That's really interesting. In my experience, our rabbits' skin color has always matched coat color, though I admit that I have never tanned hides without fur so I may have missed it. I know our goats have colored spots on their skin that are concealed by completely white fur, but I've never seen anything like that in our rabbits. I'd love to hear more about the specific differences you've seen.
My steels never looked any different other than having the banding pattern on the hairs pushed up toward the top of the hair shaft, and the self steels didn't look different at all. There was no difference even as newborn kits, except that what appeared to be selfs had faint nape triangles in the steel kits; their bodies were indistinguishable from selfs. In fact even my otter's, martens' and agoutis' bodies are indistinguishable from selfs as newborns - only their markings set them apart on Day 1, before the fur starts getting longer.
Yes, the skin (from underneath, at butchering) had spots like in your picture.
I'm still confused a lot. If it is say, blue agouti.... check for the basic agouti markers. Agouti controls the colour pattern (or lack of pattern) .
Yes, blue agouti, sometimes called opal, has the normal agouti 'trim" around the eyes and jaw, inside the ears, inside the feet and under the tail and belly, as well as the normal banding on the fur; the difference is that anywhere there would have been black tipping, it is diluted to blue instead. It's a more subtle banding but it's there. Opals can look pretty similar to blue otters if you aren't paying attention or aren't sure what to look for.
It can be easy to confuse these colors because they are visually pretty similar (they all look basically like blue-gray rabbits), and because there are different common names for the colors. In spite of it being tedious for some readers to encounter a series of letters <A_B_C_dd_E_> in the middle of an otherwise English sentence, I often include the genetic code for colors, since it keeps everyone talking about the same thing (and allows others to correct me when I write something incorrect or unclear!
).
I like the colour of squirrel. Thank you.
Thank you for explaining the "blues" and adding the photos and links. I had a few blue/lilacs in my Rex line ,plus the blue satin I had. I really like shaded and chins.It can be easy to confuse these colors because they are visually pretty similar (they all look basically like blue-gray rabbits), and because there are different common names for the colors. In spite of it being tedious for some readers to encounter a series of letters <A_B_C_dd_E_> in the middle of an otherwise English sentence, I often include the genetic code for colors, since it keeps everyone talking about the same thing (and allows others to correct me when I write something incorrect or unclear!
Self Blue Steel <aaB_C_ddE(S)_> looks just like a self blue rabbit <aaB_C_ddE_>, which is all one color with no agouti "trim," ring pattern or shading. The two self alleles <aa> do not allow expression of the trim or the banding at the end of the hair that shows up in a steel rabbit with an agouti <A>. The Grand Champion Satin buck below was shown as a blue, but in retrospect he may have been a self blue steel (he was sold before I had a chance to test that). What looks like tipping in the fur shot is satin sheen, but you can see that there are no rings. (Incidentally, it may very well be that his incredible depth of color was the result of his carrying a steel allele).
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You can also get what looks like a self blue if the rabbit gets two copies of the steel allele <A_B_C_ddE(S)E(S)> called a blue supersteel, or if a chinchilla rabbit gets two self alleles <aaB_c(chd)_ddE_>, called a self blue chin aka self squirrel. In most of these cases you're only going to know what you have if you know certain things about the pedigree, or if you have unexpected varieties show up in a litter. The same thing goes for what look like self blacks.
Clear as mud, eh?
Some other "blue" rabbits:
Blue Agouti aka Opal <A_B_C_ddE_> looks like a chestnut with the black tipping replaced by blue. It'll still have the tan ring color and markings around the eyes, jaw, inner ears, inside edges of feet, and belly and tail. I only have a reference photo of opal in Mini Rex (colors in rex coats can look quite different than normal coats) from https://wildriverrabbitry.weebly.com/mini-rex-color-guide.html, which is a fabulous photographic guide to rex coat colors. You can see that the fawn ring color actually shows through on the surface color:
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Photo from https://wildriverrabbitry.weebly.com/mini-rex-color-guide.html,
Chinchilla <A_B_c(chd)_ddE_> can look like a gray rabbit, but I find a better description is "salt and pepper." The ticking on the hair is jet black. The key to a chinchilla is that the tan color of a typical agouti is mostly or completely eliminated and is replaced by silvery pearl:
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Blue chinchilla aka Squirrel <A_B_c(chd)ddE_> is that chinchilla with the black diluted to blue. It's a much more subtle pattern, but if you see any rings at all, you can call it a blue chin or squirrel (see photos in the post directly above).
There are also blue otters <a(t)B_C_ddE_>, which look like blue agoutis with the trim, but have no ring pattern - they're kind of like a self on the top of the body and an agouti on the bottom. Below you can see the self blue surface color and the tan edging on the trim of this blue otter Satin.
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Blue Silver Marten <a(t)_B_c(chd)_ddE_> is basically a chinchilla otter - same <a(t)> pattern of self body and agouti trim, but the chin allele <c(chd)> eliminates the tan edging, leaving only silvery pearl.
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One more wrinkle: in a self blue, adding a shaded aka sable allele <c(chl)> in the dominant position at the C locus will produce a blue sable, aka smoke pearl <aaB_c(chl)_ddE_>. This differs from a self blue in that the shaded allele produces shading towards the extremities, as well as giving the blue color a smokier look. I don't have any smoke pearls, but there are good photos at https://hickoryridgehollands.com/holland-lop-color-guide and http://www.lotsoflops.com/smoke-pearl.html
Thank you so much for your explanation! However I have these two rabbits, purebred Americans but "sports", who don't seem to have the banding (or maybe it's too subtle for me to recognize). I've called them "blue agouti", but I'd love to get your eye on them. So here goes: the first four pics are of Chamomile(blue dam x white sire) and the last two are Happy Girl, niece to Chamo (different blue dam x different white sire).
That is really interesting coming from purebred Americans; to me these look like blue silver martens (a dilute otter with a dominant chinchilla allele) with silvering. I do not see obvious banding, though I wonder a little bit about Chamomile..see below.
But again, I have major doubts about steel, seeing that white belly and classic chinchilla/marten trim.
So selfs《aa》can block other alleles like chinchilla yet still carry? Like the <es>?That is really interesting coming from purebred Americans; to me these look like blue silver martens (a dilute otter with a dominant chinchilla allele) with silvering. I do not see obvious banding, though I wonder a little bit about Chamomile..see below.
All of that white ticking in the blue surface color could come from either silver <si> or steel <E(S)>. I would lean toward <si> for the reason that in that last photo of Happy Girl, there are distinctly white hairs, rather than the telescoped banding of steel.
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Silvering is more likely to hide in the REW buck(s) as it often functions as a partially dominant allele, so it frequently shows up when there is only one copy, but of course wouldn't show in a REW. However I have recently had some chestnut Champagne x Satin crosses that show no silvering whatsoever, even though I know for sure they carry a copy of <si>. Also, in my experience, rabbits with only one copy of <si> tend to have noticeably less silvering on their faces compared to their bodies, which seems to be the case in your bunnies.
On the other hand... in the fur closeup of Chamomile, I wonder if I might see some of the telescoped banding of steel. Steel could be hiding in the REWs, but it could also hide in the blues as either self steel (selfs have no banding, so no appearance of steel) or supersteels (two copies of the steel allele produce what looks like a self-colored rabbit, though they can have some limited patches of ticking). An agouti allele hiding in a REW (though not so a tan allele) would allow expression of both the steeling and the agouti trim. But, if this is the case and she was a blue steel, she would most likely not have that extensive agouti trim, especially that bright silver belly.
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If you can pull some of those white hairs and look at them individually, you may be able to tell the difference. Here is the difference between the all-white hairs of silvering (first two pictures), that on a whole pelt look like white tips,
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and the scrunched rings of a steel (third and fourth pictures), which on the pelt looked like white-tipped hairs but actually have dark tips:
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So you could have silvering in one rabbit and steel in the other. And you could possibly have both silvering and steel in one rabbit!
A blue silver marten requires not an agouti but a tan allele <a(t)> and a chinchilla <c(chd)>, which together would turn a self blue into a blue silver marten. The REWs could carry the tan but not the chinchilla since REWs are the completely recessive <cc>. The solid blue does, if they are in fact self blues, will not be able to carry tan <a(t)>, but they very well could carry - or even be - chinchilla, since their two self alleles <aa> would block the effects of the chinchilla allele, as selfs have no banding or trim. If that is the case, they're called self blue chin (aka self squirrel) which look just like self blues. In that case, breeding them with a tan-carrying REW would allow expression of the tan (in this case, marten) markings but preserve the self-colored body.
BTW, looks like you have a nice set-up... and your rabbit pictures were excellent!
This interests me a great deal, since it appears to be a modified agouti or steel. What it really reminds me of, is the unusual colour of Flemish Giants in the UK (where I am).
Yes, homozygous self alleles <aa> completely block expression of the agouti and tan patterns. So any alleles that interact with those features, like chinchilla changing the middle ring and trim to pearl, or steel extending the undercolor up the hairshaft and changing the placement of the rings, are sort of neutered, since they don't have band color to act on. It's not as far-reaching an effect as REW or BEW, but in any variety with ring color or trim, those elements are blocked.
This is also super interesting!!! I have never seen or heard of this! The rabbit in your photos really does look, at first glance, like a steel. I have seen steels, especially silver-tipped steels, with extremely pale bellies, though not as bright as normal agoutis. It has always seemed to me that there was a strangely wide variation in how much of the agouti trim was expressed in steels that were not out of lines bred for show color. Maybe some of what I've been seeing as heavily-trimmed steels are actually this color?
I'd love to hear more.
