Close-up hair photos for banding/ticking

[judymac]

@reh I have tried to do as you asked, and take photos of the banded/ticked hair. I raise English & Satin Angoras, with fine static-charged fiber, and this has proved to be quite a challenge. Once I finally would get a few hairs pulled free to put on the white paper, they would either fly away or stick to my hand (or tool) and refuse to lay on the paper. I finally put spots of white glue on the paper, to hold them in place, but I did have to use bigger clumps of fiber than you requested, smaller amounts just refused to obey.

I cut short (many only 1/2" long) hairs from the face, where the color was more intense and the color changes more evident than in the more muted long wool fibers. I tried to separate guard hairs from down, but that didn't work on the face hair very well--all too short, and not really much down anyway there. I also took fiber from the triangle behind the ears, and from the main coat, so if there are three samples for a rabbit, it is (left to right): face hair, triangle, main coat.

I used a ruler measured in centimeters, so the markings you see between the numbers are millimeters. Since the face hair was so short, and I needed to enlarge the photos to actually see the banding, it seemed the best option. I measured from the bottom of the hair sample, so if you see a '2' and some hash marks, it means that part of the fiber is 2cm from the bottom of the sample (there's 2-1/2 cm to an inch for American measurements).

I don't raise steel, so I can't take any face hair samples of that, but I did have a tiny bit of wool to spin from a blue steel, high rufus chocolate steel, and a lilac steel. I tried to choose the shortest fiber I could find, for better color, but this is still just mixed loose fiber, not nice neat clumps in order. I did the best I could. The color definition may not be so obvious in long angora fiber on dilute rabbits--but I did not have any black steel samples to work with. Sorry.

Your experiment, however, does appear to explain part of the mystery of Wild Gray Chestnut agouti rabbits. I have a dark Satin Angora doe, her face hair is deep charcoal, almost sable sepia. But, she has the orange triangle behind the ears. Her fiber looks almost all gray. BUT, the closeup of the face hair shows the fiber dark all the way from the base, with a tiny orange band near the black tip. So, whatever causes wild gray, must prolong the base color until very late in the cycle, with the remaining bands tiny near the end. Interesting. Explains why when looking at the fiber, you don't really see anything but gray, as for most of the fiber, there ISN'T anything but gray.



This is the fiber sample page this close-up is taken from: (and yes, I see I forgot the final 'i' in agouti and this color is so dark it looks more like chestnut agouti than chocolate agouti.)

You can see some of this high banding on the face hair, near the ears:

It was more difficult to find any hint of chestnut banding on an English wild gray (yes, I did 'grey' on the paper). It took a lot of magnification to find that tiny chestnut band (hashmarks on the ruler are in millimeters)


This doe was born black with the white agouti ears, then developed the chestnut pattern, which then grew out to this mostly gray pattern.


She looks chestnut on the face, but not in the fiber.

 

[judymac]

This is another wild gray chestnut English Angora:

This sample is from the face hair. You can see the chestnut banding near the tip. . .but look at the growing fiber:

And this is the doe:

So, I think this explains why I could never find the 'middle' agouti bands, they aren't in the middle! Thank you, @reh for the suggestion to photograph the hairs.

 

[judymac]

Okay, @reh this is the tough one, as I have no face hairs or aligned fibers to work with. I did have very small samples of blue, lilac and high-rufus chocolate steel fiber. I did my best to find shorter fibers to check, but I don't know that any of this would be conclusive, based on the nature of angora fiber. I found that looking for light tips on light paper difficult, so I tried again with a darker background. This is the blue steel fiber:


Wideband chocolate steel:

Lilac steel:

This is enlarged another 800% after the initial enlargement:


I have no further info on these bunnies, other than the tags on the sample fibers I received.

 

[judymac]

this color is so dark it looks more like chestnut agouti than chocolate agouti.

This rabbit came to me secondhand, no clue as to her parentage. Just to look at her, the face says sable/seal. But she has eye rings, an orange triangle on the neck, and those tiny bands near the tip of the fiber. The base of the fiber is dark charcoal, you'd swear the tips are black:

But look at the doe. . .

Out of a black buck, she gave chestnut and fawn agouti kits. Out of a red buck, she gave a self chocolate, red agouti and high-rufus chocolate agouti.

 

[Alaska Satin]

I rudely pulled a chunk of fur off the midsection/back of an unsuspecting broken GTS NZ doe. My scope stand is broken but here is the best I could do with it handheld:

 

[Alaska Satin]

This rabbit came to me secondhand, no clue as to her parentage. Just to look at her, the face says sable/seal. But she has eye rings, an orange triangle on the neck, and those tiny bands near the tip of the fiber. The base of the fiber is dark charcoal, you'd swear the tips are black:
View attachment 39537
Out of a black buck, she gave chestnut and fawn agouti kits. Out of a red buck, she gave a self chocolate, red agouti and high-rufus chocolate agouti.

Her face coloring looks like a pretty typical copper Satin on my screen, although with that much rufus I'd wonder about wideband.

Out of a black buck, she gave chestnut and fawn agouti kits. Out of a red buck, she gave a self chocolate, red agouti and high-rufus chocolate agouti.

What is the difference between red and red agouti?

 

[judymac]

broken GTS NZ doe

Interesting color, thank you so much for adding this. The guard hair banding is fascinating, as if the entire color band series was pushed to the end of the hairshaft, I would never have expected the rest of the guard hair to have been white.

 

[Alaska Satin]

Interesting color, thank you so much for adding this. The guard hair banding is fascinating, as if the entire color band series was pushed to the end of the hairshaft, I would never have expected the rest of the guard hair to have been white.

Yes, I think that's what we've been saying about steel, right? That all the color was pushed to the end of the hairs.

The bottom of the hair is more a pale gray, although it looks white on the photo. Getting pictures of all the shades of black/white/gray has been kind of challenging. But the long pale part of the guard hair is completely concealed in the slate underfur - you'd never know it was pale until you look at it on its own!

Here are pictures of Champagne D'Argent fur, showing that silvering is a combination of white guard hairs, black guard hairs and slate underfur. I could not find a single hair with more than one color on it. All white hairs I pulled from the hank were completely white; as @reh said, no white tips on dark hairs!

 

[judymac]

Amazing. Great photos to illustrate it. Thank you for taking the time to test this.

 

[judymac]

This is solving lots of mysteries, I have one more. Opal tends to look all blue, like Wild Gray looks all gray. Does anyone here have an opal rabbit that you can check out the agouti banding? Does opal send the banding near the tip like wild gray does?

 

[Alaska Satin]

This is solving lots of mysteries, I have one more. Opal tends to look all blue, like Wild Gray looks all gray. Does anyone here have an opal rabbit that you can check out the agouti banding? Does opal send the banding near the tip like wild gray does?

Mink Hollow has a page with agouti colors, both on the rabbit as a whole and with fur views:
https://www.minkhollow.ca/rabbits/doku.php?id=coat_colors_agouti
It's rex fur, so it's nice and short so you can see the banding clearly.

It appears that the banding is the same pattern as the other agouti colors; that's what I remember from my opal Mini Rex, too, but I don't have those anymore to double check.

 

[judymac]

This rabbit came to me secondhand, no clue as to her parentage.

@Alaska Satin, you raise Satins (this one happens to be Satin Angora). I've only had self-chocolate Satin Angora once, decades ago. I purchased what was supposed to be a sable Angora doe, a color I'd never seen before at the time. Her face looked very similar in color to this doe, but the fiber was much, much paler. Oddly enough, when she went into molt and shed out that pale fiber, she grew back a chocolate coat, I would have never guessed the color change was simply due to having been sheared.

This doe is much darker in shade than my English Angoras, which are 'milk chocolate' color, not this 'dark chocolate' shade. The orange triangle behind the neck tells me she's not a sable, which wouldn't have orange. The eye rings and those tiny bands near the tips of the fiber say agouti. But she looks nothing like my other chocolate agouti Satin Angoras (especially since they are out of a red buck, and have high-rufus.) This is her (left to right) face hair, neck triangle, and fiber. The tipping on the face hair looks blackish, but the coat sure looks chocolate:

This is the fiber from one of her chocolate agouti does (born a warm lighter chocolate with the white agouti ears, grew into this lovely rich coat, she almost looks like a red from a distance.) Same order (left to right) face hair, neck triangle, and body hair:

Here are chocolate agouti kits along with a red. Black agouti (chestnut/castor) with rufus is 'copper'. I don't think high-rufus chocolate has another name.

And chocolate agouti (high rufus) grown:

No comparison to the doe: (She's with her very pale red daughter here)

So, even though the fiber tips on the face look almost black, and her tiny agouti bands are stuck clear out by the tip, is this still called chocolate agouti? Black agouti (chestnut) with those tiny bands near the tip are called 'wild gray', what if it happens to a chocolate agouti?

 

[Mckatie]

high-rufus chocolate has another name.
View attachment 39555
And chocolate agouti (high rufus) grown:
View attachment 39556
No comparison to the doe: (She's with her very pale red daughter here)
View attachment 39557

So beautiful!!!! Thank you for sharing!

 

[reh]

fine static-charged fiber

Try with wet fingers rather then glue?

the mystery of Wild Gray Chestnut agouti rabbits

what exactly does that mean?
We have several grey variants (grey = black agouti) - hare grey = light agouti, grey - "normal" agouti, hare colored = with much red, probably ww (like in Deilenaar, hare rabbits), dark grey = darker then normal, lighter then steel.
For me wild grey is the coloration of an wild rabbit, normal black agouti.

So, whatever causes wild gray, must prolong the base color until very late in the cycle, with the remaining bands tiny near the end.

please think different, hair growth starts at the tips. The entire hair has the base color except the band near the tip.
Sounds like dark gre/steel if there is only small agouti band.

She looks chestnut on the face, but not in the fiber.

not chestnut aka not agouti? Is she shorn or plucked?
Btw, i dont know the exact differences between english colornames like chestnut, wildgrey, ...

So, I think this explains why I could never find the 'middle' agouti bands, they aren't in the middle!

In the middle in sense of color 1, 2, 3, but not in the middle of an ever growing angora hair ;-)

looks like a normal agouti color to me.

difference between red and red agouti?

in (my) angoras nonagouti reds do not look much like tort.

Does anyone here have an opal rabbit that you can check out the agouti banding? Does opal send the banding near the tip like wild gray does?

nobody sends agouti bands anywhere, they are near the tip of the hair and may be lighter in diluted rabbits.

The left one looks like black agouti to me.

 

[Alaska Satin]

@Alaska Satin, you raise Satins (this one happens to be Satin Angora). I've only had self-chocolate Satin Angora once, decades ago. I purchased what was supposed to be a sable Angora doe, a color I'd never seen before at the time. Her face looked very similar in color to this doe, but the fiber was much, much paler. Oddly enough, when she went into molt and shed out that pale fiber, she grew back a chocolate coat, I would have never guessed the color change was simply due to having been sheared.

This doe is much darker in shade than my English Angoras, which are 'milk chocolate' color, not this 'dark chocolate' shade. The orange triangle behind the neck tells me she's not a sable, which wouldn't have orange. The eye rings and those tiny bands near the tips of the fiber say agouti. But she looks nothing like my other chocolate agouti Satin Angoras (especially since they are out of a red buck, and have high-rufus.) This is her (left to right) face hair, neck triangle, and fiber. The tipping on the face hair looks blackish, but the coat sure looks chocolate:
View attachment 39552
This is the fiber from one of her chocolate agouti does (born a warm lighter chocolate with the white agouti ears, grew into this lovely rich coat, she almost looks like a red from a distance.) Same order (left to right) face hair, neck triangle, and body hair:
View attachment 39554
Here are chocolate agouti kits along with a red. Black agouti (chestnut/castor) with rufus is 'copper'. I don't think high-rufus chocolate has another name.
View attachment 39555
And chocolate agouti (high rufus) grown:
View attachment 39556
No comparison to the doe: (She's with her very pale red daughter here)
View attachment 39557
So, even though the fiber tips on the face look almost black, and her tiny agouti bands are stuck clear out by the tip, is this still called chocolate agouti? Black agouti (chestnut) with those tiny bands near the tip are called 'wild gray', what if it happens to a chocolate agouti?

Angora colors frequently baffle me, but she looks like a normal (black) copper to me. I don't know about the wool - that's what always throws me - but her face looks copper (beautiful sheen, by the way!).

Here's Boots, a broken copper Satin:

Here's Boots as a baby, so you can see the color darkening that comes with age (agoutis really seem to change as they develop):

This doe is much darker in shade than my English Angoras, which are 'milk chocolate' color, not this 'dark chocolate' shade.

I find that in satin coats, colors often look very much deeper and more intense than their normal-coated counterparts - one of the things I love about Satins. As my daughter puts it, "Every color looks better in satin!"

 

[judymac]

she looks like a normal (black) copper

Thanks so much for your input--the coppers I have seen all had a lot of rufus as well. This doe threw black based colors to the previous owner's black buck, but only chocolate based colors when bred to my red buck (who is out of chocolate lines). The Satin colors really don't look the same as the English Angora colors, that sheen just seems to radically change the color. I've had black and white Satins, but mostly just reds. Still trying to get good depth of color on those, not sure yet what the secret will be, other than to breed those with the darkest coats. I had been out of Satin Angoras for a lot of years, so it will take a while. . .sometimes you just have to work with what you have.

 

[Alaska Satin]

Thanks so much for your input--the coppers I have seen all had a lot of rufus as well. This doe threw black based colors to the previous owner's black buck, but only chocolate based colors when bred to my red buck (who is out of chocolate lines). The Satin colors really don't look the same as the English Angora colors, that sheen just seems to radically change the color. I've had black and white Satins, but mostly just reds. Still trying to get good depth of color on those, not sure yet what the secret will be, other than to breed those with the darkest coats. I had been out of Satin Angoras for a lot of years, so it will take a while. . .sometimes you just have to work with what you have.

Yes, if she produced only chocolates with a chocolate-based red, it seems most likely that she would be chocolate rather than just carrying it (though you know how dodgy those statistical predictions can be!). In the photos, her ears look black, but chocolate color in Satins, especially the good ones, can be quite dark.

Here's Derby, a chocolate otter buck with fabulously deep chocolate color:


By the way, in an earlier post you mentioned red and red agouti: what difference are you indicating?

 

[MsTemeraire]

We have several grey variants (grey = black agouti) - hare grey = light agouti, grey - "normal" agouti, hare colored = with much red, probably ww (like in Deilenaar, hare rabbits), dark grey = darker then normal, lighter then steel.
For me wild grey is the coloration of an wild rabbit, normal black agouti.

Your wild/hare grey = Chestnut (USA), Agouti (UK), but also called Brown-Grey or Grey/Gray in some breeds.

Your hare colour [Haaskleur] - red agouti (UK). I don't know what that is in the US, I don't think they have any breeds with that colour except for the Belgian Hare. Here in UK we have Deilenaar, and red agouti is recognised in other breeds too.

Your dark grey = light steel in UK. Again, unsure what it would be in US.

 

[judymac]

For me wild grey is the coloration of an wild rabbit, normal black agouti.

@reh , I so appreciate your time and help with these questions. The American Rabbit Breeders Association (ARBA) determines what color banding is 'proper' when judging a rabbit for show. I realize that they judge on phenotype, what you see, as opposed to genotype or the scientific study of the hairshaft. So, we are all taught that agouti has banding, their Standard of Perfection states 'one or more' series of bands, and then details what order the bands must be. They call for a tip color (which will be black for chestnut/castor/black agouti, chocolate for amber/chocolate agouti, blue for opal and lilac for lynx), then the surface color, which is 'rich chestnut' for black agouti, the yellow band, and the base color, which is slate gray for chestnuts, and should ideally have the slate color go down to the skin.


So, we see the bands when we blow into the coat, and we follow the national association's description of the agouti bands, and that is what we 'know'. It is what all the genetic books here teach. You are showing us the scientific side of this, a more accurate way to look at this, but it is sometimes hard to match what we have been taught with what is really happening, as the terminology we have been taught (such as 'tipping', which is what the color appears to be when you blow into the coat, but as you have shown, isn't accurate with the actual hairshaft) becomes confusing. We use the terminology the national association has given us, but it doesn't seem to reflect the actual individual hairshaft--this will take a while to figure out how to use these terms so it reflects what we see when we blow into the coat, and what actually is on a single hairshaft.

Decades ago, the color 'wild gray' was its own color group. The standard called for an 'overall dark slate effect', with 'little tan or chestnut banding'. Since both wild gray and chestnut are A_B_C_D_E_, the two colors were merged together into 'chestnut', but the fiber looks nothing alike. Both of these rabbits showed as chestnuts, and in the face you can see the chestnut coloration, but from the back. . .

Which rabbit would you match this chestnut face to?

(It's the gray-coated rabbit.) So, my question was, why does the face look the same on both chestnut agoutis, but the fiber so very different? When I did your paper test, I could see there was only a tiny band of yellow/tan near the tip of the fiber. (see in an earlier post in this thread)

So, I finally managed to get an individual guard hair out of a 'normal' chestnut doe. You can see the hair on the right has a much, much longer black tip, a much wider yellow/tan band, then a bit of a mix as it goes back to all-dark. Interesting also are the two all-black hairs to the left, never knew there were all-black hairs before this. Would a lynx have all-lilac hairs? I wonder why they aren't banded?

 

[judymac]

Sounds like dark gre/steel if there is only small agouti band.

Wouldn't the steel E(S) gene also remove the agouti markings? Wild gray chestnuts look just like regular chestnuts, with all the agouti markings, and usually chestnut-looking hair on the face, except the dark tip and tan band is tiny like a steel, and the rest of the fiber is gray.