Very Poorly Marked Harlequin

So, at a show I went to last month, someone gave me a Harlequin. She wanted me to breed it to my NZR buck, so that she could deepen the red in her line, in exchange. I was told that you can get better markings out of a poorly marked one than one that has perfect markings. Does anyone know if there is any truth to that? I know next to nothing about the breed, but do know that she has an awesome temperment. I absolutely adore this girl. Based soley on her personality, I am looking forward to breeding her. So, here are her pics. Does anyone have any recomendations on what I should look for in a buck, if I choose to go that route, or will she only produce pet and meat quality?

Aw, she looks like a sweetie bun.

pfaubush":3j1nlglw said:

I was told that you can get better markings out of a poorly marked one than one that has perfect markings. Does anyone know if there is any truth to that?

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The 'ej' gene just means that the body is striped rather than the hair shaft -- WHERE those stripes end up is pretty much random. So you can get excellent markings from both poorly marked and well marked rabbits and if you breed enough of them, the odds should even out.

Don't expect harlequin markings on your first generation cross. It's possible if the NZR carries the 'ej', but very very unlikely. You should get a nice deep reddish rabbit with lots of black smut (black hairs and patches with no discernable pattern).

I can see that the doe is quite light for a japanese harlequin, but crossing to a red NZ may not help much if the breeder is after showable animals. The standard actually calls for a golden orange colour, and the rufus genes from the red may push the offspring too far into the "red" zone. This is all up to each judge's opinion, of course.

Still, you can get some decent meat animals out of the cross. My harlequins tend to throw large litters and be excellent moms with wonderful temperament. I have 4 harlequin litters (3 week olds) of 11 kits each that are doing amazingly well in spite of the obscenely hot temps we've had lately.

I won't make any buck recommendations because *I* always focus first on conformation and most harlequin breeders could care less about the "type" of the rabbit. Judging should be based almost entirely on the placement and clarity of the markings, but as a meat breeder, I want to develop a good meat rabbit who just happens to have stripes in the right place.

Harlequin is dominant over non-extension, so if crossing her to a red your first gen will show harlequin markings. I've done this a lot, I have a magpie doe that I keep for fostering only, and I breed her to whatever, so I've used a Thrianta buck, a fawn Silver buck, and the kits were always all harlequined. However the markings were not great, except for two, and my doe has fairly decent markings with the split face. You'd have to keep a buck and breed it back to its mother. NZ's are used to improve conformation in Harlequins quite often, thats why certain Harlequin lines carry REW. Harlequin is a funky gene, it can express itself when you think it wouldn't, I bred my magpie doe to a purebred Silver Marten buck, as my doe is a genetic silver marten. There is no chance that the Silver Marten buck carries Harlequin, yet I was told that there was a chance that the harlequin gene could express itself on the belly and ear margins of my kits. It did, my five little Silver Marten/Harlequin hybrids have random dark spots on their ear margins and bellies, very interesting. While your Harley doe could carry better pattern genes that she expresses you'd need to breed her to a purebred Harley, or her own son to see if the pattern improves. I love Harlequins, best mothers I've ever seen.

I re-read my post and I guess I didn't add that her first litter would be with my red buck (as promised). After that, I would like to find a Harlequin buck to breed her to. Knowing next to nothing, but hoping to learn, I would like to know what to look for in the Harli buck. I could breed her back to her son, but for some crazy reason, everyone in this area absolutely freaks out over linebreeding anything.

The breeder that I got her from only wants a doe from the litter for breeding back to Harlis in an attempt to deepen the colors in that line. She also told me that the hybrid vigor from that cross was phenomenal. Not sure how true that would be, but it should be fun to see what I get.

I read just the other day that Harlequins make the greatest moms. I read that they also will foster, even if they don't have a litter on them. Something about them being able to produce milk without carrying a litter. That's definitely not something I care to try out.

Hybrid vigor is a beautiful thing, you should definitely see its effects in that first cross. I don't understand people who freak out over inbreeding, how esle are you supposed to set traits and produce animals that will reliably produce quality? Inbreeding is the most important tool we breeders have, its the fastest and best way to improve our herds and reach goals. I've worked with lines that were inbred and ones that were not, the inbred lines produced animals that were homogeneous, similiar in size, conformation and appearance. The lines that weren't inbred produced animals that were all over the map in size, conformation and faults. Good traits need to be doubled up on, and faults bred out, how can you do that with unrelated lines, how can you know what they carry if every rabbit on the pedigree is unrelated? Sorry, pet peeve, seriously if I was you I'd breed whichever way I felt would yield the best results, most certainly not to please someone who may want to buy a rabbit from you in the future. Your not going to even have a full pedigree of Harleys for a few generations, you'll have crossed in other blood long before you have a clear three gen pedigree. A few close breedings now isn't going matter much in the grand scheme of things, except to possibly improve color and conformation in your new Harley line. Good Luck!