Blue Eyed Mini Rex Rabbits

Driven · Apr 30, 2014

While doing some research on colors I came across what is called the Vienna gene which creates blue eyes. I am in love with the blue eyed rabbits and the ones with gray eyes too! And I know viennas are not show quality? But when I start breeding for pets I would love to have some blue eyed ones!! They are so incredibly beautiful! Look at these pictures! Wow.

So I read online that you can get this by breeding a BEW with just about any other color? Is that right? Can someone provide me with a bit more information on this? And if I wanted to get a blue eyed black or broken black would I just breed a BEW with a broken black? Thank you!!

:bunnyhop:

Oh and what color is the dark gray/blue one with just a little bit of white?

MR_ND · Apr 30, 2014

Very beautiful rabbits.

akane · Apr 30, 2014

2 blue eye white genes make a solid white with blue eyes. This color can be shown in many small breeds. Haven't checked mini rex specifically. A crossing of a BEW to a rabbit with no vienna gene will give you 100% carriers. Some of these rabbits get blue eyes and/or white markings called vienne marked (VM). There's no guarantee it will happen and the resulting animals can't be shown unless they are a broken to hide the white or the eye color is allowed for that body color. Breeders will not be happy to buy rabbits from you with BEW background except the few who want to use them in a BEW breeding program. The vienna gene can pop up at any time since not all offspring with it show markings. It's very hard to cull back out of your lines.

The chinchilla gene can also put a blue tint in the eyes even when not fully expressed but it's usually not as striking as the vienna gene.

Dood · Apr 30, 2014

I breed Vienna rabbits and in most cases they do not get blue eyes and just have the white marks.

Maybe 1 in a litter of 5 to 8 will get a partial a full or both blue eyes, 2 to 4 will be vienna marked (VM)and rest look solid, but could be carriers.

The origin of my Vienna gene was a "broken" black doe that turned out to be Vienna :shock: she was about 50% white

Her offspring only had snippets of white and I never got a blue eye. I kept a VM daughter and she's the one that usually has a blue eyed kit and VM and none have even close to the amount of white as their grandma and generally less than 5%

There are unknown modifiers at work that increase the the amount of white the Vienna gene will produce but finding them in non Vienna rabbits is only possible by test breeding and crossing your fingers.

BlackSpruceRabbitry7 · May 3, 2014

We used to have Lionheads, we had a BEW buck and crossed him with a chestnut doe. Most were vienna marked and have a mix of blue and brown in each of their eyes. Viennas are beautiful!
I much prefer Mini Rexes to Lionheads though. I haven't seen vienna Mini Rexes before, until those pics.

To answer Driven's question, it looks like the picture #4 is a blue vienna marked.

JessicaR · May 5, 2014

I used to breed BEW/VM lionheads, almost all of my vienna marked rabbits had blue eyes. My favorite one was a black and white kit with blue eyes he was gorgeous!