Sable+Chinchilla Q's

5dognightfarm said:

@Alaska Satin what's your thoughts on this mess I've got here? From reading some other threads, is my buck maybe a sable agouti, not a chin? I just learned that steel requires a steel parent, and the doe pictured has thrown steels and never been bred to one, so I'm also wondering if she's actually a double steel.

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Alaska Satin said:

Yes, after thinking about it, I agree it is a bit of a mess.

KITS
Looking at the mystery kits, that chocolatey color with a faint ticking that looks shimmery looks like a phase that sables go through. Did those kits look like pale blues as newborns? That's been my experience of sable. I posted a series of pictures showing some of the amazing changes sables go through as they grow, on this thread:
https://rabbittalk.com/threads/chinchilla-rex-at-last.36724/#post-355913

If they did not start out bluish, then they are probably something else, but I'm having a hard time thinking what. (True, I'm up pretty late picking away at this!) I suppose they could be self chocolate or self chocolate steel, which might make sense genetically, but the colors on my screen, at least, don't look right for "real" chocolate; and, it seems that there is shading on the ears, nose and feet, along with that distinctive frosty ticking. Is this an effect of lighting, or can you see, in person, what I'm talking about?

BUCK
Your buck does look like a sable chinchilla because of the relatively light chin color and rusty tinge, and because it sounds like he may have made you some sable babies.

However... Chestnut is full-color <C>, chinchilla is <c(chd)>, and sable is <c(chl)>, in order of dominance. If the buck is sable chin, he cannot carry either of the higher C series alleles. So the doe would have to bring both full-color <C> and chinchilla <c(chd)>; however, since she can only give one or the other of those to each kit, all of her kits would be either <C_> or <c(chd)_>. The buck's sable <c(chl)> would not be able to make an appearance.

So he may be a sable chin, but as far as I can figure, his kits cannnot actually be chestnut, chinchilla and sable. Can you post pictures of all of the bunnies in the litter?

DOE
As for your black doe with stray white hairs that throws steel babies, she may look like a supersteel <A_B_C_D_E(S)E(S)>, but she can't be, if she made normal agouti babies. If she was a supersteel, every one of her kits would get a copy of the steel <E(S)>, which in combination with the agouti <A>, produces a steel, but won't make chocolate agouti, chestnut, or chinchilla, which all need a normal extension <E> in the dominant position.

What she probably is, is black self steel <aaBb??D_E(S)_>. Self steel refers to a rabbit with one dominant steel allele that is not expressed, because the homozygous self alleles <aa> prevent the ring pattern that allows steel to show.

I gave her <??> at the C locus because you report that she made full-color <C> agouti kits, and if she made a normal chinchilla kit, she must carry a chinchilla <c(chd)> in the recessive position (assuming the buck is sable chin). BUT...if she is <C c(chd)>, you would not be able to get sable <c(chl)> since it is recessive to both <C> and <c(chd)>. (The buck can't carry either full color <C> or chinchilla <c(chd)> if he's sable chin.)

The brown tinge that wasn't apparent before could be just old fur on its way into a molt; as far as I know it wouldn't be related to the steel allele. She looks pretty black on my screen, but another possibility is that she is a self steel seal <c(chl)c(chl)>, which can look black with a rusty tinge. But this still doesn't solve the mystery of how you could get chestnut, chinchilla and sable all in the same litter, since the buck would have to be <Cc(chd)>, and again, all the kits would get an allele that would prevent the sable <c(chl)> from being expressed.

So, I am out of logical solutions here. I might be merntally crossing wires somewhere (@MsTemeraire? @judymac? @reh?)... or else the litter doesn't actually include chocolate agouti, chestnut, chinchilla, and sable. Pictures, please?

Also, pedigrees are only as good as the breeder's color ID skills, but do you have information on the colors of the buck's and doe's parents?

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5dognightfarm said:

The kits pictured above looked "off black" like they were dark but I could tell they weren't black-black. Unfortunately I don't know the parents of either the buck or the doe.

Here's a picture of that full litter:

Here's a picture of the litter with the above buck and a chestnut doe (her dam was chestnut, her sire was lilac) (the steel is NOT from this litter, it escaped from the litter above and moved in with this one)

And here is a litter of him and a broken chestnut doe (her dam was fawn, sire unknown) (I think it's obvious the steel is not hers lmao, another musical chairs moment):

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Alaska Satin said:

Ah, all those reds...

With that information and the new photos, I'm wondering if those off-blacks, which in these pictures again look like they have ticking reminiscent of steel, are like the mystery color I found in a litter fairly recently. That was in early 2023, when I discovered steel in my herd; it had been introduced in 2020, but I never knew because I had been breeding only selfs. Anyway, I bred a "black" doe to a REW buck that carried both agouti and non-extension. I got this mystery color, and we hashed through the possibilities here on RT, and @reh came up with the most convincing suggestion: <E(S)e>, in which there may be co-dominance between steel and non-extension

Pictured below is the "non-extension steel" bunny from my litter, along with a GTS and a black (self black or self steel, can't say) from the same litter. It's hard to capture in photos, especially since the rabbits have satin sheen, but the difference between the Non-e steel and the black was very obvious in person.
View attachment 43872View attachment 43873

Here's the thread on which we slogged our way through the reasoning behind this surprising (to me) conclusion of E(S)/e co-dominance:
https://rabbittalk.com/threads/self-blue-or-otter.36722/#post-357843

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Alaska Satin said:

Ah, all those reds...

With that information and the new photos, I'm wondering if those off-blacks, which in these pictures again look like they have ticking reminiscent of steel, are like the mystery color I found in a litter fairly recently. That was in early 2023, when I discovered steel in my herd; it had been introduced in 2020, but I never knew because I had been breeding only selfs. Anyway, I bred a "black" doe to a REW buck that carried both agouti and non-extension. I got this mystery color, and we hashed through the possibilities here on RT, and @reh came up with the most convincing suggestion: <E(S)e>, in which there may be co-dominance between steel and non-extension

Pictured below is the "non-extension steel" bunny from my litter, along with a GTS and a black (self black or self steel, can't say) from the same litter. It's hard to capture in photos, especially since the rabbits have satin sheen, but the difference between the non-e steel and the black was very obvious in person.
View attachment 43872View attachment 43873

Here's the thread on which we slogged our way through the reasoning behind this surprising (to me) conclusion of E(S)/e co-dominance:
https://rabbittalk.com/threads/self-blue-or-otter.36722/#post-357843

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5dognightfarm said:

OKAY I think I might have something that will help here.

This is a photo of a buck from a previous litter from the Blackish Steel (?) doe above and an American Chin buck. I previously thought he was a Silver Tipped Steel from chin, but I recently learned that STS can come from sable as well, it just looks different.

So this is Wolfie. I think he looks "different"...thoughts? Does this give us any hints at all to what these adults and Not Black babies might be?

And here's a photo of him with two of his brothers, him being on the far right. The chin on the far left was a foster, the middle I think is STS, and then he also I thought was a STS but now I don't know.

And this is a full sister (GTS?)

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Alaska Satin said:

The bucks both look like STS to me (not including the foster chin), though that doesn't totally help with the sable question. The chinchilla allele <c(chd)> suppresses most or all expression of yellow-based pigment - note the "most." Brassy chins are sometimes a problem, even in lines that don't carry sable <c(chl)>. Many times kits are so brassy that you can at first mistake them for chestnuts; it usually molts out in my experience, but I have seen some pretty brassy adult chins in other herds.

So the brassy tipping on his face may be due to that; the brassiness affects the light-colored parts of the hairs, not the dark. Your buck does have a couple of possible sable "tells," although drawing conclusions from a computer monitor is iffy. I agree that his color doesn't seem quite black, compared to his STS brother. His muzzle also has a suggestion of the shading you'd see on a sable (so does his sister). I could believe that both of them were sables...none of it, though, totally convinces me.

The sable allele is supposed to suppress all yellow-based pigments, so it seems to me that if he was a sable steel, you would not see brassiness. It may be an optical illusion, with a sable dark part making the light ticking look brassy. However, the brassiness does seem to be molting out across his nose.
View attachment 43931
I don't have any personal experience mixing sable and steel (so far!) so I can't really conclude anything from this - it's just more thoughts. Maybe someone else will pick up on this.

I also notice those white toes he has on the front feet. Those can stem from a number of things, both known and unknown, but I can say that when I had blue-eyed black bunnies that I discovered were self chins, I often saw white toes and toenails as well (also found them on blue self chins). I still have self chins, but have selected that white toe/toenail trait out of my lines; I am not sure exactly how it was related, but it was definitely linked to chinchilla in my herd.

Both the buck in question and the sister also have less agouti trim than the STS brother, which as far as I know isn't related to being full-color or sable. So you may be dealing with some of the infamous "modifiers," which for me often mean the little black box with things that don't follow the allele rules that have been described so far. I've definitely seen quite a range of rabbits that fall under the steel umbrella.

But this still doesn't solve the problem of getting sable, chestnut, and chinchilla in the same litter from the parents you described. ???

Can you answer the question of what color the mystery kits were at birth? Were they black, or were they pale gray? It seems to me that might be the key to deciding if they're sable or not.

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5dognightfarm said:

Oh yes sorry - the kits looked black. I thought they were black and remember being disappointed thinking I just got a litter full of black kits.

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5dognightfarm said:

they tend to play musical chairs in the colony.

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Alaska Satin said:

If they were black at birth, I would feel pretty confident they are steel, not sable. It could be that they are the non-extension steel we've been talking about; there are plenty of steels and reds (non-extension) which that would suggest that combination was possible.


This makes me suspect that there were not actually chestnut, steel and sable in the same litter. If the litters are raised in a colony and you already know the babies play musical chairs, there is no way to be absolutely sure which kit came from which parent(s).

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