A Discovery

[Desert Rose Rabbits]

I was processing some of my meat animals yesterday and discovered that what I thought was a solid black rabbit was actually not so solid black: on the underside if his butt there was a small splash of white. I'm assuming this means something... Mom was a broken gold tipped steele, dad was a REW. I'm assuming this has something to do with the vienna gene. If so, why is it bad?

 

[Dood]

The Vienna gene is not 'bad' but breeders don't like it because it can cause disqualifying white marks in show rabbits so your gorgeous sable point Holland Lop with a snip of white on his nose can never be a Grand Champion, or even be judged

He can father gorgeous kits but will pass on the Vienna gene to 50% of them and they could get white marks and will pass their vienna gene to 50% of their offspring and so on for eternity, or until they are eliminated out of the gene pool.

Now, the Vienna gene is VERY rare in meat breeds so you are probably dealing with a true mis-mark which is just a random genetic colour patch that may it may not be heritable.

OR

Your rabbit got bit in the butt and the scar tissue grew back in white.

Either or

 

[akane]

Could be a really lightly marked broken. Odds are it's not vienna in a large breed rabbit. The VM (vienna marked) rabbits sell great in the pet trade but as already said can't be shown. VC(vienna carriers) have the same genes but don't have a white mark and can be shown but you have no idea if they have the vienna gene or not and their offspring could end up VM. Like all recessive genes when you get it in the herd it's very hard to get rid of and will keep throwing rabbits that can't be shown. That's why most breed full blue eyed whites to each other and only add in other colors occasionally to improve something. They don't breed them in to their other color lines.

But again the vienna gene is mostly in the small breeds and rarely in meat rabbits unless they've been crossed to a smaller breed. I did make some mini rex x creme or champagne d'argents that were a little small but not bad meat rabbits.