Help me understand these genetics!

[Mike Hotel]

Okay - I have a California/New Zealand doe. She has light Californian markings. I owned her mother and father. Both had pedigrees.

I also own her sister and brother. I've had multiple rabbits out of this entire crew and they all have true CA/NZ markings.

I have an English Angora buck. He's gray/black. He has a pedigree and was bred to my Angora doe approximately six times. All they ever had were black and white (the doe was white) kits.

So, for an experiment, I bred the English Angora buck to the Nz/CA cross.

I got white kits.

I got black kits.

.....and I got one broken white kit with black spots.

How the heck did that happen?!?!?!

 

[Dood]

I suspect the doe is actually a broken Cali. Although broken is dominant it is easy to hide under a white coat.

 

[Homestead Hope]

Like dood said, you can hide almost anything under a while coat. Rabbit genetics are complicated but there are 5 different parts that make up the final product and each part has a few different options. Well one part allows for the white and Cali coloring, when they are present that coloring will cover up every other gene part and option, like a blanket being thrown on multiple things. So even though your Cali and nz have pedigrees an ancestor generations ago even as far back as when the breeds were first created, could have carried some interesting genetics all the way down to your rabbits and it was always hidden under the white "blanket". I'm surprised you haven't had any other surprises actually. This is a website that helped me understand the parts of the genetic code and how they can create different things. http://dubaysrabbitry.weebly.com/rabbit ... etics.html