What's the dif between red and high rufus chocolate agouti?

I just adopted this beautiful 12-week old angora coated french angora / rex mix. She's definitely agouti.. but is she red? Or high rufus chocolate? Her dad is red otter and her mom silver tipped chocolate. I have a photo of her next to a fawn colored french angora and next to a self-black 13 week old angora.

she looks chocolate to me. I don't see any rufus.

Photos are funny, but she definitely looks red in some light.

She's not a red, if she was, she wouldn't have the grayish colored undercoat, it would just be red/fawn and cream, and then she may have only a little color on her ear tips and nose if she's a bit smutty. So, I'd say she's an agouti.
If her ear tips are brown, than she is a chocolate agouti and if they are black tips, than she is a chestnut (black agouti). From my screen she does have a red tone, but not sure if it's just my screen. But she definitely looks like she has some rufus going on, which is a modifier.

It's such an excellent question. At birth, reds are born pink, and the red hair grows in. Chocolate agouti kits are born chocolate, and the agouti hair grows in. Both are born with the light eye rings, light bellies, and white inside the ears.

As the hair grows, reds have reddish tips, reddish outer color, and the color lightens as it goes down the hairshaft, the base color is creamy white. Chocolate agouti on the other hand, has chocolate at the very tip, a chocolate outer color, fawn mid-color, and dove gray (light chocolate) at the base.

Rufus modifiers react interestingly with chocolate, adding red highlights to the chocolate base color, making them sometimes appear to be reds. The key is to blow into the coat. True reds only have shades of red near the outside of the hairshaft, and creamy near the base. Of course, the goal is to have the red shade go as far down as possible, but on the super long angora hairshaft, it almost always ends up at the creamy white sooner or later. Other agouti based colors will have an end-of-the-tip color, a surface (near the tip) color, an intermediate yellowish band (cream, fawn, red), and then a dark (chocolate, dove gray, slate gray) base color.

Below is a Satin Angora high rufus chocolate agouti doe, she was born chocolate, and grew in this reddish agouti coat.

This is her fiber from her face, you can see the chocolate tips at the top, the right side clump shows the light chocolate base. The dark chocolate is from around her ears:

judymac said:

It's such an excellent question. At birth, reds are born pink, and the red hair grows in. Chocolate agouti kits are born chocolate, and the agouti hair grows in. Both are born with the light eye rings, light bellies, and white inside the ears.

As the hair grows, reds have reddish tips, reddish outer color, and the color lightens as it goes down the hairshaft, the base color is creamy white. Chocolate agouti on the other hand, has chocolate at the very tip, a chocolate outer color, fawn mid-color, and dove gray (light chocolate) at the base.

Rufus modifiers react interestingly with chocolate, adding red highlights to the chocolate base color, making them sometimes appear to be reds. The key is to blow into the coat. True reds only have shades of red near the outside of the hairshaft, and creamy near the base. Of course, the goal is to have the red shade go as far down as possible, but on the super long angora hairshaft, it almost always ends up at the creamy white sooner or later. Other agouti based colors will have an end-of-the-tip color, a surface (near the tip) color, an intermediate yellowish band (cream, fawn, red), and then a dark (chocolate, dove gray, slate gray) base color.

Below is a Satin Angora high rufus chocolate agouti doe, she was born chocolate, and grew in this reddish agouti coat.View attachment 43402

This is her fiber from her face, you can see the chocolate tips at the top, the right side clump shows the light chocolate base. The dark chocolate is from around her ears:View attachment 43403

Click to expand...

Thanks! This is very helpful. Your picture of a high rufus satin angora is lovely and if that's high rufus, I guess charlotte is "medium rufus" hahaha. But she has a lot of red in her lineage and looks very red in sunlight. I think this photo of her hair matches your description of chocolate agouti with rufus modifiers (at least a few) very well. Her ear tips are dark brown.

Yes, definitely looks like a rufus chocolate agouti, glad it helped.

ingers02138 said:

Her dad is red otter and her mom silver tipped chocolate.

Click to expand...

"Red Otter" isn't a rabbit colour description term - the rabbit will either be red, or possibly a chocolate otter (or even something else?). "Silver tipped chocolate" is also something open to interpretation; "silver tipped" is usually only used for Steel. If you have some good photos of the parents, maybe we can help ID them for you?

Thanks! I don't have a photo of the mom. Here's the dad. Maybe he's just red, but the chin looked like otter to me. The dad has rex fur and is mostly rex but with an angora grandparent. (Mom had short fur, not rex, and an angora grandparent.)

I know the rex gene is totally separate from the long-haired gene, so maybe it's just a coincidence, but charlotte's fur is notably softer and silkier than that of my full angora rabbits. (It is shorter, but still long enough to spin and just incredibly soft.)

On the agouti 'A' gene, there are three options. Reds and chocolate agouti are both on the dominant A_ agouti gene. They share some common traits, such as the light inside ears, eye rings, white at the chin and light belly. Reds have a different gene involved as well, a recessive non-extension ee gene, which is just a fancy way of saying it has the gene that removes the dark coloring from the main body hair, leaving it just yellowish and cream. Normal agouti hair has a dark tip (black, chocolate, blue or lilac), then that color near the surface, a yellowish middle band, and a gray or light chocolate undercolor.

The recessive aa on the agouti gene does not have any of these agouti traits, they are all one color all over, the self colors, black, blue, chocolate and lilac. No light markings, no white belly, no banding of darks and yellows on the hairshaft. The one exception would be rabbits with that pesky ee gene that makes agouti rabbits into reds, oranges and fawns. On non-agouti self colored rabbits, it still takes all the dark colors from the main body hair, but leaves the dark colors on the points--the tortoiseshells.

In-between those two extremes are the otters and martens. Otters are regular colored rabbits with the a (t) tan gene. It gives you rabbits with the self-colored hair, no banding of yellows and darks like the agouti rabbits, BUT with the agouti white markings--eye rings, white inner ears, white chin & belly. (Martens are the same set up, self colored hair but agouti markings, but on chinchilla/sable rabbits.)

So, the white chin won't tell you if you have an otter--you need to look at the hair as well. You may need to clip a lock and put it on white paper, if blowing into the coat doesn't help any. Agouti rabbits have white chins, but they also have agouti patterned hair, with a dark tip, dark surface color, yellowish mid-color and a gray or light chocolate base color. Otters will also have the white chin, but with a single color on the hairshaft--it might get lighter towards the base, sometimes almost white, but it's all shades of a single color.

Thank you! What color would you call a rabbit that's atat or ata and has the non-extension gene?
I don't have the dad here to look at closely so I'm not sure if it was truly all one color or banded. Charlotte is definitely a classic agouti, but since that's dominant it could be from her mom.
Thanks for your responses, by the way. I am still learning but I find rabbit genetics -- especially color genetics -- super interesting. I'm eager to learn more.

There's a chart at http://www.threelittleladiesrabbitry.com/breedingcolorchart.php that tells you what various genetic combinations are called. A is the agouti/otter/self gene. B is black B /brown bb. C has five options with descending amounts of color-- full color C, chinchilla c(chd), sable c(chl), Himalayan/pointed white c(h), and REW albino cc. D is dense color D vs. dilute color dd (black vs. blue, for example), and E also has five options: dominant black E(D) (agouti looks like self black, no markings), steel E(S) , normal dark extension E (the dark bands on the agouti hairshaft are right where they belong), harlequin e(j) where the color bands are on patches of skin instead of bands on a single hairshaft, and the red/fawn/orange non-extension ee (where the dark is mostly removed from the body hair, sometimes dark tips remain, called 'smut' on a red/orange/fawn.)

ingers02138 said:

Thank you! What color would you call a rabbit that's atat or ata and has the non-extension gene?

Click to expand...

That would be a Tort Otter, also known as "Fox" in North America (Fox in the rest of the world and Europe is something entirely different!).

All Agouti rabbits have white/pale nostrils, ear lacing, lighter chests, white belly and under tail. The a(t) gene keeps these pale areas, but makes the body colour solid - either black, blue, chocolate, lilac or tort. Because of this, it's not unusual for people to sometimes get confused between agouti and otter. Hopefully, this chart will help -

Thank you! I had not yet found that chart. Very helpful! I wonder how you would tell the difference between an agouti rabbit with the E(D) gene and a self black rabbit? Only via breeding perhaps? I have a rabbit I've been considering self black.

judymac said:

There's a chart at http://www.threelittleladiesrabbitry.com/breedingcolorchart.php that tells you what various genetic combinations are called. A is the agouti/otter/self gene. B is black B /brown bb. C has five options with descending amounts of color-- full color C, chinchilla c(chd), sable c(chl), Himalayan/pointed white c(h), and REW albino cc. D is dense color D vs. dilute color dd (black vs. blue, for example), and E also has five options: dominant black E(D) (agouti looks like self black, no markings), steel E(S) , normal dark extension E (the dark bands on the agouti hairshaft are right where they belong), harlequin e(j) where the color bands are on patches of skin instead of bands on a single hairshaft, and the red/fawn/orange non-extension ee (where the dark is mostly removed from the body hair, sometimes dark tips remain, called 'smut' on a red/orange/fawn.)

Click to expand...

ingers02138 said:

I wonder how you would tell the difference between an agouti rabbit with the E(D) gene and a self black?

Click to expand...

I understand that the dominant extension gene is supposed to be fairly rare in most breeds, I've never seen it. I understand it can be the reason the impossible happens--two apparently recessive self rabbits give birth to an agouti rabbit. Dominant black is an agouti, the dark color simply covers over all the patterning. One person's example was that a chestnut agouti would look like a self black, and a dilute agouti like lynx would look like a self lilac.

judymac said:

I understand that the dominant extension gene is supposed to be fairly rare in most breeds, I've never seen it. I understand it can be the reason the impossible happens--two apparently recessive self rabbits give birth to an agouti rabbit. Dominant black is an agouti, the dark color simply covers over all the patterning. One person's example was that a chestnut agouti would look like a self black, and a dilute agouti like lynx would look like a self lilac.

Click to expand...

Fascinating! I have the mom & dad of the self-black and their pedigrees, which both include self-rabbits, though the mom is fawn and the dad is black otter.
He was the only self-colored rabbit in his litter which also had three chestnuts and three black otters. With all that, I think it's safe to assume he really is "regular" self black.

ingers02138 said:

Thank you! I had not yet found that chart. Very helpful! I wonder how you would tell the difference between an agouti rabbit with the E(D) gene and a self black rabbit? Only via breeding perhaps? I have a rabbit I've been considering self black.

Click to expand...

ED hasn't been proven to exist - research found it could be/is interchangeable with Es. The steel gene works in strange ways and most instances of unexpected agouti from two selfs can be explained by masked steel.



A composite six bp in-frame deletion in the melanocortin 1 receptor (MC1R) gene is associated with the Japanese brindling coat colour in rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus)

MsTemeraire said:

ED hasn't been proven to exist - research found it could be/is interchangeable with Es. The steel gene works in strange ways and most instances of unexpected agouti from two selfs can be explained by masked steel.

View attachment 43417

A composite six bp in-frame deletion in the melanocortin 1 receptor (MC1R) gene is associated with the Japanese brindling coat colour in rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus)

Click to expand...

Thanks for this! Very interesting. And a humbling reminder that although I studied genetics in college, there are levels of expertise & investigation well beyond my small sample size and hobbyist curiosity!

ingers02138 said:

Thanks for this! Very interesting. And a humbling reminder that although I studied genetics in college, there are levels of expertise & investigation well beyond my small sample size and hobbyist curiosity!

Click to expand...

I think it's marvellous that these studies have been done! And there is so much more to be explored. A great deal of it goes over my head but I can, at least, pick out the valuable parts with a little effort. Whether they will further investigate ED/ES or not, I've no idea, probably not since they've ascertained there's most likely only one allele there, and it's up to us what we call it.

Dogs have a separate locus for Dominant Black, K, which affects what's expressed on the A locus but after pondering if rabbits have the same thing, I concluded they don't (at present!), as the rabbit researchers definitely found something there on the E locus. But it was a fun exercise in logic trying to work out if it was analogous.

MsTemeraire said:

ED hasn't been proven to exist - research found it could be/is interchangeable with Es. The steel gene works in strange ways and most instances of unexpected agouti from two selfs can be explained by masked steel.

Click to expand...

Thank you so much for posting this. I am fascinated by this. I would love to read the research, is it available anywhere?