Shimo is nearly a full adult so I think it is time to revisit her color.

Shimo kit:


Shimo half grown:








Shimo adult:




Also odd white spot. It is much purer white than it looks in pics and it does not connect to her lighter body color. It is a self contained whiter than anything else spot. I'm debating VM, hidden broken, or just plain odd cause shimo is odd.


After much debate between my bucks next month Shimo gets crossed with Kido

I have no idea... but she's pretty. Such a soft, smoky color.

I would guess iron grey maybe and the little white spot could be a recessive vienna gene somewhere in the background.

She almost looks smoke pearl martin but the color is soo light.

I didn't think the color was even enough for a smoke pearl

I'm still really curious about this one. She's light enough to be lilac-based but just doesn't look lilac to me. Is lilac-based possible with the pedigree? I'd love to see her pedigree!

I'd say a smoke point marten or an iron gray marten, but I don't know which, or something

at_ B_ cchd_ dd ee

or

at_ B_ cchl_ dd ee

A pedigree could not be obtained. The best I can do is that her litter contained black otters, 1 self blue, and 1 black tort. Puts the obvious stuff out there but doesn't solve the sable/chinchilla debate or the lilac/blue debate. I can't really answer the lilac question with the first generation since I have no chocolate carrying bucks small enough.

I bet she is non-extension, don't you think? With a tort in her litter it would be possible, and that would account for the extreme lightness of the color. Anyway, she sure is pretty!

[I edited my previous post - I accidentally typed the genotypes as E_ instead of ee]

Well I'm wondering if it isn't wideband instead of nonextension. While nonextension is the more obvious way to dilute the color further if you look up "ghost" chins they are wideband on chin which removes some of the black making some sections look like shimo. It would match better than nonextensions but the problem is in rabbits who don't just get a whiter belly or something that is still showable in most chin breeds the color is reversed in the pictures I could find. It makes the outer areas light and the body dark but those are dark chin c(chd) so maybe "light chin" (sable or seal with agouti) plus wideband could cause the dilution how it happens on her. Wideband is apparently not uncommon in chin colored rabbits including netherland chins but I am still puzzling exactly what the parents could be to get such a combination without purposely breeding a specific color line. Otters, torts, dilutes, and a wideband dilute chin agouti... Just plain weird.

"Ghost" chin rex http://pedigreerexrabbits.webs.com/Mini ... 290810.JPG .

__________ Thu Jan 26, 2012 11:43 pm __________

Shimo got confused again about her color. She now has a spreading grey patch on to her near white that originally spread from being grey. I think the brown I got in 2 pics is a result of upping the light level with a strong led lamp and throwing off my cheap camera and not an increased sign she has a different gene going on that causes brown tones.









She's very set she's going to make a nest tunnel in the house for her kits. I keep telling her it won't work but she keeps dumping several inches of bedding out of her cage every day for me to sweep up. Now she has a buried box she's trying to fit down in to but she hit the bottom of the cage so only 3/4ths of her fits in her reinforced tunnel. She isn't due until the 8th but she's been doing this for the past week and never dug before she was bred so I assume it's hormones telling her to ready a tunnel that isn't happening.

extra bedding and hay might work for her digging, i have no clue on colors and genes but she is a gorgeous bunny is she as soft as she looks?

I sweep up the extra bedding every day. She has craters 6" deep that I tried to picture but it looked flat on camera. There are 2-3" crammed between her cage and the bookshelf every day from her tossing it around. At least when I finally do clean her cage I won't have that really deep bedding I gave her to remove because it will have slowly gone out the door in garbage bags from sweeping off the floor.

I find all the netherlands really soft. Almost satin like. Especially my sable buck.

I think the spreading grey is her molting into her actual adult color. Thoughts anyone?

I have a doe with a similar color pattern, but she's definitely black-based while (much prettier) Shimo looks blue. My doe molted darker last month. She's just about a year old.

I know for sure she has _a Bb D_ _e, and she's probably aa Bb cchdch D_ ee. So, that's Sallander or Iron Gray, and if Shimo is a blue version, she'd be Blue Sallander.

I used the color chart here: http://www.threelittleladiesrabbitry.co ... rchart.php

I don't have cchl in my herd, and cchd was only available from one individual, her father.

Here she is today:

Here she is before the molt. This is not a very good picture for color, but it's what I have.

Both rabbits probably have temperature sensitive colour and will moult out darker the colder it is.

Shimo has all signs of not being self so she cannot be sallander. I thought maybe tan/otter but now it's believed she's A-agouti. You can see it in the eye rings, there's a throat line, and ear lacing along with a white belly. She also can't just be the agouti version of sallander because sallander is aa cchd ee and if we make it A- cchd ee we get ermine which she is too dark for. Best guess right now is A*B*dd cchl*(probably cchl) E*(possibly ee) which is smoke pearl but with an agouti gene making it a smoke pearl light chin aka blue seal/sable agouti siamese instead of a standard smoke pearl sable. With ee she would be blue seal or sable (depends if there's one or 2 cchl genes) agouti point.

Shimo is an indoor rabbit. She will not shed by temperature if that's what you mean.

__________ Wed Feb 01, 2012 11:53 am __________

Impatiently waiting for mini shimo's. Although I think Shimo is more impatient. I had to cover her cage because she has been digging digging digging and I was sweeping several inches of bedding off that area of the floor every day. Now it's down to a little pile trickling out as it hits the barrier. The sugar glider and parakeets are starting to get annoyed and yell about all her scrambling, bedding flying, hitting the floor of the cage and continuing anyway. I'm sure Amako underneath doesn't appreciate it either.

Upon finding digging wasn't working she tried to use a box as a tunnel but finding that too short she decided the best way to make a tunnel for her kits is to eat through her cage (first one I've had chew on a cage) and I have her in my weakest cage. So I had to line the coroplast frame with metal bars on the inside and she still got to some of it. Being blocked from that she has taken to just digging madly under her feeder for hours at a time. I think I will bring her the really big nest box instead of the mini size one and let her have it early so she can empty it repeatedly and I can fill it repeatedly rather than cage destruction and noise that is driving everyone insane. That is one hormonal rabbit and she's determined her kits will have a nest tunnel not box even though she's not due for another week and she's been at this for more than a week. I threatened to throw her in the little wire bottom quarantine cage last week.

__________ Sun Feb 05, 2012 11:55 pm __________

Finally after 2 weeks of nonstop digging, chewing, destruction.... I believe in an attempt to make a tunnel for her kits I gave Shimo the biggest box we have. I had to line her cage floor in metal strips and the side of her cage in vinyl flooring pieces because she was trying to chew through her cage to build her tunnel and throwing bedding everywhere. I layered in pine pellets, a thin layer of pine shavings, and hay. She of course rearranged the box, dug it all to the front, filled it back in, put a deep indent in the back, and for the first time in 2 weeks she is sitting still.



For the future pregnant Shimo rabbits must go in very durable cages with high sides and be given a big nest box very early. I think the long box and being able to go down a lot makes her think she finally dug her tunnel.