Help with color

NicoleW said:

He did produce blues. 3 blue and an opal. However the doe of that litter was a rew. That pairing resulted 4 black, 3 blue, and an opal.

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Alaska Satin said:

Hmm. That looks a bit different from the first photo. Just checking - both of these are the same rabbit, yes?
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In the first photo he looks like a smutty red, in the second he looks almost chestnut, though he would be very lightly ticked if so. The thing to do would be to blow into his coat and look for rings. A chestnut will have rings of color, starting with a slate undercolor, a middle band of tan or orange, and a darker tip. A red will have creamy undercolor and no obvious rings.

The first image below is a chestnut; the second is a red Satin. The Satin's color is extremely clear with no smut, and your New Zealand will not look quite this vibrant with his coat being a commercial fur type rather than a satin coat. But you can see the difference in the varied layers of color with a slate gray base on the chestnut, while the red has a creamy base and single color on the hair (smutty reds can look like they have dark tips, but the effect is not one of bands of color like a chestnut has). The third photo is of course your doe #2, who has the dark undercolor and bands of color of a chestnut agouti or possibly chocolate agouti.
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I do think @judymac may be onto something with her comment about the possibility of chocolate. A chocolate agouti has lower-contrast chocolate ticking instead of black ticking, which can make the rabbit look like a chestnut with only slight ticking. Doe #2 could have the gray undercolor of a chocolate agouti rather than the slate of a chestnut; it's hard for me to make up my mid looking at my screen. And compared to the chestnut in the first fur picture, I think you could make a good case for her being chocolate agouti, as she does not appear to have any black ticking at all.

The smut/lacing on the sire's ears looks reasonably black to me, but again I don't feel confident interpreting what's on my computer screen. And even if he's not chocolate, he could easily carry it.

Which brings me back to your original post about the bunny that looks like it might be silvered. Now I'm wondering about lilac (dilute chocolate) agouti, aka lynx. The baby picture doesn't look lilac, and it seems strange that its coat would suddenly change like that, though agouti fur does go through some developmental stages. But now that I'm looking at the ear lacing on that bunny, I wonder if both the lacing and the "silvering" is actually lilac ticking?

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Alaska Satin said:

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