Help with colors?

NicoleW · Jun 25, 2024

I’m newer to rabbits. I am wondering if anyone can help and correct me if these are wrong? Absolutely no offense taken if these are inaccurate, this is my first attempt! Babies are just over 2 weeks.
* they do NOT live in this tote lol. I use it to check them daily.

RabbitsOfTheCreek · Jun 25, 2024

I've never heard of "Orange Otter" before, Oranges just have lighter unders
The "Brokens" are most likely VM (Vienna marked)

NicoleW · Jun 25, 2024

These are from supposedly New Zealand if that matters. I'm aware they are possibly mixed and these aren't showable colors.

judymac · Jun 25, 2024

Wonderful litter. Do you know anything about the parents' colors? Is there a reason you assume the orange and cream are otters and not regular orange? Orange/cream has the usual agouti markings just like otter does (white inside the ear, on the belly, eye rings, under the chin), but orange/fawn/cream/red has the recessive non-extension gene--that means the usual dark agouti color banding on the hair doesn't happen, it's just yellowish tones with a whitish base.

Torts also have the non-extension gene, which is why they have the orange body hair, but they are also non-agouti self colored, so they don't have any of the white agouti markings. Instead, the dark color (black, blue, chocolate, lilac) shows up on the points (feet, tail, ears, face). It looks like the black tort has some stray white markings, this is a closeup of its face:

This may also be due to the other white markings, which I agree is probably not the En broken gene, but due to the Vienna recessive combined with a dominant non-Vienna. Double recessive Vienna rabbits are blue-eyed albinos. Double dominant non-Vienna are normal colored rabbits, but the combination of dominant and recessive (Vv) often ends up with normal-colored rabbits that also have white mismarks. Sometimes the white ends up looking like the broken Dutch face blaze, white toes and shoulder collar like your chestnut, once called 'Dutch-marked' Vienna. Rabbits carrying one copy of the Vienna recessive should be listed as VM (for 'Vienna marked') on the pedigree to warn others that these non-showable mismarks are likely to crop up in future litters. Vienna recessive carriers that don't show the white mismarks should be listed as VC for 'Vienna carrier', as they can also throw mismarks. Any offspring of a blue-eyed white rabbit will be a carrier, marked or not.

The blue does indeed look self blue to me, and I see self blacks in the litter. It looks like the triangle behind the opal's ears on the back of the neck is orangish, which would signify an opal instead of chinchilla (which would also be gray with agouti markings, but the triangle would be pearl white.)

NicoleW · Jun 25, 2024

judymac said:
Wonderful litter. Do you know anything about the parents' colors? Is there a reason you assume the orange and cream are otters and not regular orange? Orange/cream has the usual agouti markings just like otter does (white inside the ear, on the belly, eye rings, under the chin), but orange/fawn/cream/red has the recessive non-extension gene--that means the usual dark agouti color banding on the hair doesn't happen, it's just yellowish tones with a whitish base.

Torts also have the non-extension gene, which is why they have the orange body hair, but they are also non-agouti self colored, so they don't have any of the white agouti markings. Instead, the dark color (black, blue, chocolate, lilac) shows up on the points (feet, tail, ears, face). It looks like the black tort has some stray white markings, this is a closeup of its face:
View attachment 42201
This may also be due to the other white markings, which I agree is probably not the En broken gene, but due to the Vienna recessive combined with a dominant non-Vienna. Double recessive Vienna rabbits are blue-eyed albinos. Double dominant non-Vienna are normal colored rabbits, but the combination of dominant and recessive (Vv) often ends up with normal-colored rabbits that also have white mismarks. Sometimes the white ends up looking like the broken Dutch face blaze, white toes and shoulder collar like your chestnut, once called 'Dutch-marked' Vienna. Rabbits carrying one copy of the Vienna recessive should be listed as VM (for 'Vienna marked') on the pedigree to warn others that these non-showable mismarks are likely to crop up in future litters. Vienna recessive carriers that don't show the white mismarks should be listed as VC for 'Vienna carrier', as they can also throw mismarks. Any offspring of a blue-eyed white rabbit will be a carrier, marked or not.

The blue does indeed look self blue to me, and I see self blacks in the litter. It looks like the triangle behind the opal's ears on the back of the neck is orangish, which would signify an opal instead of chinchilla (which would also be gray with agouti markings, but the triangle would be pearl white.)

This is great info, thank you! I greatly appreciate your feedback! I'm still learning genetics and it's still very confusing to me. Not really a specific reason I asssumed otter, honestly I am going alot off of whatever I can find on websites that show newborn kits - adults just to try to figure the color out. I'm not finding much at all on non showable NZ colors. Yes, I have parents. A trio. This is actually 2 litters. And my first litters! The blue and blacks were all out of my orange/red NZ buck x rew doe. And the others were from the same buck and a self black doe. The lady I got the breeders from only had NZ and said they were pure. Which I am not concerned with, but I keep hearing the brokens look like dutch or Veinna, which I didn't think could be a thing in NZ.

NicoleW · Jun 25, 2024

judymac said:
Wonderful litter. Do you know anything about the parents' colors? Is there a reason you assume the orange and cream are otters and not regular orange? Orange/cream has the usual agouti markings just like otter does (white inside the ear, on the belly, eye rings, under the chin), but orange/fawn/cream/red has the recessive non-extension gene--that means the usual dark agouti color banding on the hair doesn't happen, it's just yellowish tones with a whitish base.

Torts also have the non-extension gene, which is why they have the orange body hair, but they are also non-agouti self colored, so they don't have any of the white agouti markings. Instead, the dark color (black, blue, chocolate, lilac) shows up on the points (feet, tail, ears, face). It looks like the black tort has some stray white markings, this is a closeup of its face:
View attachment 42201
This may also be due to the other white markings, which I agree is probably not the En broken gene, but due to the Vienna recessive combined with a dominant non-Vienna. Double recessive Vienna rabbits are blue-eyed albinos. Double dominant non-Vienna are normal colored rabbits, but the combination of dominant and recessive (Vv) often ends up with normal-colored rabbits that also have white mismarks. Sometimes the white ends up looking like the broken Dutch face blaze, white toes and shoulder collar like your chestnut, once called 'Dutch-marked' Vienna. Rabbits carrying one copy of the Vienna recessive should be listed as VM (for 'Vienna marked') on the pedigree to warn others that these non-showable mismarks are likely to crop up in future litters. Vienna recessive carriers that don't show the white mismarks should be listed as VC for 'Vienna carrier', as they can also throw mismarks. Any offspring of a blue-eyed white rabbit will be a carrier, marked or not.

The blue does indeed look self blue to me, and I see self blacks in the litter. It looks like the triangle behind the opal's ears on the back of the neck is orangish, which would signify an opal instead of chinchilla (which would also be gray with agouti markings, but the triangle would be pearl white.)

RabbitsOfTheCreek · Jun 25, 2024

NicoleW said:
This is great info, thank you! I greatly appreciate your feedback! I'm still learning genetics and it's still very confusing to me. Not really a specific reason I asssumed otter, honestly I am going alot off of whatever I can find on websites that show newborn kits - adults just to try to figure the color out. I'm not finding much at all on non showable NZ colors. Yes, I have parents. A trio. This is actually 2 litters. And my first litters! The blue and blacks were all out of my orange/red NZ buck x rew doe. And the others were from the same buck and a self black doe. The lady I got the breeders from only had NZ and said they were pure. Which I am not concerned with, but I keep hearing the brokens look like dutch or Veinna, which I didn't think could be a thing in NZ.

To my knowledge, VM (and BEW) and Broken can show up in any breed
Unsure about Dutch, I'm sure it could with crossbreeding

Sagebrush · Jun 25, 2024

I have some kits that where born from a black Dutch buck and a Golden Yellow Dutch doe. I am guessing the buck is a VM carrier as i get the blue eyes occasionally, mismarks often, and I have Steel babies in every litter. Pictured below is one of his daughters that I kept back to breed for meat rabbits. She has one blue eye and one brown eye. I am thinking they bred in Polish into the bucks line. I don't know as I never got a pedigree with him.

Scooter1A · Jun 26, 2024

Nice bunnies.

Alaska Satin · Jun 26, 2024

NicoleW said:
I’m newer to rabbits. I am wondering if anyone can help and correct me if these are wrong?

I agree with @judymac, that is a cool collection of colors! I also agree with you both about the blue, opal and black tort.

The first broken chestnut seems fine at first glance, but that second one has some suspicious patchiness to its color. Especially note the distinct patch of dark on its cheek, the bi-colored ear (with the orange on the edge rather than the typical dark lacing of an agouti), the stripes on its leg, and the bright orange tail, none of which are typical chestnut color distribution:

Noticing those anomalies took me back to the first broken chestnut, and on closer examination, it also has variations that are atypical for chestnut, even looking like it has patches and stripes on its legs, flank and ear base:

These look to me like the telltale signs of a harlequin allele <e(j)>. If the kits only have one copy of it, it will not totally disrupt the agouti banding, but will partially show itself as a "harlequinized" agouti.

As for the orange bunnies, they look like normal orange. There isn't really anything known as an orange otter. Orange comes about, as @judymac says, by two non-extension alleles <ee> preventing expression of the dark bands on an agouti, leaving just the orange color and the normal agouti "trim."

On a self rabbit, the non-extension alleles <ee> prevent expression of the dark pigment that would normally cover up all of the orange (it can be helpful to think of a self black rabbit as an orange rabbit that's been painted over completely with black). So a non-extension black is called a tort (or tortoise) - due to the <ee>, the black pigment is not allowed to extend up the hair from the base, so the undercolor turns from slate into cream, and the black does not cover up the orange, although black tips are left on the shorter hairs.

An otter is kind of halfway between an agouti and a self: on the dorsal side it's a self (orange completely covered with black), while on the ventral side it has the agouti trim. So a non-extension otter is called a fox, aka torted otter. It's a tort with otter trim.

Here's a chestnut (image from https://superstarbunnies.weebly.com/uploads/5/3/2/4/5324278/8794602.jpg), then a fox (newly accepted in the U.S. as a variety in the Netherland Dwarf breed, image from https://www.breadboxfarm.com/blog/everything-netherland-dwarf), then a tort (from https://www.thepetstep.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Tortoiseshell-Netherland-Dwarf-Rabbit.jpg):

NicoleW said:
I'm not finding much at all on non showable NZ colors. Yes, I have parents. A trio. This is actually 2 litters. And my first litters! The blue and blacks were all out of my orange/red NZ buck x rew doe. And the others were from the same buck and a self black doe. The lady I got the breeders from only had NZ and said they were pure. Which I am not concerned with, but I keep hearing the brokens look like dutch or Veinna, which I didn't think could be a thing in NZ.

As @RabbitsOfTheCreek notes, vienna (or harlequin, or dutch, or really any other color and pattern) can potentially show up in any breed. You wouldn't expect vienna, dutch, or harlequin in NZs, and it's hard to imagine why anyone would cross any of those breeds/patterns into NZs, but NZ Whites can hide a LOT of both dominant and recessive alleles for as long as breeders keep breeding white to white. In my experience, purebred NZWs frequently carry steel and/or chinchilla, neither of which "should" be in NZ lines. In fact steel can also lurk in NZ Blacks, as supersteels. A rabbit that gets two copies of steel <E(S)E(S)> looks like a self black, and if you breed supersteels, all you'll ever get are supersteels that looks black (but sometimes have some faint ticking or "stray white hairs"). A single steel allele can also hide in self blacks, as the steel requires an agouti allele to express itself. So as long as you breed selfs to selfs, you'll never know the steel is there. And I have heard it suggested that having steel in your self blacks can be advantageous in that it confers better/darker undercolor.

Torts are not accepted in NZs either, but they are not surprising when you start crossing blacks (self) x reds (non-extension), because self x non-extension = tort.

Alaska Satin · Jun 26, 2024

Sagebrush said:
I have some kits that where born from a black Dutch buck and a Golden Yellow Dutch doe. I am guessing the buck is a VM carrier as i get the blue eyes occasionally, mismarks often, and I have Steel babies in every litter. Pictured below is one of his daughters that I kept back to breed for meat rabbits. She has one blue eye and one brown eye. I am thinking they bred in Polish into the bucks line. I don't know as I never got a pedigree with him.

Blue ("china eyes"), marbled or mismatched eyes in Dutch are not entirely uncommon and do not necessarily mean there is a vienna allele in play. I have yet to read a consise and convincing explanation for it, but it seems to involve multiple polygenes and modfiers affecting the distribution of color. Likewise, mismarks are not uncommon in purebred Dutch; it could be that someone added Polish or something else into the line, but mismarks and blue eyes don't necessarily prove it. A friend who breeds Grand Champion Dutch rabbits just got an entire litter of mismarked DQs from two G.C. parents.

The way to test this is to breed two of your blue-eyed bunnies together, or breed one of them back to the suspected VC sire. If they're vienna carriers, you'll most likely get about 50% BEWs.

As far as producing steel from a black x golden yellow cross, that is not surprising, and it would not be related to the vienna gene. Especially since steel is an accepted Dutch variety (not in Polish, though), it can and does "pop out" of Dutch rabbits without steel phenotypes in at least two ways. First, breeding steel x steel = roughly half "supersteels," which look like, and can be shown as, self blacks. Second, true self blacks can also carry a copy of steel, which will not show as it needs an agouti allele to express itself. But as soon as you cross a either a supersteel, or a self black carrying steel, with an agouti - and a golden yellow is an agouti - you'll most likely see steels.

MsTemeraire · Jun 26, 2024

Alaska Satin said:
Blue ("china eyes"), marbled or mismatched eyes in Dutch are not entirely uncommon and do not necessarily mean there is a vienna allele at play. I have yet to read a consise and convincing explanation for it, but it seems to involve multiple polygenes and modfiers. Likewise, mismarks are not uncommon in purebred Dutch;

A blue eye in Dutch is, really, just another mismark. It occurs where a white patch falls over the eye, even if you can't see it. So, just as purebred Champion line Dutch can throw white marks in the ears, or a skewed saddle, long stops or a coloured patch in the white, a blue or part-blue eye in Dutch is the white pattern 'gone wrong' or 'gone for a walk'

NicoleW · Jun 26, 2024

Alaska Satin said:
I agree with @judymac, that is a cool collection of colors! I also agree with you both about the blue, opal and black tort.

The first broken chestnut seems fine at first glance, but that second one has some suspicious patchiness to its color. Especially note the distinct patch of dark on its cheek, the bi-colored ear (with the orange on the edge rather than the typical dark lacing of an agouti), the stripes on its leg, and the bright orange tail, none of which are typical chestnut color distribution:
View attachment 42210

Noticing those anomalies took me back to the first broken chestnut, and on closer examination, it also has variations that are atypical for chestnut, even looking like it has patches and stripes on its legs, flank and ear base:View attachment 42211
These look to me like the telltale signs of a harlequin allele <e(j)>. If the kits only have one copy of it, it will not totally disrupt the agouti banding, but will partially show itself as a "harlequinized" agouti.

As for the orange bunnies, they look like normal orange. There isn't really anything known as an orange otter. Orange comes about, as @judymac says, by two non-extension alleles <ee> preventing expression of the dark bands on an agouti, leaving just the orange color and the normal agouti "trim."

On a self rabbit, the non-extension alleles <ee> prevent expression of the dark pigment that would normally cover up all of the orange (it can be helpful to think of a self black rabbit as an orange rabbit that's been painted over completely with black). So a non-extension black is called a tort (or tortoise) - due to the <ee>, the black pigment is not allowed to extend up the hair from the base, so the undercolor turns from slate into cream, and the black does not cover up the orange, although black tips are left on the shorter hairs.

An otter is kind of halfway between an agouti and a self: on the dorsal side it's a self (orange completely covered with black), while on the ventral side it has the agouti trim. So a non-extension otter is called a fox, aka torted otter. It's a tort with otter trim.

Here's a chestnut (image from https://superstarbunnies.weebly.com/uploads/5/3/2/4/5324278/8794602.jpg), then a fox (newly accepted in the U.S. as a variety in the Netherland Dwarf breed, image from https://www.breadboxfarm.com/blog/everything-netherland-dwarf), then a tort (from https://www.thepetstep.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Tortoiseshell-Netherland-Dwarf-Rabbit.jpg):
View attachment 42216 View attachment 42215 View attachment 42214

As @RabbitsOfTheCreek notes, vienna (or harlequin, or dutch, or really any other color and pattern) can potentially show up in any breed. You wouldn't expect vienna, dutch, or harlequin in NZs, and it's hard to imagine why anyone would cross any of those breeds/patterns into NZs, but NZ Whites can hide a LOT of both dominant and recessive alleles for as long as breeders keep breeding white to white. In my experience, purebred NZWs frequently carry steel and/or chinchilla, neither of which "should" be in NZ lines. In fact steel can also lurk in NZ Blacks, as supersteels. A rabbit that gets two copies of steel <E(S)E(S)> looks like a self black, and if you breed supersteels, all you'll ever get are supersteels that looks black (but sometimes have some faint ticking or "stray white hairs").

Torts are not accepted in NZs either, but they are not surprising when you start crossing blacks (self) x reds (non-extension), because self x non-extension = tort.

Thank for you the info and further explaining! As a first timer, it's alot to take in and I'm still researching and learning. So I appreciate this! What would your best attempt at color be for the brokens? As all of you are more experienced and educated than myself, I would greatly appreciate your best guess.

Genuinely! Opal is my favorite coloring aside from blue, I love it! So I was HOPING she was opal, is she turns out to be I will be ecstatic.

Alaska Satin · Jun 26, 2024

NicoleW said:
Thank for you the info and further explaining! As a first timer, it's alot to take in and I'm still researching and learning. So I appreciate this! What would your best attempt at color be for the brokens? As all of you are more experienced and educated than myself, I would greatly appreciate your best guess. Genuinely! Opal is my favorite coloring aside from blue, I love it! So I was HOPING she was opal, is she turns out to be I will be ecstatic.

I'd call the brokens either chestnut or harlequinized chestnut (also see broken oranges in the group photo). Watch how they develop. Agoutis take a while to develop the proper banding etc., so what looks like stripes and patches could be just the newborn coat giving way to the first junior coat. But that distinct patch of chestnut on the heel of the first one, and the dark patch on the orange face of the second one, look pretty unusual.

Also, although I've been writing "broken," I tend to agree with USER=7512]@RabbitsOfTheCreek[/USER]'s suggestion that the "brokens" might actually be vienna-marked <Vv> or dutch-marked <Du_> instead of broken <Enen>. Not only is the pattern markedly dutch-like, but I have never seen brokens with this much color on their feet:

NicoleW · Jul 4, 2024

I'm going to assume that any babies with blue eyes and the white marking in question are vienna marked then? Is that correct? Most of them have one blue eye and one brown, both blue, or one eye that is hald brown/half blue.

Alaska Satin · Jul 4, 2024

NicoleW said:
I'm going to assume that any babies with blue eyes and the white marking in question are vienna marked then? Is that correct? Most of them have one blue eye and one brown, both blue, or one eye that is hald brown/half blue.

Yes, taken together (white markings plus blue/marbled/unmatched eyes), the most likely cause is vienna. You can get white markings and/or blue eyes from other sources but I think that's the most likely conclusion.

NicoleW · Jul 4, 2024

Thank you so much for your help

Happy 4th!

NicoleW · Jul 10, 2024

Here's some updated pictures from today. These are my two potential keepers. Does the first baby still look chestnut? And the second, would this still be considered opal?

Alaska Satin · Jul 10, 2024

NicoleW said:
Here's some updated pictures from today. These are my two potential keepers. Does the first baby still look chestnut? And the second, would this still be considered opal?

No, that does not look like chestnut at all anymore. Looking at these pictures, I'd say either a tort or a harlequin, though it's a little hard to feel sure with the shadows adding to the variations in the color. However, putting together these photos with the ones of it as a kit, I'd go with harlequin. It does look like it's a VM with those blue eyes, but as noted earlier, the dutch allele can also be connected to blue eyes, and both vienna and dutch can produce that kind of marking pattern.

The second bunny still looks generally like a an opal, but it also seems to have a harlequin influence. Again, the shadows aren't helpful, and some of the variations could be due to that or to juvenile coat development, but here are some of the places with apparent alternation that, taken altogether, make me wonder about recessive harlequin:

NicoleW · Jul 10, 2024

I will work on better pictures! Finding the perfect lighting is difficult lol. Indoors the colors dont show well at all, it is better outdoors for some reason but I will get some without shadows tomorrow.

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