Are there articles on genetics other than color?
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Most of those are controlled by multiple genes and aren't well understood although there is alot of research going on in those areas in other species. The exception is fur type. The with rex, angora and satin fur types all having recessive modes of inheritance. I'm not sure what you mean by loose hairs?
Most traits have a huge number of major genes and minor modifiers all working in complex combinations that can't really be summarized and often is not worth researchers genetically testing to establish. Simply keeping track of the results of breeding 2 rabbits is not going to help much in understanding the actual genes in order to name them and discuss them. Some coat genes can be understood and explained like rex simply being recessive and you can consistently produce flyback or rollback fur but some coat and color genes aren't even fully sorted out by breeders alone. They have been improving genetic tests for more expensive livestock to identify some of those still relatively basic genes for registry purposes and keeping track of lethal genes that decades of debate why inconsistent results were occurring have not solved. That just isn't worth it for animals that don't have closed registry breeds and cost $1,000s to $100,000s. Colors and some coat genes are fairly simple because they act fairly independent as dominant and recessives so we can test breed for those and then give them a single gene letter. When you combine other genes though they may alter what one does in several ways so that each one is influencing the effect of another. Explaining 1 body trait ends up having so many variables you couldn't type it into a line of gene designations like we do colors and most genes actually have several letters to them and a range of expression.
I have a gene that I can't even remember all the letters to designate it that is having a 70% reduction on an enzyme and causes a cascade of physical changes and health effects. The connected traits and related genes that can trigger it or be triggered are added to monthly as research progresses so every webpage you load will have a longer list the newer it is. That's 1 freaking enzyme in one gene out of multiple possible expressions of that gene found so far and they still can't figure out what all connects to make it a problem or not. Half the population has a version of the gene that could reduce the enzyme instead of allowing for full function and result in health problems but frequently it expresses only 10% so it's unnoticeable or not at all despite being there. The Human Genome Project is hoping to identify 30,000 genes like that. You'd need a computer calculating it all for you and summarizing the result even if you could figure out all the factors for one single trait.
Consider all the factors that make a bone. It's not one compound. The ratio of those compounds has it's own factors, the thickness has several factors, it's length is partially determined by it's growing time that has it's own factors that are a result of lifespan and at what age sexual maturity occurs with the factors responsible for the release of reproductive hormones... Then you want to calculate muscle mass to go with it and there is no neat little line of letters. 1 enzyme will fry your brain looking up the genetics and biological compounds behind it. That's why we can only speak in vague terms and individual experiences of what combining 2 different characteristics results in. We can only base breeding for most things on combining desired traits repeatedly until we get the correct results and then try to make that happen as consistently as possible. Sometimes several lifetimes go by before someone knows why a certain line or breed of animal results in a certain trait. Maybe your specific coat problem could be a single gene or maybe it could be 5 other related things that you couldn't figure out if you intensively bred those rabbits the rest of your life. People were improving their livestock and breeding for traits long before they understood genetics as any area of science and some people breed the ideal color to standard without knowing the genes behind it or how to understand gene designations. The very simple genetics we know is interesting, it can make some things easier without having to run your own test breedings, and eventually an understanding of genetics could help get rid of health problems but it's not necessary in order to breed excellent rabbits and rabbits currently aren't worth the effort it takes to figure out such things. It's unlikely many rabbit breeders are going to become geneticists studying rabbit characteristics as an expression of specific genes any time in the near future.
I have a gene that I can't even remember all the letters to designate it that is having a 70% reduction on an enzyme and causes a cascade of physical changes and health effects. The connected traits and related genes that can trigger it or be triggered are added to monthly as research progresses so every webpage you load will have a longer list the newer it is. That's 1 freaking enzyme in one gene out of multiple possible expressions of that gene found so far and they still can't figure out what all connects to make it a problem or not. Half the population has a version of the gene that could reduce the enzyme instead of allowing for full function and result in health problems but frequently it expresses only 10% so it's unnoticeable or not at all despite being there. The Human Genome Project is hoping to identify 30,000 genes like that. You'd need a computer calculating it all for you and summarizing the result even if you could figure out all the factors for one single trait.
Consider all the factors that make a bone. It's not one compound. The ratio of those compounds has it's own factors, the thickness has several factors, it's length is partially determined by it's growing time that has it's own factors that are a result of lifespan and at what age sexual maturity occurs with the factors responsible for the release of reproductive hormones... Then you want to calculate muscle mass to go with it and there is no neat little line of letters. 1 enzyme will fry your brain looking up the genetics and biological compounds behind it. That's why we can only speak in vague terms and individual experiences of what combining 2 different characteristics results in. We can only base breeding for most things on combining desired traits repeatedly until we get the correct results and then try to make that happen as consistently as possible. Sometimes several lifetimes go by before someone knows why a certain line or breed of animal results in a certain trait. Maybe your specific coat problem could be a single gene or maybe it could be 5 other related things that you couldn't figure out if you intensively bred those rabbits the rest of your life. People were improving their livestock and breeding for traits long before they understood genetics as any area of science and some people breed the ideal color to standard without knowing the genes behind it or how to understand gene designations. The very simple genetics we know is interesting, it can make some things easier without having to run your own test breedings, and eventually an understanding of genetics could help get rid of health problems but it's not necessary in order to breed excellent rabbits and rabbits currently aren't worth the effort it takes to figure out such things. It's unlikely many rabbit breeders are going to become geneticists studying rabbit characteristics as an expression of specific genes any time in the near future.
If you keep extensive records on your own herd, then eventually you'll have an idea of what to expect when breeding two rabbits together. If you breed two rabbits with loose hair (is this on them or their pelt afterwards?) then you'd expect to see the same trait in their offspring.
If you search 'rabbit genetics' and look for the research papers instead of the rabbit breeders papers, then you'll probably get more info than you want. Rabbits have been used for research purposes for eons, so there's a lot of data on rabbits.
This is just one example of that sort of page: http://www.fao.org/docrep/x5082e/X5082E08.htm
If you search 'rabbit genetics' and look for the research papers instead of the rabbit breeders papers, then you'll probably get more info than you want. Rabbits have been used for research purposes for eons, so there's a lot of data on rabbits.
This is just one example of that sort of page: http://www.fao.org/docrep/x5082e/X5082E08.htm
The specific genes for these traits aren't simple enough to be known/documented to a T, but "Rabbit Production" by Cheek I think? has a section about heritability of other traits (growth rate, bone/meat ratio, milk production, etc etc.) that does explain how you can somewhat predict the amount of improvement in a given generation based on how heritable a trait is and the difference between your best keepers and average rabbits.
Example
You have a herd of meat-rabbits that routinely reaches an average 1500g (~3lbs) at 6 weeks. Out of your 80 kits that year, you keep 4 new bucks that average 1800g at 6 weeks. A genetics paper for your breed suggests that body weight has a heritability factor of 0.30. So (1800-1500)*0.30 = 100g - the expected genetic difference contributed by your bucks would be maybe an average of 100g additional weight around 6 weeks.
How useful that is really depends on how much of a math-nerd you are about your rabbits. I've done the calculations once in a while in the past, but haven't been changing bucks often enough to really start looking at what my improvements per generation have been compared to the math in the textbook.
Anyhow, the book gives some actual heritability factors for given traits, mostly determined using studies on NZ whites, but should be reasonably applicable across a lot of the commercial breeds, at least.
Example
You have a herd of meat-rabbits that routinely reaches an average 1500g (~3lbs) at 6 weeks. Out of your 80 kits that year, you keep 4 new bucks that average 1800g at 6 weeks. A genetics paper for your breed suggests that body weight has a heritability factor of 0.30. So (1800-1500)*0.30 = 100g - the expected genetic difference contributed by your bucks would be maybe an average of 100g additional weight around 6 weeks.
How useful that is really depends on how much of a math-nerd you are about your rabbits. I've done the calculations once in a while in the past, but haven't been changing bucks often enough to really start looking at what my improvements per generation have been compared to the math in the textbook.
Anyhow, the book gives some actual heritability factors for given traits, mostly determined using studies on NZ whites, but should be reasonably applicable across a lot of the commercial breeds, at least.
