Tricolor is broken plus harlequin
e(j)__. Harlequin
e(j) e(j) overrides agouti, self, and tan. Green Barn Farm has an excellent page at
https://www.gbfarm.org/rabbit/steel-phenotype-chart.shtml to show how harlequin interacts with the 'A' agouti gene. Sometimes
e(j) e rabbits can show slight traces of the 'A' gene patterning, like smutty faces on a self where the tortoiseshell dark points would be, or light marks on the flanks of agouti rabbits.
You said that your tri doe has thrown ermines. Ermine is agouti + chinchilla or sable + non-extension
ee. It takes two non-extension genes to make an ermine--you start with agouti banding, then non-extension replaces the base color with white, and the rest of the fiber is the yellow (fawn/orange) tone, like a red or orange or fawn agouti rabbit. Then chinchilla or sable comes in and removes all yellow tones, leaving you with a pearly white rabbit. Wherever you would have had dark tips to the hair on your orange agouti rabbit, called 'smut', like on the ear edges or sprinkled on the face--becomes the classic ermine dark hairs. Some breeds (that allow for ermines to be shown) call for heavy tipping. Other people prefer an all-white rabbit with dark eyes, instead of the albino ruby-eyed-white (REW). Anyway, if she has thrown ermines, you know that your doe is
e(j) e.
