Interesting litter

Hello all, been a while since I was here last. For the last 3 years I have been breeding Flemish Giants exclusively as a meat source. I know it takes longer for them to reach a good butcher weight but I also use the hides as well so don't mind waiting longer. I started with a Fawn buck and doe and a Sandy doe. I got some great Ermine/Frosty kits that I bred back to a Grey Buck. This got me a beautiful Light Grey doe Clerise. I got in a new buck who was supposed to be a Light Grey and bred him to Clerise for the first time last month. I thought it was just sun bleaching for his fur to be a little brown at the tips but... As I didn't get pedigrees since I was not interested in showing at the time I am trying to figure out what their Genotype is likely to be. First pic is hour after birth. second is 24 hours later, we lost 2 due to getting cold after separation from others. Last Picture was taken yesterday.

Okay, Flemish have interesting color names. Translated:

Fawn--rich golden straw color, shading to light cream at base
Sandy--chestnut brown, brassy reddish intermediate band, slate gray undercoat--aka chestnut or castor agouti
Frosty/ermine--(not a showable color, but it occurs when fawn 'ee' combines with chinchilla 'ch(d)'--a lovely creamy white rabbit with dark tipping )
Grey--silver tipped steel
Light grey--chinchilla

From the looks of the litter, my guess is the brown tint on the light grey buck is more than just suntipping.
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This kit does seem to have a chocolate tint. Could the buck have been a chocolate chinchilla? Look closer at his ears, and the color of the tips of his hair--is it chocolate brown or black? The other interesting thing on this kit is that the lower part of the body seems lighter. Could the buck have been a sable chinchilla, aka sable agouti? That's what happens when chinchilla remover of the yellowish tones in the coat is caused by 'light chinchilla' sable 'ch(l)' instead of 'chinchilla dark' 'ch(d)'.

The pink kit could be a fawn, ermine or ruby-eyed white. The last photo looks like the coat is going to come in white, probably an ermine based on your other colors.

The dark kits appear to be mostly agouti based colors, you can see the white inner ears and eye rings. Sandy kits will grow in the reddish middle agouti band, with a fawn triangle behind the ears on the back of the neck; while light grey (chinchilla) kits can't print yellow/red tones, so they have a silvery pearl shade for the middle band, and a pearl triangle. Steel kits won't show the eye rings or white ears, but may go through some odd color tints as the tipping begins to emerge. You should start to see some of the agouti coat changes in two to three weeks.

Honestly I am not sure if he is either Sable or Chocolate Chin. He has silver with brown tipping but the base of the hair shaft is really nice grey. Here are the fur pics of both the parents from back in November when I had a nice sunny day. First pic is Clerise, second one is the father.

With my previous Ermine/Frosty, they would have blue green eyes and just a little grey on the ear tips, otherwise the fur was solid white.

Edited to add the last 3 pictures are of the buck with the last one hopefully a clearer pic of his fur.

Just did a check with the kits and took them out for pictures. The pic of the kit I am holding is the darker kit from previous. I am leaning towards Sable Chinchilla at this point.

Fascinating colors

Sagebrush said:

Honestly I am not sure if he is either Sable or Chocolate Chin. He has silver with brown tipping but the base of the hair shaft is really nice grey. Here are the fur pics of both the parents from back in November when I had a nice sunny day. First pic is Clerise, second one is the father.

With my previous Ermine/Frosty, they would have blue green eyes and just a little grey on the ear tips, otherwise the fur was solid white.

Edited to add the last 3 pictures are of the buck with the last one hopefully a clearer pic of his fur.

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To me it looks like your buck might be a steel... silver-tipped, which could come from either a chinchilla c(chd) or sable c(chl). I see no clear ring pattern in his fur, no clear chest/belly markings and very reduced eye circles. His ear lining is difficult to discern in this photo, but it doesn't look like he has the pale ear linings that a non-steeled agouti would. Steels, being genetically agoutis, do sometimes have remnant agouti markings like minimal eye circles, small nape triangles, ear lacing and even lap spots. I'd love to see photos of his belly.

To be honest, I see neither sable nor chocolate tones in the photos you posted from the sunny day... Sable - the shaded allele c(chl) - can be a tricky color, and maybe he has a sepia cast I'm not seeing on my screen, but usually a sable will have shading on the nose, ears, feet and tail, which from this single photo I'm not able to see. His ear lacing looks pretty black to me, so from this one picture I'd guess he's a black silver-tipped steel <A_B_c(chd)D_Es_>.

Here is a steel (black gold-tipped) on which you can see the suggestion of eye circles, nape triangle, distinct ear lacing and lap spots:


However, one thing that bothers me about calling your buck a steel is that you'd expect to see steels in his litters with an agouti doe. I have found that you can usually spot newborn steels by their darker ear linings and darker bellies. I can't see all of the kits in these photos but there seems to be at least one that might have ears that are basically the same color as the body:

Thank you Alaska Satin for your reply. I did get some updated pictures yesterday and got to pay the price for it lol. However here they are, he is now 9 months old.

could he be dilute? that is very blue, but I am not seeing the chocolate.

Sagebrush said:

Thank you Alaska Satin for your reply. I did get some updated pictures yesterday and got to pay the price for it lol. However here they are, he is now 9 months old.

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Well that cancels my thoughts about steel. He now looks very much chinchilla. Agouti rabbits can take quite a while for the proper banding to show up, as they go through their adult coat development. Were those other fur pictures taken when he was a junior?

Personally I would rule out chocolate, but I still can't make up my mind whether he's black- or sable-based from these photos. His ear lacing - one of the places I look first - could be either black or sable according to what I see on my screen:

His color does look slightly off, but not all chinchillas have the crisp black-slate-and-white coloring that's ideal. Here's a photo of chinchilla fur coloring I would call a little off as well, but it's from a national chinchilla breeder, so no reason to believe it is sable-based:


But what really makes me hesitate to call your buck sable is the lack of any apparent shading on the places you'd normally see it on a sable rabbit, which include the ears, nose, feet and tail.

Sounds like he's not the most friendly animal, eh?

This is really interesting seeing the variety of colors in the little ones. Sorry you lost two of them. I hope you can figure out the bucks official coloring name.

He looks exactly like my chinchilla. I have chinchillas born that are black at birth with a white looking inside ear and look like this when grown. The black inside ear kits end up primarily black with gold tips, also chinchilla.

TamiPac said:

He looks exactly like my chinchilla. I have chinchillas born that are black at birth with a white looking inside ear and look like this when grown. The black inside ear kits end up primarily black with gold tips, also chinchilla.

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The kits with dark ears and gold tips are steels. They are indeed agoutis <A>, but another gene in a different place on the genome causes a change to the banding pattern, to produce what look like lighter-tipped hairs.

The ones with gold tips are called gold-tipped steels, and they are not chinchilla, though they can carry a recessive copy of the allele for chinchilla, <c(chl)>. Rabbits with a dominant chinchilla gene are silver-tipped steels, having silvery white tipping, as the gold color is suppressed, leaving white instead.

Just a note that gold-tipped and silver tipped steels do not actually have light tips...it's an optical illusion that can be solved by pulling single hairs and noting that the "tip" is actually a band up near the tip (thanks @reh). Here's an example:

Alaska Satin said:

The kits with dark ears and gold tips are steels. They are indeed agoutis <A>, but another gene in a different place on the genome causes a change to the banding pattern, to produce what look like lighter-tipped hairs.

The ones with gold tips are called gold-tipped steels, and they are not chinchilla, though they can carry the allele for chinchilla, <c(chl)>. Rabbits with a dominant chinchilla gene are silver-tipped steels, having silvery white tipping, as the gold color is suppressed, leaving white instead.

Just a note that gold-tipped and silver tipped steels do not actually have light tips...it's an optical illusion that can be solved by pulling single hairs and noting that the tip is actually a band up neat the tip (thanks @reh). Here's an example:
View attachment 40939View attachment 40940

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Thank you so much! I'm still so new to this. I just took a comb out and stole some of his hairs and you are right. He's a gold-tipped steel.

Yes Alaska Satin, he was a junior in those first pictures back in November. I could try getting a video of him when the sun decides to show itself again, having my boyfriend hold the camera as this buck can be a bit of a jerk when getting him in and out of his cage. I don't have another buck yet so he is still here as my only Flemish buck. I have been working with the kits daily to make sure that they are good with getting picked up and handled so they hopefully don't act like the buck when older. And some updated pics of the babies from the other day. 1 is a REW but the rest all appear to be Chin based.