Hi all, I am using everbreed to use in my rabbitry. I am trying to put the genotype in for BEW. Does anyone know the genetic code for a BEW or how I can get everbreed to automatically fill in based on the pedigree info? I am a genetic dummy.. lol
BEW Genetic code question
- Thread starter CheleBelle75
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So vv is BEW not VV?
Oh, ok
For a BEW you only know the genes are ----------vv
Since those vv genes cover up everything else in a white blanket, you don't know what is under it just by looking at the rabbit.
You mention having a pedigree. Are all the rabbits in the pedigree BEW? If not, you may be able to figure out a couple of the rabbit's genes based on the parents' colours.
If the pedigree is all BEW rabbits, the way to figure them out is by test-breeding to a coloured rabbit (preferably one that has very recessive genes, such as a lilac Himalayan)
Her sire is BEW, mom is Black tortoiseshell VM
So mum is <aaB_C_D_eeVv> The problem is that she only passes down half of her genes, so we now only know for sure that this BEW rabbit is <_a_______evv> as s/he necessarily got an <a> and a <e> from mum.
Do you know the colours of the grandparents, mum's side? with that we may figure out the recessive genes of the mum, and get a bit more of the BEW's genotype figured out
Chestnut VM Gsire
Cream VM Gdam
Cream VM Gdam
Nice! So now we have this info, assuming the pedigree is right.:
gsire: <A_B_C_D_E_Vv>
gdam: <A_B_C_ddeeVv>
However for these two to give out a tort child, both of the grandparents have to have recessive a. That is completely possible, but it still makes me raise an eyebrow about the pedigree (If you are able to get pictures of the gsire, gdam and dam that could help confirm all of that, or better yet a picture of the dam's litter). Unfortunately, this only reveals one extra letter for the dam's genotype:
Dam: <aaB_C_DdeeVv>
And that extra letter doesn't give us anything sure about the BEW, since she may have inherited D or d. If the gsire and gdam on dad's side are anything other than BEW, that may help.
Otherwise, if you are able to get a sire with a good deal of recessive genes to pair her with, you will be able to figure out more. Of course, this is only important if you are trying to figure out which colours you can get out of her. If not, there is not really a need to figure out the entire genotype, other than to potentially make things easier for a future buyer of her kits.
gsire: <A_B_C_D_E_Vv>
gdam: <A_B_C_ddeeVv>
However for these two to give out a tort child, both of the grandparents have to have recessive a. That is completely possible, but it still makes me raise an eyebrow about the pedigree (If you are able to get pictures of the gsire, gdam and dam that could help confirm all of that, or better yet a picture of the dam's litter). Unfortunately, this only reveals one extra letter for the dam's genotype:
Dam: <aaB_C_DdeeVv>
And that extra letter doesn't give us anything sure about the BEW, since she may have inherited D or d. If the gsire and gdam on dad's side are anything other than BEW, that may help.
Otherwise, if you are able to get a sire with a good deal of recessive genes to pair her with, you will be able to figure out more. Of course, this is only important if you are trying to figure out which colours you can get out of her. If not, there is not really a need to figure out the entire genotype, other than to potentially make things easier for a future buyer of her kits.
Now we're talking!
I threw some basic calculations around and got this (Feel free to add it to the pedigree in everbreed, may make your life easier in the future):
NOTE: for the dam named "C", the name of the colour does not coincide with the genotype added. She's said to be Choc agouti vienna carrier, but the genotype says she has chd. That would make her a chocolate chinchilla. All the info below assumes the colours written down are right, but I left that chd in there as I assume it came from somewhere
Black knight Black otter <ataB_C_D_E_>
Stormy Black <aaB_C_D_E_>
Eddie Fawn <A_B_C_ddee>
DOS Choc broken <aabbC_D_E_Enen>
Frankie BEW <A_B_______vv>
CoCo Chocolate <aabbC_D_E_>
Chester MLBP42 Fawn VC <A_B_C_ddeeVv>
Annie Fawn VM <A_B_C_ddeeVv>
S Black <aaB_C_D_E_>
C Choc Aug VC ? <Aabbchd_DdEeVv>
Haagen Dazs Chestnut VM <AaBbC_D_E_Vv>
CreamSickle's D Cream VM <AaB_C_ddeeVv>
ER009 BEW <_a_b_____evv> (If C's info is correct, ER009 cannot be <CC>).
(Dam) Black tort VM <aaB_C_DdeeVv>
Fancy BEW <_a_______evv>
So... we have a bunch more information, but that unfortunately has not given us new certainties about Fancy. She is probably a self (aa), and has a good chance of having inherited at least one brown gene (b).
To figure out the rest you will need to test breed, but that doesn't mean the pedigree's info is useless, it will help you solve some mysteries surrounding her kits as you will be able to trace some colours or patterns back to their ancestors.
I threw some basic calculations around and got this (Feel free to add it to the pedigree in everbreed, may make your life easier in the future):
NOTE: for the dam named "C", the name of the colour does not coincide with the genotype added. She's said to be Choc agouti vienna carrier, but the genotype says she has chd. That would make her a chocolate chinchilla. All the info below assumes the colours written down are right, but I left that chd in there as I assume it came from somewhere
Black knight Black otter <ataB_C_D_E_>
Stormy Black <aaB_C_D_E_>
Eddie Fawn <A_B_C_ddee>
DOS Choc broken <aabbC_D_E_Enen>
Frankie BEW <A_B_______vv>
CoCo Chocolate <aabbC_D_E_>
Chester MLBP42 Fawn VC <A_B_C_ddeeVv>
Annie Fawn VM <A_B_C_ddeeVv>
S Black <aaB_C_D_E_>
C Choc Aug VC ? <Aabbchd_DdEeVv>
Haagen Dazs Chestnut VM <AaBbC_D_E_Vv>
CreamSickle's D Cream VM <AaB_C_ddeeVv>
ER009 BEW <_a_b_____evv> (If C's info is correct, ER009 cannot be <CC>).
(Dam) Black tort VM <aaB_C_DdeeVv>
Fancy BEW <_a_______evv>
So... we have a bunch more information, but that unfortunately has not given us new certainties about Fancy. She is probably a self (aa), and has a good chance of having inherited at least one brown gene (b).
To figure out the rest you will need to test breed, but that doesn't mean the pedigree's info is useless, it will help you solve some mysteries surrounding her kits as you will be able to trace some colours or patterns back to their ancestors.
Oh gosh. Thank you so very much. I have got to figure out a way to learn this and comprehend it.
I'm still learning myself, but I found you learn very fast by doing what I just did - seeing colours and trying to "decode" them.
Everbreed's blog happens to have what I consider the simplest of the guides about all this, you can find it here.
There are a lot of exceptions and funky combinations (And Fancy happens to be one of those exceptions), but for most rabbits you can more or less figure out what they have based on what you see once you understand the very basics, and they you can learn the exceptions and the funky combinations at your own pace.
You really can't be sure about the genetic code of a BEW or a dominant color like chestnut unless you know one or both parents had a recessive color or pattern phenotype.
A BEW of unknown parentage would be <?? ?? ?? ?? ?? vv>.
Sire BEW <?? ?? ?? ?? ?? vv>
Dam Black tortoiseshell VM <aaB-C-D-eeVv>
So, you know your BEW is <_a ?? ?? ?? _e vv> since she'd necessarily get a self <a> and a non-extension <e> from her tort dam.
What you know about your BEW's grandparents is not super helpful since you don't know which of their alleles they passed to her parent(s), other than whichever parent was the offspring of the cream gdam probably got a dilute and/or non-extension allele. I say "probably" because "cream" is a common name for a color that may differ among countries and breed standards. In the USA it usually (Holland Lops, French Angoras) refers to a dilute non-extension chestnut agouti <A_B_C_ddee>, aka non-extension squirrel, aka non-extension blue agouti.
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Oh, ok. Thank you
Ablebreeze
Well-known member
Oregon State has one of the clearest websites about rabbit genetics I've found. It consists of several pages and a class.
Extension.Oregonstate.edu/animals-livestock/poultry-rabbits/understanding-genetics-behind-rabbit-coat-colors-part-2-coat
Barrowbunnies.com/basic-colour-genetics.html is also very helpful and lists most of the possible allele combinations with their corresponding names.
Reddit.com/r/rabbitgenetics/wiki/structure includes many other alleles outside of ABCDE.
Extension.Oregonstate.edu/animals-livestock/poultry-rabbits/understanding-genetics-behind-rabbit-coat-colors-part-2-coat
Barrowbunnies.com/basic-colour-genetics.html is also very helpful and lists most of the possible allele combinations with their corresponding names.
Reddit.com/r/rabbitgenetics/wiki/structure includes many other alleles outside of ABCDE.
Ok. Thank you so much
Just a heads-up:
The Oregon State page
Extension.Oregonstate.edu/animals-livestock/poultry-rabbits/understanding-genetics-behind-rabbit-coat-colors-part-2-coat
may be a bit obsolete (there's no publishing or copyright date that I could find), and it doesn't cover many of the known alleles that are commonly encountered in the USA (or Europe). Those include Dutch <du>, wideband <ww>, vienna aka Blue-Eyed white BEW <vv>, and white ear <WE>. It's also so simplified that it may be confusing to someone with a beginning-intermediate knowledge of the basic workings of rabbit coat colors (e.g. the descriptions of some of the alleles on the C and E loci might confuse).
The Barrow Bunnies site
Barrowbunnies.com/basic-colour-genetics.html
also may be a bit dated (indicates only 5 main loci, copyright 2008, since which time there have been a few important updates). It also uses some common name for colors relating to the C locus that are not commonly used in the USA (e.g. their description of "Fox" which in the US is usually attached to a non-extension otter, not chinchilla-based; and "Marten" which in the US usually refers to a chinchilla-based tan pattern - in the US "Sable Marten" is the common name for a sable-based marten). This site also suggests that all colors are based on alleles in the homozygous state, which might be pretty confusing for beginners.
One of the best primers I've found is ABC - About Bunny Colors by Ellyn Eddy
https://www.allthingsbunnies.com/ABC-About-Bunny-Colors-p/bks107.htm
https://rabbitsmarties.com/product/rabbit-color-genetics-book
Not only does it give a quick overview of basic Mendelian genetics, but it covers the 5 "main" coat color and pattern loci as well as most of the other alleles governing colors and patterns frequently encountered in the US. (I believe it was published before the white ear gene <WE> became common in the US, so it does not include that locus.) It also goes into some basics about how the various alleles interact, which is quite often the source of color identification struggles for beginners.
It's got a lot of reference photos which are very helpful, though they aren't the most ideal since it's self-published, I believe, so the photo quality isn't the best; but in that case, it is inexpensive! It's a paperback book, which I prefer over websites because I can carry it with me to shows and look at it without staring at a screen (and it won't disappear unexpectedly).
Another website I send people to is
https://www.raising-rabbits.com/rabbit-coat-color-genetics.html
It covers the "main 5" loci but also introduces the idea of modifers, and gives a bit more practically useful information about the interactions among alleles that produce most of the colors that beginners find challenging.
My favorite website for color identification in normal fur is
https://gbfarm.org/rabbit/holland-colors-matrix.shtml It is a photographic matrix
The genetic code appears at the heading of each variety, so you can figure out many interactions using basic logic.
The Oregon State page
Extension.Oregonstate.edu/animals-livestock/poultry-rabbits/understanding-genetics-behind-rabbit-coat-colors-part-2-coat
may be a bit obsolete (there's no publishing or copyright date that I could find), and it doesn't cover many of the known alleles that are commonly encountered in the USA (or Europe). Those include Dutch <du>, wideband <ww>, vienna aka Blue-Eyed white BEW <vv>, and white ear <WE>. It's also so simplified that it may be confusing to someone with a beginning-intermediate knowledge of the basic workings of rabbit coat colors (e.g. the descriptions of some of the alleles on the C and E loci might confuse).
The Barrow Bunnies site
Barrowbunnies.com/basic-colour-genetics.html
also may be a bit dated (indicates only 5 main loci, copyright 2008, since which time there have been a few important updates). It also uses some common name for colors relating to the C locus that are not commonly used in the USA (e.g. their description of "Fox" which in the US is usually attached to a non-extension otter, not chinchilla-based; and "Marten" which in the US usually refers to a chinchilla-based tan pattern - in the US "Sable Marten" is the common name for a sable-based marten). This site also suggests that all colors are based on alleles in the homozygous state, which might be pretty confusing for beginners.
One of the best primers I've found is ABC - About Bunny Colors by Ellyn Eddy
https://www.allthingsbunnies.com/ABC-About-Bunny-Colors-p/bks107.htm
https://rabbitsmarties.com/product/rabbit-color-genetics-book
Not only does it give a quick overview of basic Mendelian genetics, but it covers the 5 "main" coat color and pattern loci as well as most of the other alleles governing colors and patterns frequently encountered in the US. (I believe it was published before the white ear gene <WE> became common in the US, so it does not include that locus.) It also goes into some basics about how the various alleles interact, which is quite often the source of color identification struggles for beginners.
It's got a lot of reference photos which are very helpful, though they aren't the most ideal since it's self-published, I believe, so the photo quality isn't the best; but in that case, it is inexpensive! It's a paperback book, which I prefer over websites because I can carry it with me to shows and look at it without staring at a screen (and it won't disappear unexpectedly).
Another website I send people to is
https://www.raising-rabbits.com/rabbit-coat-color-genetics.html
It covers the "main 5" loci but also introduces the idea of modifers, and gives a bit more practically useful information about the interactions among alleles that produce most of the colors that beginners find challenging.
My favorite website for color identification in normal fur is
https://gbfarm.org/rabbit/holland-colors-matrix.shtml It is a photographic matrix
The genetic code appears at the heading of each variety, so you can figure out many interactions using basic logic.
