What color is this kit?

I got another unexpected kit color in a litter! I thought he might be black when he was first born but he looked slightly different next to his black siblings. Now he’s 2 weeks old and definitely not black…

The parents (Buttercup and Banbury) are both rabbits I’ve asked about here on rabbittalk before. I think the mom is a black tort (fox?). She looks orange but almost always produces black, rew, and black&white kits with the occasional orange.

The father is a dark sable. As far as I know neither have dilute genes, but I guess anything is possible? They did produce one sallander kit together last year. I’m pretty sure this kit is too dark to be that.

What do you guys think?

Kit in question:




Parents:

looks blue to me.

This may not be a dilute. It may be black based sable. Niether parent is a broken, so this kit color is not affected by the english spot gene. Also, if it were dutch, it would also be dominant and show in the parents in some way.

Are these vienna marked? Does your doe carry the vienna gene? This looks like a vm Siamese Sable to me. The darker color on the face vs. the lighter color on the rear and saddle.

My Siamese Sable buck was that color when he was born, only solid. He looked 'black' on kindling day, and progressed thru a few weird color changes, one of them was a 'blue-ish gray like your kit, before becoming this gorgeous sepia color by 6 months old. The flash makes his body look lighter than it is though. He reminds of a chocolate candy bar, except he is not chocolate. He is black, with the sable gene. The sable gene was referred to as the chin light gene because it acts like the chin dark gene, to a point. The chin dark gene blocks all yellow pigment, but the chin light gene only blocks most of the pigment. So it turns a black rabbit in to a sepia color.

Sallanders are black based, full color, dense, self torts. aaB_C_D_ee. I see no signs of a diluted color in your litter.

Dimplz said:

This may not be a dilute. It may be black based sable. Niether parent is a broken, so this kit color is not affected by the english spot gene. Also, if it were dutch, it would also be dominant and show in the parents in some way.

Are these vienna marked? Does your doe carry the vienna gene? This looks like a vm Siamese Sable to me. The darker color on the face vs. the lighter color on the rear and saddle.

My Siamese Sable buck was that color when he was born, only solid. He looked 'black' on kindling day, and progressed thru a few weird color changes, one of them was a 'blue-ish gray like your kit, before becoming this gorgeous sepia color by 6 months old. The flash makes his body look lighter than it is though. He reminds of a chocolate candy bar, except he is not chocolate. He is black, with the sable gene. The sable gene was referred to as the chin light gene because it acts like the chin dark gene, to a point. The chin dark gene blocks all yellow pigment, but the chin light gene only blocks most of the pigment. So it turns a black rabbit in to a sepia color.

Sallanders are black based, full color, dense, self torts. aaB_C_D_ee. I see no signs of a diluted color in your litter.

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Wow, I love that photo of your Siamese sable buck! He’s so beautiful and healthy looking.
This makes a lot of sense! When the kit opened his eyes a few days ago I realized that they’re really dark, and both parents have dark brown eyes as well. I heard that dilute rabbits usually have greyish or lighter eyes.
Now that I think about it, the dad looked sort of blue-ish when he was younger. But I never saw him at this age. He could have looked a lot like this at 2 weeks.
Thank you for the info!

Juci said:

Wow, I love that photo of your Siamese sable buck! He’s so beautiful and healthy looking.
This makes a lot of sense! When the kit opened his eyes a few days ago I realized that they’re really dark, and both parents have dark brown eyes as well. I heard that dilute rabbits usually have greyish or lighter eyes.
Now that I think about it, the dad looked sort of blue-ish when he was younger. But I never saw him at this age. He could have looked a lot like this at 2 weeks.
Thank you for the info!

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You are welcome. I am happy that I was able to help with color. I was stumped about my boy until he looked chocolate. I was calling him a chocolate when color gurus set me straight. Then I got books on coat color genetics . . . Best investment.

Still wondering about the white markings though. Niether parent is a broken, even on copy will make a rabbit a broken coat. Even one copy of the dutch gene will show in a booted, or other white markings. I do not see any signs of either the dutch or spotting genes in the parents. The only other white gene that causes the face blaze and the neck rings, is vienna!

If you bred two of the 'brokens' from this litter, and it is the vienna gene, you would possibly get a blue eyed white.

Dimplz said:

You are welcome. I am happy that I was able to help with color. I was stumped about my boy until he looked chocolate. I was calling him a chocolate when color gurus set me straight. Then I got books on coat color genetics . . . Best investment.

Still wondering about the white markings though. Niether parent is a broken, even on copy will make a rabbit a broken coat. Even one copy of the dutch gene will show in a booted, or other white markings. I do not see any signs of either the dutch or spotting genes in the parents. The only other white gene that causes the face blaze and the neck rings, is vienna!

If you bred two of the 'brokens' from this litter, and it is the vienna gene, you would possibly get a blue eyed white.

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That’s so funny to hear about your buck, I had the same story with mine too. I was completely stumped about his color when I got him at around 3 months old. I also thought he was some kind of blue or chocolate for a while until someone on here mentioned that sable can look more like sepia than chocolate. So that helped.

I might try to see if I can get my hands on any rabbit color books. I’ve watched a lot of videos on it, but they often leave out the colors I want to know about. Do you have any book recommendations?

So the white was unexpected, I think my doe is carrying Vienna. In each litter she has at least one Dutch looking kit and usually it isn’t perfect Dutch markings. The sallander kit I mentioned Looks like he has perfect Dutch markings, but seeing his siblings I’m pretty sure it’s Vienna. Funny since I tried to choose all solid colored rabbits as my first breeders but that was my first lesson in hidden genes lol.

I didn’t know that about getting blue eyed whites from 2 Vienna marked kits! Very interesting, I might try it.

I have a book called 'About Bunny Colors' and also an ARBA Standard of Perfection. I too have sucked in a ton of info from videos on youtube and a few color genetics groups on facebook.

From my research, even one copy of the english spotting and dutch genes will show on the rabbit. Usually with a broken (english spotted) one copy causes a white rabbit with colored spots. The dutch gene will cause an incompletely marked rabbit that usually results in a white foot, incomplete blaze on the face, and incomplete neck markings too. Your doe shows no signs of being dutch or broken. The only other option is vienna.

Those are nice looking kits and consistant with the markings of a vienna marked rabbit. Try breeding your doe back to one of her marked sons and see if you get any fully white rabbits with bright blue eyes. Also, breed a marked buck to a couple of his marked sisters.

The odds are increased of you getting more than one BEW per litter. I would love to have a follow up if you do this.

I am still learning too, and am guessing based on process of elimination of the genes that would cause these incomplete white markings, and the fact that niether parent shows the phenotypes needed to produce a broken or a dutch. Vienna is the only logical guess for me at this point. I am super jealous!

I would be pleasantly suprised and already looking at the kits that I would hold back for test breeding. I would be excited that you could very easily create your own line of BEWs. If it is the vienna gene.

Dimplz said:

I have a book called 'About Bunny Colors' and also an ARBA Standard of Perfection. I too have sucked in a ton of info from videos on youtube and a few color genetics groups on facebook.

From my research, even one copy of the english spotting and dutch genes will show on the rabbit. Usually with a broken (english spotted) one copy causes a white rabbit with colored spots. The dutch gene will cause an incompletely marked rabbit that usually results in a white foot, incomplete blaze on the face, and incomplete neck markings too. Your doe shows no signs of being dutch or broken. The only other option is vienna.

Those are nice looking kits and consistant with the markings of a vienna marked rabbit. Try breeding your doe back to one of her marked sons and see if you get any fully white rabbits with bright blue eyes. Also, breed a marked buck to a couple of his marked sisters.

The odds are increased of you getting more than one BEW per litter. I would love to have a follow up if you do this.

I am still learning too, and am guessing based on process of elimination of the genes that would cause these incomplete white markings, and the fact that niether parent shows the phenotypes needed to produce a broken or a dutch. Vienna is the only logical guess for me at this point. I am super jealous!

I would be pleasantly suprised and already looking at the kits that I would hold back for test breeding. I would be excited that you could very easily create your own line of BEWs. If it is the vienna gene.

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I’m not sure how I missed this message! I saw it when I was going back through my posts. Sorry for the long delay.
I will definitely try that! I still have the little sallander Vienna marked buck, so I’ll try breeding him back to the mom and see what happens. It would be interesting to see if any of them do turn out to be blue eyed whites. And I’ll definitely update this thread.

I also might have to get that bunny colors book!

I hope everything is going well in your rabbitry this summer!

Juci said:

They did produce one sallander kit together last year. I’m pretty sure this kit is too dark to be that.

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Dimplz said:

Sallanders are black based, full color, dense, self torts. aaB_C_D_ee. I see no signs of a diluted color in your litter.

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I believe Sallander (called 'Pearl' in Angoras) is a non-extension, non-agouti chinchilla. Non-extension ee with Agouti A- and full color C- is an orange agouti (fawn in Angoras), with the typical agouti markings and light belly. Add in chinchilla ch(d)-, and the chinchilla gene removes all the orange coloration, leaving you with a white rabbit with gray eyes and perhaps a little dark marking on the face where the 'smut' would have been on an orange rabbit. In Angoras, we call that color 'ermine'.

Non-agouti aa with non-extension ee and full color C- is tortoise shell (old Angora breeders may remember this as 'Siamese fawn'). Here, the orange color covers the back and main body, but the dark color is still found on the points (ears, face, legs, tail). It is a non-agouti self color, with the self dark colored belly. The points can be black, blue, chocolate or lilac. Add in the chinchilla gene, and the yellowish tones are removed, leaving pearl white on the body and the dark points are not changed. This is sallander, (also called Iron Grey) or pearl in Angoras. If the gene is sable ch(l)- instead of chinchilla dark, the color is called sable point (still pearl in Angoras). Same pearl white coat, but the points are sepia instead of black (or the sable versions of chocolate, lilac or blue).

There is a handy chart for how these color names change with the different options on the C gene: full color, chinchilla, sable with two copies of the sable gene called 'seal', sable with one copy dominant, Himalayan (aka pointed white or Californian), and albino ruby (or red)-eyed-white (REW); the chart can be found at Rabbit Color Genotypes Chart | The Nature Trail
This photo shows a Himalayan pointed white on the left, and ermine (genetically a non-extension chinchilla) on the right. You can see that the white on the ermine is pearl white, not quite bright white like the Himalayan. I don't happen to have any pearl rabbit photos for comparison. The pearl (sallander, iron grey) would have dark color on the ears, face, l.egs and tail, and then the pearl white body with some dark shading down to the points.

Dimplz said:

Still wondering about the white markings though. Niether parent is a broken, even on copy will make a rabbit a broken coat. Even one copy of the dutch gene will show in a booted, or other white markings. I do not see any signs of either the dutch or spotting genes in the parents.

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Not necessarily. I've bred Dutch on and off for decades, and over the years I've had several unplanned litters - usually a very horny Dutch buck managing to get to one of my other breeds! In almost every litter there have been one or three kits with no discernible white pattern.