What Pearl color is this French Angora?

Hi! New to the forum here, although I've been just a lurker/reader for awhile What color do you think this guy is? I've had many and varied oppinions on him, sable pearl, blue pearl, smoke pearl.... Trying to find good color pictures AND descriptions online is hard!

His face, ears, feet, and tail are a nice medium blue grey. His face the blue grey fades out to slightly brown tinged. His wool is a pale grey that is almost a warmish toned grey when plucked (I'm an artist so I notice color warmths or coolnesses others might not notice it so) When he's been plucked his new coat is a med. dark blue until the undercoat starts to grow in.

Got him from a backyard breeder and lucked out on a totally awesome coat. I think his siblings may have been dilute agouti's, I vaugely remember mixed blue/brown coats, but I didn't know rabbit colors back then, and I fell in love with this guy, so I didn't look too hard at the others.

So what's your thoughts?

The day I brought him home...

Also if this helps, I bred him to my English angora fawn doe not realizing fawn was agouti based(on miss-assumption based on a faulty "ok to breed x to x color chart") I wanted to get some woolers with daddy's easy care coat and mama's heavy coat for handspinning. I ended up with 4 black babies and 4 agouti based, most likely chestnut kits.





Some better pictures I took last summer aiming for acurate color for color ID'ing




Wool on his back parted






<br /><br />__________ Fri Mar 22, 2013 8:31 am __________<br /><br />Looking how the pictures posted on my monitor the one of him sitting on my lap and the one of him standing in the grass have the most accurate color tone on his face.

Smoke pearl and blue pearl are the same.

Geneticly he is a black rabbit, a light shaded, a dilute (blue) and a non-extension which means he is a smoke pearl.

If you bred him to a fawn you should not have gotten any blacks but a bunch of black tortoiseshells or more fawns which makes me think you fawn doe is just a regular chestnut/agouti

Ahhh.... that explains some of the color description mix up I've been hearing, thanks! I know I was really shocked when all the kits were dark! After contacting the breeder she said the mother's mom was a chocolate, and the dad was a chestnut agouti. Here are some pictures of Mom and some of the kits, just 'cause they're cute

Mama and her black sis when I first got them















__________ Fri Mar 22, 2013 9:02 am __________

So, one more question, I also bred him a few days later to my REW english doe for the same reasons (more easier care heavy coats to spin from ) She is due today (she wasn't as receptive as the other doe, I was trying to get them due on the same day!)

So the cross between my smoke pearl x REW (out of a REW x fawn cross) should be mostly REWS and more pearls like daddy or am I totally off, lol?!?!?

Pretty buns.

That REW could be hiding almost anything, since fawn is an agouti.

skysthelimit":xsf4hsgh said:

Pretty buns.

That REW could be hiding almost anything, since fawn is an agouti.

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Thanks! True, she could. She isn't directly related to the other two does pictured though.

You wont get Smoke Pearl unless the REW is hiding a dilute but you should get some Sable Points or if the REW doe has only one non-extension then some Siamese Sable who look like dark chocolate when born but get a neat shimmer to their baby coat and have slightly darker ears.

The REW could be agouti from her fawn parent so instead of Sable and Siamese you may get Shaded Agouti's

Here is my favourite colour website, most have photos of the rabbits - http://www.nockrabbits.com/coat_colors1.html

Siamese sable don't look dark chocolate when born, they're a dark blue-black, with no brown tones at all.

This is what my siamese sable looks like, the one on the far left.

And this website has a side by side comparison - http://natureschild.net/SCG/Articles/A_KitColor.html

Well, guess I was misinformed about my kits' colours then, because the ones I'm always told are siamese sable on this forum are never brown.

Of course, I'm just stupid and know nothing


Was told the one on the right is siamese sable.


was told that 2 of those are siamese sable.

Then of course, there has to be an agreement that we are all talking about the same color.

but they aren't the same colour, so one of us is wrong. I've accepted it was me, posted what I was told was siamese sable, and moved on

I mean, yes, I'm frustrated that every time I think I'm getting a grip on something it changes and I find out the information I based all my understanding is wrong, but what can you do? Shake it off, and start learning again. Eventually my foundation for knowledge will be structurally sound.

The one on the right in that bucket IS a Siamese sable. They are born a beautiful silvery grey colour and then darken,its really amazing the change as they grow. The Angora doe is a fawn as well, not an agouti nor a tort. Its very possible to have all blacks if she carries a self gene and seeing as she has a sister thats black, then highly probable. The smoke Pearl buck would have given all dilute as well as his self gene. So all the black kits will carry a dilute and one non-extension gene. I don't know if your doe is chocolate or black based but seeing as one of her parents was chocolate then she herself carries at least one chocolate gene which may or may not be present in those black kits. Nice rabbits!!

Fawns have at least one agouti and two non extension while smoke pearl have two self and two non extension, how do you get anything but fawns and torts out of that?

If the fawn doe carries a self then she will have torts, not blacks, when bred to a smoke pearl buck.

Devon's Mom Lauren":27g4ozzv said:

The one on the right in that bucket IS a Siamese sable. They are born a beautiful silvery grey colour and then darken,its really amazing the change as they grow. The Angora doe is a fawn as well, not an agouti nor a tort. Its very possible to have all blacks if she carries a self gene and seeing as she has a sister thats black, then highly probable. The smoke Pearl buck would have given all dilute as well as his self gene. So all the black kits will carry a dilute and one non-extension gene. I don't know if your doe is chocolate or black based but seeing as one of her parents was chocolate then she herself carries at least one chocolate gene which may or may not be present in those black kits. Nice rabbits!!

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How is my siamese sable a charcoal grey, while dood's is a chocolate brown?

Fastinating discussion! I was grooming the fawn (?) Mama bunny today and noticed she has some fine black hairs mixed in the warm reddish brown on her nose, don't know if that makes any difference or not! When I picked her out it was because she had the cleanest eye rings and non-smutty ears compared to some of the fawns the breeders had. If the buck had some agouti in his background could that contribute to some of the kits being agouti? Didn't know if maybe they both had a recessive agouti gene if that could have made them show up in a litter or not. I'm just barely figuring out genotype and how to understand some of the letter codes, and haven't quite gotten to how they combine when bred!

When I asked about it on another forum before she had the babies they told me I should have mostly fawns and black torts for sure, so I was completely floored when they were all born dark!

Sounds like I could have some really cool color possibilities with my other doe, especially for woolers, lol. she's holding out on me though, and no babies so far. Figures 'cause now I wanna see them :roll: opcorn:

Thanks so much for your help guys! It's been awesome

Genetically he is a black rabbit, a light shaded, a dilute (blue) and a non-extension which means he is a smoke pearl.

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This is wrong and I apologize for the mistake.

Genetically he IS a black, light shaded, a dilute (blue) and a non-extension BUT this is called Blue Point NOT Smoke Pearl. Darn names!! Why cannot we just go by the genome!!

Anyway, I apologize.

smoke pearl have two self and two non extension

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This is also wrong. If he was a Smoke Pearl then he could have two self and two extension or one extension and one non-extension and could father black kits as Devon's Mom Lauren pointed out, but as a blue point he has two selfs, two non-extension and would only have torts with a fawn doe.

I'm sorry, but much of the information you were given here is incorrect.

Smoke Pearl and Blue Pearl are two completely different colors; in fact they can even involve different color genes. Smoke Pearl is a dilute sable-based color and is full-extension, so it is denoted as: aaB_cchl_ddE_. Blue Pearl, on the other hand is a dilute non-extension color that can be chinchilla- (cchd) or sable- (cchl) based. It is denoted as: aaB_cchd_ddee or aaB_cchl_ddee, depending on which color gene is at work. Blue Pearls are most often sable-based, but definitely not always.

The rabbit whose pictures you posted is a Smoke Pearl.

The reason your kits are black is a simple matter--Smoke Pearl is just 'blue sable' with a fancy name. All blue-based colors are dilutes of their black counterparts. So, all blue-based rabbits, including Smoke Pearls, have a 'black gene' (B). They appear blue because they have inherited two copies of the dilute gene (d), one from each parent. All it takes then for them to produce black kits is that they be paired with a rabbit that carries the dense-pigment gene (D). Fawn is not a dilute color, so all fawn rabbits carry the dense-pigment gene (D). The result then is that between your two rabbits all the genes needed to produce black and Chestnut kits were present and since those are the most dominant colors possible, they trumped all other possible combinations.

I have forgotten at this point what else you originally asked, but if you have any more questions, I would be happy to help. I raise French and Satin Angoras, specifically many of the colors we're talking about here and I cannot stand misinformation being spread about willy-nilly.