A pet project of mine for the last few years has been trying to get agouti colors in chestnut, chocolate agouti, opal and lynx in my meat rabbits. They are to have SF style standup coats and density, but with calm and docile personalities and no fear or aggression in does.
Chinchilla shades would be fun too, right?
I'm working closely with another breeder on this, since neither one of us has enough holes to tackle the project on our own.
It's been slow because we have been working hard to keep hardiness, great mothering and milk supply, and good growth and meat traits in our bunnies.
It also took us while to find SF who were not genetic supersteels. The tendency for Sf to throw abnormally dark steels wasn't helping. I was only getting about 1/8 visual steels in litters that should have been 1/2 visual steels. Making selecting for growth, temperament and foxiness in those 1/2 SF steel kits very time consuming. If I get one kit I feel is worth saving out of a litter I feel lucky. A second round of culling occurs at puberty, to remove rabbits who didn't continue to grow fast enough, unnecessarily hormonal does, or more rarely, bucks with behavioral problems.
Anyway, these babies represent some of the the progress we have made.
Their coats do not look like much yet, but we hope to be able to select for improved foxiness in when we start crossing 1/2 SF to 1/2 SF.
My very docile Lilac GTS doeling, Feather.
Aa bb C_ dd Es_ 1/2 Sf. FG NZ and Lilac.
She is 6 weeks and over 3 lbs. She inherited that...featheryness to her undercoat.
High hopes for this girl. A lilac steel is a genetic lynx with one copy of steel "ruining" the coat. All of her kits will carry at least one copy of dilute and one of chocolate. 1/2 will carry steel. I intend to cull all self and steel kits from every future generation and work with only visual A_ (agouti) rabbits.
(lighting makes a huge difference with her!)
This 6 week old opal buck is out all my favorite bloodlines.
Although he wasn't born here, he has some of my SF line in his make-up, along with Pancake's father, and her mother twice on his pedigree. Known genotype based on parents: Aa Bb C_ dd E_ .
He's only 1/4 Sf.
And lastly, Conlai, from a third rabbitry, a chestnut colored 1/2 SF 1/2 chinchilla or chinchilla colored mutt buckling.
Aa B_ C_ D_ E_ Lots of unknowns there. The second gene on his C locus should be either cchd or c right? I'll have to test breed to find out. He's growing well, nice personality.
Chinchilla shades would be fun too, right?
I'm working closely with another breeder on this, since neither one of us has enough holes to tackle the project on our own.
It's been slow because we have been working hard to keep hardiness, great mothering and milk supply, and good growth and meat traits in our bunnies.
It also took us while to find SF who were not genetic supersteels. The tendency for Sf to throw abnormally dark steels wasn't helping. I was only getting about 1/8 visual steels in litters that should have been 1/2 visual steels. Making selecting for growth, temperament and foxiness in those 1/2 SF steel kits very time consuming. If I get one kit I feel is worth saving out of a litter I feel lucky. A second round of culling occurs at puberty, to remove rabbits who didn't continue to grow fast enough, unnecessarily hormonal does, or more rarely, bucks with behavioral problems.
Anyway, these babies represent some of the the progress we have made.
Their coats do not look like much yet, but we hope to be able to select for improved foxiness in when we start crossing 1/2 SF to 1/2 SF.
My very docile Lilac GTS doeling, Feather.
Aa bb C_ dd Es_ 1/2 Sf. FG NZ and Lilac.
She is 6 weeks and over 3 lbs. She inherited that...featheryness to her undercoat.
High hopes for this girl. A lilac steel is a genetic lynx with one copy of steel "ruining" the coat. All of her kits will carry at least one copy of dilute and one of chocolate. 1/2 will carry steel. I intend to cull all self and steel kits from every future generation and work with only visual A_ (agouti) rabbits.
(lighting makes a huge difference with her!)
This 6 week old opal buck is out all my favorite bloodlines.
Although he wasn't born here, he has some of my SF line in his make-up, along with Pancake's father, and her mother twice on his pedigree. Known genotype based on parents: Aa Bb C_ dd E_ . He's only 1/4 Sf.
And lastly, Conlai, from a third rabbitry, a chestnut colored 1/2 SF 1/2 chinchilla or chinchilla colored mutt buckling.
Aa B_ C_ D_ E_ Lots of unknowns there. The second gene on his C locus should be either cchd or c right? I'll have to test breed to find out. He's growing well, nice personality.
