So I wanted to try a test breeding with the Black Gold Tipped Steel Mini Lop doe I have...We were having a warm streak in GA and she was in heat for sure . Everything went smoothly and I should be expecting kits around the end of the month (YAY) Perhaps it would be a complete crap shoot that one of the offspring would come out better than its parents, but then I finally got my doe's pedigree in the mail....The lady I got the pair from was super sweet...but I should of gone over her pedigree....I was also first starting out thinking I knew more than I did Needless to say I saw every color that you shouldn't breed to BEWs in my doe's background...Sables, Chocolates, Opal, Chin. Sable, and REW. Not saying that the kits won't be adorable! I'll go nuts if I see a sable I saw someones on here and I'm in love with that color lol I love all those fun kinds of colors. I'm happy though I've have a demand for any Mini Lops that I don't plan to keep, but it has all been a learning experience for me. Yay for genetics!

I have a broken castor doe, whose parents were chin and broken blue, and the broken blues parents were lilac and opal. Any pairing with her will be unpredictable. Bred her to a broken black with castor and broken black parents. Don't know what I have yet.

I can make this much less unpredictable and I've been up 36hrs straight with nothing better to do. In this case first off the broken blue grandparent can't carry agouti so will only pass on selfs (blue, black, lilac, chocolate) but the chin parent introduces the agouti back in to make your castor. Otherwise you'd have gotten a black doe. That gives us Aa (agouti carrying self). The blue parent also adds dilute making your rabbit Dd (normal color carrying dilute). The chin adds either c(chd) or c(chl) but this is unlikely to show up if the black buck has no c locus colors on pedigree (chin, sable, himi, smoke pearl, rew... ) so it's unimportant for this generation. Chocolate could be floating around in there due to the lilac grandparent but again unless the black is something more than black it is not important until you use one of the offspring.

Thus we established your doe is Aa Dd B*(good chance of b)Cc(chd/chl) EE (ee is nonextension like red) ENen(this is broken)

The buck cannot carry agouti from the castor or it would be castor so it is aa. If there are no dilutes or anything else in the background of this rabbit (all black and castor pedigree) we would assume it to be aa DD BB CC EE ENen

Crossing the 2 makes 50% chance of blacks, 50% chance of castors, half may carry the chin gene but it will not be expressed if the sire side carries no c locus genes (it takes 2 to make chin, sable, seal, himi, rew... ) and you have ENen x ENen which will give you 50% good brokens, 25% solids, and 25% of charlies which are nearly all white and may have health problems as well as not being showable. Breeding broken to broken is not a suggested practice for that reason. That's the end of things if that's all your black buck has. Not all that complicated. You've only got 2 possible colors: black or castor, 1 hidden gene (chin or sable/light chin), and the broken markings there.

Now blues are possible if the sire side carries dilute genes and same for chocolate which can lead to lilac plus the c locus genes but you didn't say anything about the black buck having other things on the pedigree. Anything else is possible too but unlikely. You could take 2 rabbits with all black pedigrees and suddenly get a lilac. It happens. It's just going to be quite rare so no reason to count on it until you find one in the nest box. I would assume black and castors from that pair until proven otherwise.

When I first saw the title of this post, I thought you meant "test breeding" as in "bred them two weeks after first breeding to see if the doe took" and that you had a bad outcome! I am glad to see that was not the case... Hoping you get a nest box full of colors that you want!

At the risk of hijacking this post, (I have this question under my post litter number two) I did broken to broken because it was recommended several places that broken to solid will sometimes increase the booted kits, and sometimes you will fill up with solids in your barn. Charlies can always be bred back to solids or culled, and I am raising meat for dogs, so unless they are excellent conformation wise, they will be dog meat. Also the broken busk is the only mature buck I have I got two charlies, one solid and the rest broken. Two look very dark (black or castor) two are very light, like a dusty gray. The buck has a blue granddam, an opal granddam and a ggd REW. He might carry dilute.

This is all very interesting, and if you can find my Litter number two post, I would love some more information. I am studying what you posted above.

__________Fri Jan 13, 2012 2:01 pm __________




What is the color of the buck you are using. There are some great folks on the board. See how quick my problem was solved

One Acre- Oh goodness I don't know how I would of handled that kind of mistake. I rather have a hit or miss at the end of the month than put my girly at risk

Sky-I'm using a BEW buck. With the research I've continued doing, any offspring with the Chl gene will basically ruin ( well difficult to fix) future generations because a red cast could show up in offspring many generations down. Apparently a good way to see what my BEW carries is to test breed to a REW because if my BEW carries the Chl gene, sables will be born. Unfortunately I have no REW to try this with :/ At this point I'm just hoping to find a good homozygous black well typed mini lop in February....maybe try to bring home a REW too to see what's in my BEW's genes!