I have Mini Lop rabbits. I'm wanting to breed. They are all pedigree. I have a black buck. Is it okay to breed with a chinchilla color doe? I'm seeing on a chart that it's not. I'm trying to be careful with breeding. I got the chinchilla thinking it was OK, but now seeing it may not be. My other 2 are a blue doe and lilac and I see that's ok. Help please!!
Breeding colors
- Thread starter Alyssa
- Start date
Help Support Rabbit Talk Forum:
I cannot help with "ok" because I do not breed to a specific standard. I do understand genetics though. I think the "ok" in this equation is that you are wanting to breed a self rabbit (aka a solid color rabbit) to an agouti type rabbit (ticked or grizzled coat).
If you want to show or offer breeding stock for showing that is probably not a good idea because it makes what you will get out of the offspring complicated and unpredictable. Blue and Lilac are both self/solid. You can be sure you are in the same color family.
If you cross a black and chinchilla you may get a self chinchilla, that looks like a black rabbit and breeds like a chinchilla, which would mess up someone's plans in a big way. Also a self chin often looks black and has cloudy blue gray eyes which is not showable.
Of course the rabbit's health will not be impacted. This is all about showing, which I do not do. I breed for other reasons, and color is just interesting to me, rather than important. Mini Lops seem like a great breed I hope to play with their genetics some day.
If you want to show or offer breeding stock for showing that is probably not a good idea because it makes what you will get out of the offspring complicated and unpredictable. Blue and Lilac are both self/solid. You can be sure you are in the same color family.
If you cross a black and chinchilla you may get a self chinchilla, that looks like a black rabbit and breeds like a chinchilla, which would mess up someone's plans in a big way. Also a self chin often looks black and has cloudy blue gray eyes which is not showable.
Of course the rabbit's health will not be impacted. This is all about showing, which I do not do. I breed for other reasons, and color is just interesting to me, rather than important. Mini Lops seem like a great breed I hope to play with their genetics some day.
RabbitRegis
Member
- Joined
- Mar 25, 2022
- Messages
- 9
- Reaction score
- 0
I don't know your breed but in mine colors like Squirrel were a DQ. But that is from breeding a chin with an agouti color like fawn, chestnut etc. In my breed chin bred with a self (as black, tort or blue would be) was OK. Chin would be dominant so you'd know which ones should not be bred to an agouti of any kind.
Chinchilla *is* an agouti color; it's basically chestnut with a gene that "turns off" production of yellow pigment, so the orange/fawn band appears pearly/white instead. It is written
<A_ B_ cchd_ D_ E_>.
Squirrel, which in mini lops is an accepted color called blue chinchilla, is just a dilute chinchilla
<A_ B_ cchd_ dd E_>
so breeding a chinchilla with a fawn (dilute red <A_ B_ C_ dd E_>) might produce squirrel if the chinchilla also carried a dilute gene. But breeding a chinchilla with a chestnut would not (unless both chin and chestnut happened to carry dilute).
As eco2pia noted, breeding a chinchilla to a black (self) would likely produce self chins
<aa B_ cchd_ D_ E_>
down the road, which can wreak havoc on a show breeding project.
I have struggled with this for generations in my black Satins, many of which are genetically self chins (and some of my blues are self squirrels). These bunnies are black due to the homozygous self genes, but the chin shows through in their blue-gray or marbled eyes. Adding more confusion to the mix, their eyes often change to brown as they mature, so you really cannot tell which are black and which are self chin. No problem on the show table, but it's a bummer when you breed your "black" to a REW and end up with a whole litter of lousy chinchillas and squirrels! (They tend to be lousy because you've been breeding chinchillas all along, but you haven't been able to see the details of ring color etc and so have not been selecting for good color.) Since chin is recessive to full-color C, and is hidden under self, it can lurk in many generations of selfs (9 and counting in my herd!).
Incidentally, breeding a chin with a non-extension color like tort is even worse from a show perspective, because you'll eventually get ermine (non-extension chin), which as far as I know is not an accepted color in any current ARBA-recognized breed. (The Czech Frosty is an ermine but that's still in progress.)
Black tort is <aaB_C_D_ee>.
Sable point is <aaB_c(chl)_D_ee>.
They're both self <aa> and non-extension <ee> so all of their offspring will be too.
You can expect more torts. Depending on what each carries at their second C locus, you might also get sallanders (non-extension self chins), more sable points, seal points, himalayans and/or REWs.
If both parents carry dilute <d> you may also get blue torts, blue sallanders, blue sable points aka smoke pearl point, blue seal point or blue himis.
If both carry chocolate <b> you may get chocolate versions of the above-listed varieties.
Last edited:
Hey, dose anyone know if a chocolate Harlequin with very few markings will have baby chocolate harlequins with very few markings?
Also, dose anyone know what I will get breeding a chocolate magpie and a chocolate harlequin.
I have so breed a black tort and a sable point frosty. Dose anyone know what I could get from that?
I also have a black and white tri and a chinchilla dose anyone know what I could get breeding a magpie with those two?
I also have a French lop pair. Broken magpie and agouti. What possible colors could I get?
Lots of questions but thank you to anyone who can help! I’ve put pictures of my holland lops up on!
Also, dose anyone know what I will get breeding a chocolate magpie and a chocolate harlequin.
I have so breed a black tort and a sable point frosty. Dose anyone know what I could get from that?
I also have a black and white tri and a chinchilla dose anyone know what I could get breeding a magpie with those two?
I also have a French lop pair. Broken magpie and agouti. What possible colors could I get?
Lots of questions but thank you to anyone who can help! I’ve put pictures of my holland lops up on!
I did a quick google search, as I am terrible with the genotypes still, and this website allows you to put in either color or genes. Might be worth it to try it out.
https://www.omnicalculator.com/biology/rabbit-color
