Angora color genetics help needed

Angorabuns · Apr 16, 2018

I am picking up a white French angora doe that was bred and is hopefully pregnant. She was bred with a blue French angora. Both are pedigrees. What will the babies look like? Hopeing to get some blue babies.

Can I breed her in the future with a son of hers? And how would I keep breeding indefinitely, or is that not a possibility with just a doe and kits? Would I have to bring in new blood? I know breeding litter mates is not ideal. Totally newby, trying to learn as much as possible.

SableSteel · Apr 16, 2018

Hello
Your doe doesn't look white. She looks like she's potentially an ermine (maybe broken ermine even). I can't tell what base color. Bred to a blue, chestnuts (if she is black or chocolate based), maybe opals are likely. And if she is broken, you might get those in broken. You might get fawns, creams, more ermines or pretty much anything, depending on what recessives they carry. Do you know what colors are in their pedigrees?

Angorabuns · Apr 16, 2018

Won't know more till I get the paperwork when i pick her up. <br /><br /> -- Mon Apr 16, 2018 9:50 pm -- <br /><br />

SableSteel said:
Hello
Your doe doesn't look white. She looks like she's potentially an ermine (maybe broken ermine even). I can't tell what base color. Bred to a blue, chestnuts (if she is black or chocolate based), maybe opals are likely. And if she is broken, you might get those in broken. You might get fawns, creams, more ermines or pretty much anything, depending on what recessives they carry. Do you know what colors are in their pedigrees?[/quote

Just got her and her paperwork. Says she is an ermine. Father is a rew mother is chocolate tort. There is all kinds on colors listedin her history. I don't know what half of them are. Her mates pedigree is supposed to be getting emailed to me. Is there a good place to get a visual of all the varieties of colors??

hotzcatz · Apr 17, 2018

What color are her eyes? They look gray or brown? Blue gray? Marbled? She's got too much color on her to be an albino. I'm guessing SableSteel nailed it with the estimate of 'ermine'?

The basic rabbit color genes are A, B, C, D and E. A dominant "A" produces the Agouti color pattern which has white around the eyes, in the ears, under the tail and the whole undercarriage of the bunny. Two recessive 'aa's give you a 'solid' color of bunny which may not actually look solid (such as a tortoiseshell), but won't have the white Agouti color pattern.

The dominant "B" gives you Black, two recessive 'bb's give you brown or 'chocolate'.

The C gene has more variety on it, starting out at the most dominant is "C" which means "Colored". With two recessive "cc"s, you get an albino rabbit. That albino is like a whitewash, genetically there's another color under there but you just can't see it. A black rabbit with two recessive 'cc's will look like a white rabbit. So one dominant 'C' and your rabbit will show the color. The next most dominant is 'cchd' which is a Dark Chinchilla, then 'cchl' which is light chinchilla followed by 'ch' which is Himilayan (similar to a Siamese cat's markings)

After the C gene is the D series. Another easy one. If there's a Dominant 'D', then the color will be Densely colored. If there's two recessive 'dd's, then you get the color diluted. Your black will become blue and your chocolate will become lilac which looks a lot like blue but a different shade of gray.

The E gene has to do with if the black or brown hair color extends the entire length of the hair shaft. Usually it's only the hairs on the body and not the entire rabbit if the color doesn't extend to the ends of each hair. If it is a dominant 'E', then the black and brown colors will extend to the ends of the hair shafts over the entire body of the rabbit. If you get a double recessive 'ee' at this point in the genetic color code, then the black and brown colors don't extend down the hair shafts on the body of the rabbit but the yellow color remains so this is where you get tortoiseshell and fawn colored rabbits.

The E gene also has the 'broken' gene which is 'En'. It's a dominant, so if your bunny has it, you'll see the broken color on the bunny. That would show up as big patches of colors.

There's also another gene, the Vienna gene which is used to create Blue Eyed White Rabbits, but only if the rabbit has a double recessive 'vv'. If they have a 'Vv' they may show some white markings on their face or feet (such as the rabbit in the picture at the top of the page). If any offspring of your rabbits show this mark, put 'VC' on your rabbit's pedigree and 'possible VC' on all offspring even if they don't show the marks. It's not going to cause health problems, but the Vienna marks will disqualify some rabbits from rabbit shows, so folks will want to know the rabbit could carry a recessive Vienna gene when selecting breeding pairs.

So, anyway, back to your two rabbits. Genetically, ermine is "A_ __ cchd or cchl __ ee". Blue is "aa B_ C_ dd_ E_". There's no matching recessives between an ermine and a blue to come up with anything other than the agouti color pattern unless there's some recessive genes hidden in there somewhere in both parent's genes. But, since they're recessives, there's no telling if they're there until you've done some test breedings.

As to if she can be bred to her son, well, I suppose the answer is 'it depends'. How inbred are they to begin with? (Here's where having pedigrees is really helpful). Also, how willing are you to cull inferior or deformed rabbits? If the doe was bred to a buck she's not related to and she's not already inbred herself, then you'd be able to line breed her to her son probably without too many problems in the offspring. However, don't breed siblings together, they have a higher Coefficient Of Inbreeding (COI) than the parent/offspring pairings.

There's a pedigree program called 'Kintraks Animal Breeder' which will calculate the COI for you, it's even a free program you can download and put in up to 64 animals before you have to pay them a small sum to get the key to unlock the whole program. [b]https://www.kintraks.com/[/b] If you do buy the program, it's $25 with unlimited upgrades, I've been using the program for years and have found it really useful.

If you bred a son back to her, possibly get sables, pearls, chinchillas, fawns or torts depending on what recessives the son has.

Angorabuns · Apr 17, 2018

Thank you for the info. Heres both of their pedigrees. I still figuring this out.. Lol

hotzcatz · Apr 17, 2018

ermine is "A_ __ cchd or cchl __ ee" and this one has a REW and a chocolate tort as parents. Since to be chocolate requires two 'bb's, we now know there's a recessive 'b' in the chart. Also a recessive 'c' for albino along with the chinchilla 'cchd' or 'cchl'. I don't have chinchilla here in the herd, so I haven't been tracking it all that closely. But, there will be a recessive 'c' given from one of the parents and a recessive 'b' from the other parent. So now the genetic color code is "A_ _b cchd/c or cchl/c __ ee"

The blue buck is out of a lilac (aa bb C_ dd E_) and a black tort out of a REW (aa B_ Cc D_ ee) So, blue is double 'dd' and a double 'aa' for solids. The chart on the blue should be aa since he's a solid which requires the two recessives. Since he's a blue which is a diluted black he has to have at least one dominant B, since he's out of a lilac, all they had to give was a recessive 'b', so the blue's chart has a 'Bb'. Since the blue buck is blue, we now know that the black tort has the recessive for dilutes since the blue buck got two of them. Also, since the blue is from a tort, there has to be a recessive 'e' since that's all the tort has to give. So, the updated blue's chart should be "aa Bb C_ dd Ee". The only thing you don't know about him is if he has the recessive for albinos or chinchillas.

Now we compare/ consolidate the two charts: "A_ _b cchd/c or cchl/c __ ee" and "aa Bb C_ dd Ee".
1. We don't know if the ermine has a recessive 'a'. There will be agouti color patterns, we don't know if there will be solid color patterns. If the ermine has two 'AA's, then it will be all agouti patterns.
2. We don't know if the ermine has a dominant 'B' but there is a recessive one because of the chocolate parent. The blue also carries the recessive for chocolates so there's a possibility for chocolate. If the ermine has two 'bb's, then half the litter will be chocolate, if only the one recessive, then I think it's a 25% chance per baby for a chocolate one.
3. We don't know if the blue buck has the recessive 'c' or any other recessives on the 'C' gene. If he's got two dominant 'CC's, then no ermines or REW, all colored babies.
4. We don't know if the ermine has any genes for diluted colored ('d'), but the blue is nothing but recessives for dilutes. If half the litter is dilute, then the ermine is most likely an 'Dd'. If it's all dilutes, then it's most likely 'dd'.
5. Since the blue buck is out of a tort, there's a recessive 'e' there. The ermine has nothing but recessive 'ee's, so half the litter will probably be fawns (or torts depending on if there's a recessive 'a' to go with the recessive 'e'). What other 'non-extension' colors are there in Agoutis? If it's a tort (which is a solid or non-agouti color), there's options for a black tort, blue tort, lilac tort, but what's a blue non-extension agouti color called? With the chinchilla gene in there, there's the possibility of pearls, too. Those come in the variety of black, blue, etc., but they require the chinchilla gene as well as the double recessive 'ee' and the dominant 'A'.

So, probably some agouti, some fawns, possibly chocolates, maybe pearls?