my eyes with that pic. :) )


The last pic of yours also has mostly blue and black kits, right? In the photo, they look a lot like my pic of blue and lilac based kits, but I think lighting and that orange background are making them look odd.

I've mistaken underdeveloped blues for lilac kits in the past..

Blue and lilac based babies.
GEDC1560.JPG
Different litter, more fuzz, with a chocolate kit
GEDC8677 (2).JPG
blue and lilac a bit older, but not fully mature.
GEDC5053ff.jpg
 
Dood":1tw9zcqe said:
There are 2 ways to get "grey" rabbits

There is the dark sable AKA chinchilla gene on the C-locus that I work with ;) and the REW gene is also on this locus. Because they produced REW kits both parents must both secretly carry the REW gene and cannot also secret carry chinchilla

And then there is dilute, AKA blue, gene on the D-locus which is what I think you have here

Now that I have litters from my 2 young does, I am further confused. They are both blue, and when bred to our young blue buck produced one white kit and the rest blue--no blacks. All of these blue rabbits had a blue full SF father and black mothers that were half SF and half NZW. What I wonder is if I'll always get blues and an occasional REW, no blacks. I was surprised to get blacks from the original NZW crossed with blue SF, and now I'm surprised to get all blue and no black the next generation down. It doesn't really matter since I am raising just for meat, not keeping the pelts. But I find it puzzling and wish I understood.
 
Blue is caused by dilute which requires two copies to express. Because both of your rabbits are blue they are both dd. Black requires D. Because neither parent has a D to give all offspring will automatically be dd and therefore blue. Does that help any at all or did I just make things worse?
 
alforddm":2q27hv1s said:
Blue is caused by dilute which requires two copies to express. Because both of your rabbits are blue they are both dd. Black requires D. Because neither parent has a D to give all offspring will automatically be dd and therefore blue. Does that help any at all or did I just make things worse?

So how did I get black kits from a blue and a REW? REW can carry black but blue cannot? It all seems like some sort of magic to me even though I've tried to read the color threads and learn. I like blue, but I guess when I think about it, I'd like some variety--not just REW for sure, and maybe not just blue either. But it seems silly to care about color at all since our purpose is healthy meat and color doesn't matter for that.
 
REW is on the "C" locus and is inherited independently of the "D" locus. So, a rabbit can be DD, Dd , or dd and still be REW which is cc.

The "C" locus where REW is found is also the locus where Chinchilla, shaded, and himi are found. So, the only thing that REW can't hide is chinchilla, shaded, or hemi as all of those are dominant to c.
 

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