Behavior of the Silvering Gene

[Devon's Mom Lauren]

What colour was the Rex in this cross?

 

[akane]

Chocolate carrying REW. I guess I forgot I have 1 chocolate doe out of my champagne who is also still solid chocolate.

 

[Shara]

My VM doe has silvering, kinda. Each time she molts it gets stronger.

 

[Devon's Mom Lauren]

So your Champagne doe carries chocolate?? I am thinking that the Mini Rex fur has something to do with this lack of silvering, because every single outcross we have had has silvered to some extent..Perhaps its just the guard hairs that silver and the mini rex didn't pass that on for sure... I will have to ask our friend who started the Bruns what happened when he crossed a chocolate Rex with a Brun..

Alsos a note about Enderby Island.. A number of rabbits were placed there hundreds of years ago including some Champagnes.. the silvering effect is still seen in all the rabbits that were removed from there recently so its a pretty strong gene with co-dominance.

 

[akane]

Mini rex have guard hairs but they are shortened to the length of the undercoat which helps give them such a thick springy feeling coat instead of just a downy type one.

I've heard a lot of the older champagne lines throw chocolate every now and then but I didn't think I'd experience it. For some reason a lot of breeders I talked to seem to think this is horrible and some even take offense about it. I would think it would be desireable considering how uncommon bruns are. I'm hoping to get a line of bruns going from this. We'll see how much size the mini rex crosses lose. A few of them look to be putting on good weight but a couple are lagging behind. One doe in particular seems to have gotten the dwarf genes. The chocolate is somewhat in the middle right now.

 

[Devon's Mom Lauren]

If you can bred out the dwarf gene by culling those, you might be alright for size as the Bruns' Standard is a little lighter then the Champagnes'.It also makes sense that the older purer lines would have it as Bruns were a little more common way back and in the UK.Chances are they started putting the chocolates into the Champagnes just to get more Champagnes as they became more popular.

 

[BunGeneticsguru]

Silvering not dominant it is a gene to itself and shows incomplete expression. It's going to express in some fashion if you have a rabbit with silvering bred to one without. This particular gene has more to do with modifiers as far as silvering amounts are concerned. Think of it this way: a normal non-silvered rabbit has a level 1 no silvering, a silver fox or silver has a level 2, and an argente has a level 3 the higher the level the more silvering you have. That is VERY basic, and I am trying to better control the modifiers further in just my Champs. So those basic modifiers also have modifiers as to the strength of silvering not just amounts. I find it fascinating.

 

[Prof.Harris]

Every source I look at says it is recessive. Not just some but every single one lists it as sisi=silver and SI_ = normal. http://www.debmark.com/rabbits/genetics.htm , Loading... , http://www.tomatinstud.com/4793.html?*s ... on*id*val* ... So they are either all wrong, there are 2 possible genes causing silver, or the breeds they've been crossed out to actually carried silver.

Silvering is NOT recessive it is incompletely dominant you only need one copy for it to show the varying degree at which it shows will depend upon the level of silvering of the silvered parent. It for a large part is a case of modifiers, and is additive if you'll follow me. SiSi is non silvered, yes I know it's not written correctly as one would think for the typical format of writing genetics but that is the way they have chosen to write it. Here is a couple cross examples

Solid non silvered rabbit sisi X Silvered rabbit (say lightly silvered silver fox) si1si1
baby would be si si1 and show very low levels of silver hairs - might be mistaken for scattered whites but I assure you it is not; those genes are not even the on the same gene locus

Solid non silvered rabbit sisi X Silvered rabbit (say heavy silvered silver fox) s2si2
baby would be si1 si1 and show low levels of even silvering all over

Champagne rabbit si3si3 x solid non silvered rabbit sisi
baby would be si2si2 and appear evenly silvered like you'd imagine on a silver fox


Every single time, and I do mean every single time this is the case. I've extensively studied this gene for the visible representation of the trait in my graduate studies and beyond.