? Black self Californian ? - surprise !!

[Dood]

A couple months ago I was given a lovely black Californian buck and two does of my breeding that the buyer could no longer keep.

I bred him to a couple of my AmChins and the results are in and apparently he carries two copies of the steel gene :shock: since ALL twenty three kits are silver tipped steel :x

I guess Silver Fox aren't the only breed to be infiltrated by the steel gene :rotfl:

I don't even think he is self black, or even a self carrier, since i know the one girl has a self, so I should be getting at least a couple blacks in a litter of 11 :shrug: Two more of his litters are due and we'll see if a self black shows up.

Not what I was expecting but I am pleased as punch since Silver tipped steel is one of my favourite colours

 

[ladysown]

Good for you then.

 

[Zass]

Lucky you! They at least all LOOK steel. :lol: Your not left wondering if the kits are steels that look black, or blacks that carry steel... :roll:

My current theory on this is that new zealands have been bred black to white...and all VISUAL steels culled, leaving super steels and very dark steels in the bloodlines. Perhaps perfecting the modifiers that make steel look black?

It seems it's always a New Zealand people think they need to use to improve their meat breeds.

 

[Dood]

Thats the thing - my "black" Cali could actually be an agouti super steel and I don't have any selfs to test breed him to (except a 3 pound sable point) in order to see if he is agouti or self

 

[Zass]

I think my own problem is that my SF carry heavy darkening modifiers, and my opals carry it from their NZ black and white background, but don't have any from their Flemish side (since well marked steels are worked on in FGs),when I cross them together I get everything from "looks like a self" to "almost an agouti" with a predominance of very dark steels.
These kits are from opal to SF:

Your chins probably aren't carrying any of the darkening modifiers, making them better test rabbits.



None of the Lilac/SF kits look like a visual steel at 8 weeks. Since Lilacs have no steel, they probably don't have the modifiers to produce self looking steels right?
One of the black kits looked ticked for a while, but now she doesn't. I plan on holding onto them longer.

 

[skysthelimit]

I'm starting to suspect that the test group of Rex chins that have no pearl midbands are actually steels. Once the breeder started breeding for brown eyes only, narrowing the gene pool, steel may have popped up.

 

[Zass]

I'm starting to suspect that the test group of Rex chins that have no pearl midbands are actually steels. Once the breeder started breeding for brown eyes only, narrowing the gene pool, steel may have popped up.

Steel doesn't need concentrated to pop up though, it'll show first gen crossed to any agouti.
I don't think any steel rabbit will have a visually white belly. You can always test breed with a longer coated rabbit to see it better?

I dunno...I'll test breed anything with anything (size allowing) because my family, dogs and cats eat as much rabbit as I can afford to produce, but do I realize not everyone needs a rabbitry full of mutt kits!

I have two litters expected next weekend, color carrier SF and opal (hope to tell if my boy has one or two copies of steel) She usually nurses 10 or 11 kits, so there should be lots to see.
and the same SF + a tort doe, if any ticking shows up in the tort's litter, it would indicate he's an agouti. I do believe that SF buck at least carries self though.

 

[skysthelimit]

I don't think any steel rabbit will have a visually white belly. You can always test breed with a longer coated rabbit to see it better?

I dunno...I'll test breed anything with anything (size allowing) because my family, dogs and cats eat as much rabbit as I can afford to produce, but do I realize not everyone needs a rabbitry full of mutt kits.

It would be obvious even on a Rex, if a chin did not have a white belly, as all agouti Rex should have white in the ears, around the eyes and on the belly.

Test breeding is not a problem either, I can never produce enough rabbit meat to feed three greedy shepherds, lol. At full production there's not enough to have 1/8 of their diet as rabbit.

 

[SatinsRule]

Genetically speaking, Californian anything (Standard cals, cal satins, cal rex, himilayans, himi dwarfs, himi mini satins, etc.) are little more than black rabbits to begin with. The only thing which keeps them from going jet black is a temperature sensitive gene, and it explains why their point color is darker when it's cold than when the weather is warm.

 

[3mina]

I think my SF buck carries steel, I bred him to my chin Rex meat doe and half the kits are gold tipped steel, the other half are black or ?

They look like the pics Zass posted, except they're only 10 days or so yet

 

[Dood]

I'm not surprised

I suspect a lot of the rabbits that can only be shown in self based colours carry the steel gene since it can be culled out of those that can come in both self and agouti.

PS - my Cali buck did father a few blacks so he at least has one self gene

 

[skysthelimit]

I'm not surprised

I suspect a lot of the rabbits that can only be shown in self based colours carry the steel gene since it can be culled out of those that can come in both self and agouti.

PS - my Cali buck did father a few blacks so he at least has one self gene

i agree.

 

[TwoAcreDream]

I'm a wee confused here.
When I think Californian, I think white rabbit with black ears, nose, toes.
Like in my pic.

So what is a BLACK CALIFORNIAN ?

After 20 plus years of not having rabbits, I am still getting back up to speed.
For example, I was surprised to find out that NZ can come in broken colors.
I have 2 of them, that I had no clue what they were. I do now

 

[Dood]

The Californian breed only comes in the himilayan colour and ARBA only accepts self black BUT himilayan(and REW and BEW) can genetically be any colou because of the unique ability of their white coat genes to hide their "true" colour.

In the Californians case you can get a glimpse of their true colour on the points and you can see agouti, blue, chocolate and lilac in the points.

 

[TwoAcreDream]

Okay......so still confused ...

Are you then breeding to a certain other color then to get what you want
to come out ? I am not good with genetics, sorry.

 

[Dood]

Now I'm confused.

I thought my Cali was genetically a black but now I dont know, personally I dont care since I don't show :shrug:

Rabbit colours are a combination of 12 known gene loci that interact with each other and effect colour and pattern and they can all be mixed and matched

A "black" rabbit is genetically - self, black (not chocolate), full colour, not dilute/blue, full extension

A "smoke pearl" is genetically - self, black, shaded, dilute, full extension

A "cream" is genetically - agouti, chocolate, full colour, dilute, non extension

 

[SatinsRule]

The only thing stopping a Californian or Himilayan anything from being a completely jet black rabbit is the temperature-sensitive gene that they're born with. It totally explains why if you keep re-breeding black offspring with a cal, you will get more and more cals in the litters, but if you keep the ratios at 50% or less, the frequency of cal-colored offspring will be almost non-existent.

Case and point: I started off more than 2 years ago with a black satin doe with nothing but black in her background, and bred her to a buck which was totally cal. The first litter resulted in 4 babies, and as I expected, all of them were black. I bred two of the does from that litter to cals. Lorna recently had 6 babies, 2 of which were cals with fantastic point color, and 4 blacks. The second doe, Lola, recently had a litter with 9 babies, 8 of which were cals and have heavy frosting on their baby coats. There's no rhyme or reason to it, and I am not going to sit here and argue all the nonsense about how breeding certain color genes will result in whatever (that is not 100% accurate in the first place), but it seems to me that the temperature gene gets strengthened through successive breedings, and so does the frequency of getting cal-colored offspring in litters. A lot hinges on what is in the lineage of both animals, but increase the amount of cal or himilayan breeders in your program, and you're practically guaranteed to see an increase in their occurrence, mainly because the colors are so similar and compatible in the first place.

 

[Dood]

The only thing stopping a Californian or Himilayan anything from being a completely jet black rabbit is the temperature-sensitive gene that they're born with.

This is not true. The himilayan gene works on ALL rabbit colours, not just jet blacks.

http://www.himalayanrabbit.com/wins/con ... ie2012.jpg

A blue Californian or Himilayan (the breeds) will have very faint points because they are blue ! You will never get black points no matter how cold the rabbits are kept because black pigment is not possible in a genetically blue rabbit.

An chestnut Californian or Himilayan (the breeds) will also have very faint points that have a ring pattern ! because they are agouti based. The underside of the tail will also be white, just like in chestnut rabbits and temperature has nothing to do with it - it's all genetics and is 100% predictable.

 

[SatinsRule]

Okay then, tell me how you ended up with a solid black rabbit?

 

[Dood]

I never said he was a solid black.

My "black" California buck is not solid black, he is mostly white with pink eyes and dark points either from being a genetically self black rabbit or genetically an agouti black steel (AKA gold tipped steel)

You can also think of the himilayan gene kinda like the broken gene or dutch gene that causes white to cover part of a rabbits colour, only the himilayan gene covers nearly all of the rabbit in white. (And the REW gene covers all of the rabbit in white)

Are you asking how I got black kits?