Agouti? Some kind of steel?

therabbitlady said:

I have a pretty blue buck with brown eyes (dad was chinchilla with blue eyes mom was rew). He was bred to this orangey brown doe. They have popped out interesting kits. There are two gold tipped steel looking kits, one that looks kinda tort-y, and then this gray brown agouti looking girl. Help?

Mom and this gray brown agouti type girl, what is she? The orange spotted is an adopted half nz, half palomino, her mom only had one kit so she went with this mom.

Dad, he's very blue in the light.
Gray brown agouti girl again, she looks orangier here but really isn't.

Gts?

Tort-y gray girl

Any help is appreciated. We are enjoying the colors and this doe is a fantastic mother.

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Alaska Satin said:

The agouti kit pictured with the mother looks like a chestnut agouti. Some chestnuts are very low-rufous and the color actually used to be called "gray-brown." The kit is actually a more typical-looking chestnut than the dam, who has some suspicious markings...see below for more on that.

You buck could be either a self blue or a self squirrel aka self blue chin. I agree with your call of GTS on the steel kit.

But the "torty" one has suspicious color variations, like the doe. It's hard to be sure from this one photo, but I'm wondering if I see harlequin effects in both the dam and this lighter-colored kit. Agouti can appear a little patchy sometimes, especially if the rabbit is molting, but when I see distinct patches and stripes and alternation between dark and light areas that aren't in the typical agouti pattern, I start thinking about harlequin. There are multiple places on the doe, but mostly it's that distinct cheek spot that I can see on the kit. If he was a tort, you'd expect him to have a dark muzzle, not a light muzzle and darker cheek. Also, the ear lacing is also a bit too defined for a tort, which is a self variety, so the ears and other extremities are darker, but not laced like an agouti. A tort would also have a darker belly and feet, rather than being light in those areas.

Here are mark-ups showing what I'm looking at:
View attachment 44063View attachment 44064

Hope that helps. I'd love to see more photos of both of them. If you do have harlequin in the mix, you'll most likely get all kinds of fun colors and patterns!

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therabbitlady said:

This is incredibly helpful. I will get some other pictures tomorrow when I go out to feed and clean cages. This mom bred with an orange broken earlier in the summer and produced a pretty broken girl with similar coloring to her. She has a couple odd spots on her legs that look different.

There are a couple of those lighter "tort-y" kits, I'll get more pictures. It's super fascinating thank you f

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Alaska Satin said:

The agouti kit pictured with the mother looks like a chestnut agouti. Some chestnuts are very low-rufous and the color actually used to be called "gray-brown." The kit is actually a more typical-looking chestnut than the dam, who has some suspicious markings...see below for more on that.

You buck could be either a self blue or a self squirrel aka self blue chin. I agree with your call of GTS on the steel kit.

But the "torty" one has suspicious color variations, like the doe. It's hard to be sure from this one photo, but I'm wondering if I see harlequin effects in both the dam and this lighter-colored kit. Agouti can appear a little patchy sometimes, especially if the rabbit is molting, but when I see distinct patches and stripes and alternation between dark and light areas that aren't in the typical agouti pattern, I start thinking about harlequin. There are multiple places on the doe, but mostly it's that distinct cheek spot that I can see on the kit. If he was a tort, you'd expect him to have a dark muzzle, not a light muzzle and darker cheek. Also, the ear lacing is a bit too defined for a tort, which is a self variety, so the ears and other extremities are darker, but not laced like an agouti. A tort would also have a darker belly and feet, rather than being light in those areas.

Here are mark-ups showing what I'm looking at:
View attachment 44063View attachment 44064

Hope that helps. I'd love to see more photos of both of them. If you do have harlequin in the mix, you'll most likely get all kinds of fun colors and patterns!

Click to expand...

Alaska Satin said:

The agouti kit pictured with the mother looks like a chestnut agouti. Some chestnuts are very low-rufous and the color actually used to be called "gray-brown."

Click to expand...

Sapphire16 said:

Sure looks like you have tri-color/ brindle/harlequin ej genes in the mom, one kit really looks tri to me.

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therabbitlady said:

Here are some more photos for you! I'm also including her daughter from a litter with an orange broken nz. She's a pretty orange-y agouti broken.
SOMEone stepped in their water bowl.

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Alaska Satin said:

Those are some sweet-faced babies!!!

Yes, I really think you're dealing with harlequin. It's relatively subtle in these rabbits, and partly obscured by baby coats and the molting/barbered coat of the dam, but there are a lot of abrupt color changes in the patterns. Also, the ear markings - either alternating dark and light, or no lacing at all in one case - make me feel pretty sure about a couple of them.

I don't see any tricolors; the broken doe looks like she's either broken chestnut or broken harlequinized agouti. Most or all of the other kits pictured look like they are also harlequinized. Again, because of the changes agouti coats go through as the rabbit matures, and also because it's hard to tell what is real and what is lighting effects, I wouldn't put a lot of money on it, but here are some of the places where I think I'm seeing harlequinization:
View attachment 44092
View attachment 44093
View attachment 44094
View attachment 44095

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