What color is this Holland doe?

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smugpeach

smugpeach

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I am relatively new at this and am having trouble color typing this female Holland lop and would appreciate your thoughts. Breeder lists her as a Lilac Magpie but she appears to have some cream in her coat. Also, would a magpie be considered a harlequinized Chinchilla or is it a Tort base? I tried googling rabbit color calculators but there doesn't seem to be an option to select for Magpie. Thank you in advance!

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smugpeach said:
I am relatively new at this and am having trouble color typing this female Holland lop and would appreciate your thoughts. Breeder lists her as a Lilac Magpie but she appears to have some cream in her coat. Also, would a magpie be considered a harlequinized Chinchilla or is it a Tort base? I tried googling rabbit color calculators but there doesn't seem to be an option to select for Magpie. Thank you in advance!

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I'm as stuck as you. It's so hard learning what color is what. I love Holland lops they're so cute and so popular!
 
Are blue eyes normal in Magpie? If not then they have VM/BEW in them (or the other color than can make blue eyes, I think it's Ermine?)
 
RABBITGIRLFORTHEWIN said:
I'm as stuck as you. It's so hard learning what color is what. I love Holland lops they're so cute and so popular!
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Agreed! And sometimes the differences between shades are so nuanced that it's easy to mistake/mislabel colors on pedigrees etc...you really need an experienced breeder/handler to be sure. I've lurked on some of the other threads in this forum and I'm often amazed by the little tells/markers that I would never dream of looking at but that people have learned to spot from experience.
 
smugpeach said:
I am relatively new at this and am having trouble color typing this female Holland lop and would appreciate your thoughts. Breeder lists her as a Lilac Magpie but she appears to have some cream in her coat. Also, would a magpie be considered a harlequinized Chinchilla or is it a Tort base? I tried googling rabbit color calculators but there doesn't seem to be an option to select for Magpie. Thank you in advance!

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I would have called her a dilute magpie except for that cream patch in front of her left eye, and I think I see cream on her ears as well? Her blue eyes could be from a chinchilla allele (yes, a magpie is a chinchilla harlequin - the chinchilla allele <c(chd)> reduces/prevents expression of yellow pigments; nothing to do with tort). But those eyes are so blue they make me think of vienna; chinchilla eyes are usually more bluish-gray.

In fact, if she is a VM (vienna marked, meaning she has one copy of the partially dominant vienna gene <v>), that would explain the very blue eyes and could also cause fairly extensive white spots. If she is a lilac harlequin, her orange parts would be quite diluted, so they'd look cream. And the white parts of her that make her look like a magpie, could be due not to chinchilla, but instead be a result of the vienna gene. Our VM Polish tend to be lightly-marked - snips of white on their foreheads and feet - but some VMs are so heavily-marked as to look almost like a poorly marked Dutch.

Imagine a lilac/cream harlequin with a white overlay like this VM Netherland Dwarf has:
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So my guess would be a vienna-marked lilac harlequin (not magpie): <A_bbC_ddE_Vv>.
 
Thank you for such a thorough explanation! I had this feeling that maybe she was actually a really faint harlequin but I didn't realize the Vienna markings could extend throughout the body, not just the face. And I appreciate you typing out the gene sequence. đź«°

At what point would the VM markings be considered "extreme"? Is there a set metric, like over 30% or maybe 50%?
 
smugpeach said:
Thank you for such a thorough explanation! I had this feeling that maybe she was actually a really faint harlequin but I didn't realize the Vienna markings could extend throughout the body, not just the face. And I appreciate you typing out the gene sequence. đź«°

At what point would the VM markings be considered "extreme"? Is there a set metric, like over 30% or maybe 50%?
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VMs are not a recognized variety in any U.S. breed, so as far as I know there's not really a set proportion of white vs color on a VM to define "extreme," like there is on a broken colored rabbit. In brokens, the two extremes are known as charlie (something less than 10% color) or booted (mostly colored), but I have never heard of any analagous terms for VMs.

The term "extreme" is being used to describe rabbits with two copies of the partially dominant white ear gene <WE>.

I find it useful to discriminate heavily-marked VMs from lightly-marked VMs because in our Polish, we have the broken gene lurking in our BEWs. A heavily-marked VM is very hard to distinguish from a broken (a rabbit can be either or both), while a lightly-marked VM can usually be differentiated from brokens. The tendency to produce heavy or light VM markings does seem to be heritable, so, when we choose brood stock, we prefer the lightly-marked VMs so we know what we're dealing with.

Note on the VM lilac harlequin call - it's possible that the cream on her face is staining, in which case she could still be a VM magpie. :unsure: Do you have her pedigree?
 
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Alaska Satin said:
The term "extreme" is being used to describe rabbits with two copies of the partially dominant white ear gene <WE>.

I find it useful to discriminate heavily-marked VMs from lightly-marked VMs because in our Polish, we have the broken gene lurking in our BEWs. A heavily-marked VM is very hard to distinguish from a broken (a rabbit can be either or both), while a lightly-marked VM can usually be differentiated from brokens. The tendency to produce heavy or light VM markings does seem to be heritable, so, when we choose brood stock, we prefer the lightly-marked VMs so we know what we're dealing with.

Note on the VM lilac harlequin call - it's possible that the cream on her face is staining, in which case she could still be a VM magpie. :unsure: Do you have her pedigree?
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Does the <WE> gene also affect hearing in rabbits? I've heard of other species in which a similar gene causes deafness in the affected animal.

Per her pedigree,
Sire: Blue Harlequin VM, Dam: Broken Sable Point
Sire's parents were Broken Chocolate VM and BEW
Dam's parents were Broken Sable Point and Blue/Fawn Harlequin VM
 
Here's my question. Are you looking for a pet or for a breeding animal and if the latter... what is your purpose?

a doe with this mix of colours in her background will make it hard to get good colours for a few generations. So make wise decisions.

sable messes with colours... and I think, though by no means an expert, think that's what is leading to the shading in her coat.

I'm thinking she's very much vienna marked, as a harlequin. Not a tricolour, and the cream rules out the magpie. Sometimes the kits a doe gives you help you determine what's behind them too.
 

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