Breeding for good Chinchilla color

[eco2pia]

Here is a link to another post with another person discussing the same thing in the same breed. American Chinchilla coloration

 

[Nello'sHops&Lops]

Okay, it took me longer than a day! Here are two pelts off of American Chinchilla rabbits. The one on the left had a tan colored cape as a kit. Looking like someone had spilled coffee on him (see pictures at the beginning of this thread). The one on the right did not.

The one on the left eventually lost the obvious brownishness. However, his coat remained darker. His eyelashes remained darker. His ear lacing remained darker. On the live rabbit, the darker coloration is prettier, in my opinion.

However, off of the rabbit, the lighter pelt has cleaner brighter coloring and is far more attractive for use as a garment or textile. You can no longer see the cape pattern on the darker pelt, but you might be able to tell that the ring pattern is slightly creamier instead of crisp silvery white. To my eye, the banding pattern on the hair shafts is not different so I do not think this is wide band.

I am honestly not sure what it is, but in a live showing rabbit I would choose to keep it, and in a line for producing pelts I would choose to lose it.

Ahhh gotcha,

I've noticed this in my kits too, I think it's Rufus but I'm not sure. I might be able to answer some of these questions with litters due this month, I have three potential chinchilla litters

Chin buck x Cali doe
Chin buck x broken chin doe
Chin doe x blue buck

I'm sure at least the chin x broken chin will produce a bunch, although I think both have c recessively so I might get a bunch of REWs and ermines too.

The ones with capes half the time are chestnuts with low Rufus, and half the time are chin with high Rufus. They can look nearly identical at a month old, and then how they molt shows you what they really are. With up to 6 different Rufus #'s it would allow for the discrepancy you are seeing I believe.

 

[Nello'sHops&Lops]

Okay, it took me longer than a day! Here are two pelts off of American Chinchilla rabbits. The one on the left had a tan colored cape as a kit. Looking like someone had spilled coffee on him (see pictures at the beginning of this thread). The one on the right did not.

The one on the left eventually lost the obvious brownishness. However, his coat remained darker. His eyelashes remained darker. His ear lacing remained darker. On the live rabbit, the darker coloration is prettier, in my opinion.

However, off of the rabbit, the lighter pelt has cleaner brighter coloring and is far more attractive for use as a garment or textile. You can no longer see the cape pattern on the darker pelt, but you might be able to tell that the ring pattern is slightly creamier instead of crisp silvery white. To my eye, the banding pattern on the hair shafts is not different so I do not think this is wide band.

I am honestly not sure what it is, but in a live showing rabbit I would choose to keep it, and in a line for producing pelts I would choose to lose it.

I think I deleted my last reply somehow - ugh - but I'm pretty sure that's is just Rufus modifiers at work, which would explain both rusty back and darker coloration potentially as well. If that other comment doesn't pop up I'll write it all out again but I'm hoping it comes back lol.

Also I aware there was a link to another thread where they said cchl was a typo in the reference material and it isn't.

Cchd removes yellow entirely
Cchl only partially removes yellow, which is what the text is referring to

Hope that is helpful!

 

[eco2pia]

I think I deleted my last reply somehow - ugh - but I'm pretty sure that's is just Rufus modifiers at work, which would explain both rusty back and darker coloration potentially as well. If that other comment doesn't pop up I'll write it all out again but I'm hoping it comes back lol.

Also I aware there was a link to another thread where they said cchl was a typo in the reference material and it isn't.

Cchd removes yellow entirely
Cchl only partially removes yellow, which is what the text is referring to

Hope that is helpful!

Up in this thread somewhere there is also a reference to cchm in an old book on genetics. though they seem to claim that cchd still has some yellow, with cchm and chhl having less, exactly the opposite of what you are saying. here is the post I mean: Breeding for good Chinchilla color

 

[Nello'sHops&Lops]

Up in this thread somewhere there is also a reference to cchm in an old book on genetics. though they seem to claim that cchd still has some yellow, with cchm and chhl having less, exactly the opposite of what you are saying. here is the post I mean: Breeding for good Chinchilla color

If that is what it says it's incorrect, cchl is decidedly more yellow than cchd. It's not even debatable really....

 

[Nello'sHops&Lops]

I found a better link for you. I think your other article is talking about the SABLE gene, often called chinchilla light, which does have a dark/medium/light varience, as described below. Chinchilla light/ sable / cchl is all the same thing. Cchl leaves more yellow than cchd and allows for much more variety to the coat color.

The pelts you have are cchd NOT cchl (or maybe have cchl on the recessive)

https://www.barrowbunnies.com/the-sable-gene.html

 

[judymac]

Okay, now I'm really confused. According to Robinson in his book on Rabbit Genetics, page 418, "The juvenile Chinchilla usually has traces of yellow pigment along the dorsal region and on the fore-head; "brown-back, or "rusty-black", as it is termed. With each successive moult to the adult coat, the amount of brown back exhibited slowly diminishes. . . Brown back is an inherited character and the various degrees of it which can be seen among litters of baby Chinchillas are due to the presence or absence of polygenes. . ."

I have only encountered brown-back in my chin herd once, my normal chins have no yellow tones at all. Robinson seems to be saying that you could have some yellow pigment being produced in juvenile chinchilla rabbits, and the amount seems variable and genetic.

On page 240, he says "The yellow pigment appears as a dorsal strip from the neck to the tail with a triangular patch on each flank, and a little on the forehead. The alleles c(chm) & c(chl) do not permit the production of even this small amount of yellow, while the black is reduced to sepia. . .The Himalayan (pointed white) allele allows black pigment to form on the extremes, but no yellow, while the eye color is usually pink. The lowest member of the series is albinism, where the homozygote has pure white fur and pink eyes."

 

[Alaska Satin]

Okay, now I'm really confused. According to Robinson in his book on Rabbit Genetics, page 418, "The juvenile Chinchilla usually has traces of yellow pigment along the dorsal region and on the fore-head; "brown-back, or "rusty-black", as it is termed. With each successive moult to the adult coat, the amount of brown back exhibited slowly diminishes. . . Brown back is an inherited character and the various degrees of it which can be seen among litters of baby Chinchillas are due to the presence or absence of polygenes. . ."

I have only encountered brown-back in my chin herd once, my normal chins have no yellow tones at all. Robinson seems to be saying that you could have some yellow pigment being produced in juvenile chinchilla rabbits, and the amount seems variable and genetic.

On page 240, he says "The yellow pigment appears as a dorsal strip from the neck to the tail with a triangular patch on each flank, and a little on the forehead. The alleles c(chm) & c(chl) do not permit the production of even this small amount of yellow, while the black is reduced to sepia. . .The Himalayan (pointed white) allele allows black pigment to form on the extremes, but no yellow, while the eye color is usually pink. The lowest member of the series is albinism, where the homozygote has pure white fur and pink eyes."

I do not have Robinson and I cannot seem to get the software to read it, but I can attest to the fact that my chinchilla Satins do often have rusty tones as young kits, sometimes to the point that they can be mistaken for washed-out coppers. It's as he describes it, along their back and on their forehead, and the extent and brassiness varies individually among kits. I'd say about half of my chinchillas have this rustiness as kits, some with and some without in the same litter. They always shed it out by about 3-4 months old. Until very recently, I never messed with sable at all, so I know the rustiness in the chins was unrelated to that allele.

I think what Robinson was saying that that the two alternate alleles chin medium <cchm> and chin light <cchl> do not permit any yellow whatsoever, in contrast with the chin dark <cchd> that does permit a small amount of yellow.

 

[judymac]

I think what Robinson was saying that that the two alternate alleles chin medium <cchm> and chin light <cchl> do not permit any yellow whatsoever, in contrast with the chin dark <cchd> that does permit a small amount of yellow.

That's the way I interpreted it as well. Thanks.

 

[Alaska Satin]

That's the way I interpreted it as well. Thanks.

More interesting bits about the action of chinchilla alleles (and their associated iris color genes) are in Cindy Haenszel's "Color Genetics in U.S. Domestic Rabbits" c1997-2010. She writes:

cchd - dark chinchilla; full amount of black pigment; very little or no yellow pigment; typical chinchilla when with agouti gene; blue-gray or marbled blue eyes, but may be bred with brown eyes; also may be written as cch3
cchm - medium chinchilla; between cchd and cchl in amount of pigment; also may be written cch2; little known and rarely mentioned; debatable whether or not present in U.S. rabbits
cchl - light chinchilla; may also be called sable gene or shaded gene; reduced amount of black; no yellow pigment; color shaded; typical sable when with non-agouti/self gene; also may be written cch1; somewhat temperature sensitive; brown eyes with a red glow to the pupil

She further notes that "...although the cchd gene is dominant to the cchl gene, the brown eye color normally associated with cchl is dominant to the marbled bluish-gray eye color sometimes associated with cchd! A rabbit with a cchdcchl genotype will have black pigment in the coat from the cchd gene, and brown eyes from the gene linked to the cchl gene. Originally, this bluish-type eye color may have been closely linked to the cchd gene, but since all the chinchilla breeds and varieties in breeds (except Angoras and Lops), have been bred for brown eyes for so long, these almost always brown eyes now. Chinchilla colored Angoras and Lops haven't been bred specifically to have brown eyes, so they sometimes have the original bluish eyes..."
*FootNote: Although not determined by a C-series gene, iris color is determined by a gene very closely linked to this C-series gene.

 

[Nello'sHops&Lops]

That's the way I interpreted it as well. Thanks.

That is how I interpret it as well I just disagree with it.

The adults photographed here are cchd black chinchilla. The babies ended up being chestnuts but I think that's what your guy is talking about, and I have heard that it's possible for a baby chinchilla (cchd) to look like that before a molt.

Babies can have color in the coat that molts out, but as an adult cchd is zero yellow whatsoever,

Sable/shaded/ cchl does allow for yellow tones in adult animals. I have some photos but not great ones because I try to avoid cchl in my breedings. I can post them in a seperate comment if you like though!

 

[Alaska Satin]

That's the way I interpreted it as well. Thanks.

All of the chins I kept molted out their brassiness, but I have to admit I never kept any that were still brassy at butcher age, so I don't know if they'd have retained some of it as adults. I have seen adult chinchillas with a brassy surface color and/or brassy ring color, occasionally in Satin but especially in Rex.

The ARBA SOP acknowledges that chinchillas can have a problem with yellow tones. In the Satin SOP, under Chinchilla variety they list "cloudy or brassy ring color" as a fault and "distinct brown or blue surface color" and "extremely brown ring color" as disqualifications.

 

[Nello'sHops&Lops]

All of the chins I kept molted out their brassiness, but I have to admit I never kept any that were still brassy at butcher age, so I don't know if they'd have retained some of it as adults. I have seen adult chinchillas with a brassy surface color and/or brassy ring color, occasionally in Satin but especially in Rex.

The ARBA SOP acknowledges that chinchillas can have a problem with yellow tones. In the Satin SOP, under Chinchilla variety they list "cloudy or brassy ring color" as a fault and "distinct brown or blue surface color" and "extremely brown ring color" as disqualifications.

Hmm that's interesting, I suppose it's time to eat my hat then. I've never seen an adult chin with the issue.

Are you able to comment on what the heck cchm is? Or why they claim there can be no yellow with cchl? Shaded varieties in my experience have shown clear tendencies away from black and white.

 

[Alaska Satin]

Hmm that's interesting, I suppose it's time to eat my hat then. I've never seen an adult chin with the issue.

Are you able to comment on what the heck cchm is? Or why they claim there can be no yellow with cchl? Shaded varieties in my experience have shown clear tendencies away from black and white.

I'm kind of thinking it might be a semantics issue, with terms from science conflicting with terms from, um, art (?) for lack of a better word. For example, a faded black can look "brown," while at the same time a very dark yellow can look "brown."

@judymac often refers to genes' actions on the two pigments pheomelanin (yellow/orange/red colors) and eumelanin (brown/black/blue/lilac colors), and I think that would probably be the best approach to describing what on the surface (haha, no pun intended!) seems to be contradictions in the effects of the <cchd> and <cchl> alleles.

All of the chinchilla alleles turn off the yellow pheomelanin production, in part or all. So - little to no yellow, orange or red for a rabbit with any of the chin alleles. However, sable <cchl> totally suppresses pheomelanin and at the same time partly suppresses eumelanin, fading what looks like black into what looks like sepia. To an artist's eye, sepia has yellowish tones; but to a scientist, a sepia rabbit produced by eumelanin does not have the "yellows" made by pheomelanin.

If this is the case, a brassy chin can result from either <cchd> allowing a little bit of pheomelanin expression, or it can be made by having the influence of <cchl> fading the black into a sepia "sable chin." I think this is what's at work since the brassy chins in my line have very well-defined brassy zones, while a sable chin has its black faded to sepia pretty much everywhere.

 

[Nello'sHops&Lops]

Thank you!