Can Someone Please Explain To My Herd How Genetics Work!?

[PSFAngoras]

SO we all remember the cute little meat mutt litter I posted under 'mouthful', right? How from a self black doe and a broken fawn buck I got all self based, brokens. Certainly not impossible, just highly improbable.

WELL, momma out did herself this time...

From a self black doe and a self blue chinchilla buck... I GOT AN OPAL.

Mom is a cross between a SF, Harlequin, and Rhinelander. I understand that if paired with the Steel Gene, the random extension gene can be cancelled out, and that two steel genes might cause her to look black but actually be a steel, but I have seen the mother to this doe and she is a pure bred lilac SF. There's no way it could have worked out that her father carried the genes to cause her to look like a self (while being an agouti) without contribution from the mother, right?

AND, to add to it, one of the other kits looks like it might potentially be an ermine. It is all white with dark eyes. I know it could still be a sallander, which is a self based, but the sallanders I've gotten so far usually look darker.

There is absolutely no chance that the father was my other buck (the broken fawn).

What the heck is going on here!?

:groooan:

 

[Dood]

Ummm....

What to you mean by "a self blue chinchilla buck" ?

Do you mean he looks self blue and you know for certain, either from test breeding or his parents, that he is also a chinchilla ?

 

[PSFAngoras]

That exactly.

__________ Mon Jan 13, 2014 7:05 pm __________

He's thrown chinchilla kits with my REW doe, you helped me figure that one out a few months ago.<br /><br />__________ Mon Jan 13, 2014 7:10 pm __________<br /><br />On second though, I suppose the kit could be either an otter or marten too as it's too young to see banding, but clearly has the white belly, ears, and around the eyes, but neither of those make sense genetically either...

 

[Dood]

That exactly.

Ok.

Well if your certain its an opal then someone is agouti.

Are you sure the buck isn't a steel carrier?

 

[Zass]

I dunno where your color came from, but I do know that it only takes one copy of steel to produce hidden agoutis.
I think it can be a matter of modifiers.

purebred foxes can be hidden steels too.

 

[PSFAngoras]

He was used heavily before I got him and never threw steel, and he's never done it for me either though he's had plenty if chances, so I don't think that he is, but I just because I haven't seen it doesn't mean I can rule it out.

One of his recent litters left me with a couple of odd colored kits that I can't tell if they're self chinchilla or really awkward steels, but the mom was a steel on that litter so it wouldn't be a good example to use as an indicator of steel or not.

 

[lidtfedtkanin]

Sorry I stated that poorly. The kits from the REW carrying Steel ended up being non extension with an Ese and ended up looking like a self black with slight ticking here and there.


Original statement:

Could the doe be a non extension steel. For example I had a REW that was genetically A_BbccD_Ese so she had kits that were black in appearance but had slight stray ticking on their ears.

 

[akane]

You'd be surprised what is found in purebreds. I had an american sable with nonextension when supposedly the only other breed used in bringing them back from extinction was cali and the only colors they are supposed to be found in are sable, seal, and himi. The rabbit had only sable colored american sables on the 8 generation pedigree. Several GC. Every show quality sable should be aaBBDDchlchEE. So where did I get a purebred sable point doe from.... Purebred doesn't rule out any gene. Only proven colors of the rabbit, its parents, or its offspring do.

 

[skysthelimit]

I'm still thinking he's a steel blue chin. With a full color blue with no steel, and a steel blue chin, you could get a opal.

 

[PSFAngoras]

Here's pic of the litter and the offending kit

__________ Tue Jan 14, 2014 6:09 pm __________

He's never thrown anything weird in his three and a half years breeding (and he was the main herd sire for the lady who used to have him, I have a hard time finding new lines that he hasn't been a part of...). The weird kits from his previous litter aren't like this at all, they're just off colored selfs. One is a blue, although it's a bit light, and one is a lilac, though he's. Bit darker than your typical lilac.

I'm convinced it had to do with the doe. She has stray white hairs, but they are more in line with the silver gene, where the whole shaft of the hair is white. I figured its from her heritage as half SF. Her father was the mutt.

So one copy of the steel gene can really cause them to look like false selfs? Just when I think I have a decent grasp of the genetics you go and throw that at me!

 

[Zass]

This litter has one copy of steel, as the buck was a nice clean opal.
(an opal cannot have steel= steel only possible from doe's side)

He had numerous litters with self colored does and produced only clean opal kits(as he should, because agouti is dominant to self), something like 18 opal kits and never once a self, so I feel reasonably assured that he wasn't a self carrier.

By my understanding, every rabbit here is an agouti(or opal) with one copy of steel mucking up it's coat.

As you can see, the colors range from very visible steels, lightly ticked steels, to rabbits that could pass for selfs.

(some have a few stray white hairs, actually, steel won't mess with a rabbits silvering either, just like it doesn't mess with broken pattern)


The doe who threw these is a visual self black from a black to white New Zealand breeding. She is a confirmed super steel.

I've never studied self chins...might have to go do that...

 

[skysthelimit]

Generally, I just cull self chins, because unless you know who to use them, that chin gene can seriously muck up someones breeding program.

 

[Zass]

Generally, I just cull self chins, because unless you know who to use them, that chin gene can seriously muck up someones breeding program.

Would you explain to me what self chins can muck up? I just don't seem to understand them very well, oh and what is the genotype of a self chin?

 

[skysthelimit]

A self that has a chin gene. Chin genes can cause eye color issues. Nothing more unfun than a show breeder breeding what appears to be two blacks, and getting blue/gray eyes, light brown or mottled eyes (blue eyed SF).
Mostly because I show, and I have rainbow peds, unshowable color combinations, are a possibility and problematic.

I would not breed a Chin to my Castors, but I would breed a black.
If that black was a self chin, I would get chins, and they would have all the junk that the Castors might have, possibly polluting my Chins-otter, wideband, non extension, Chocolate, or I would get martens, chocolate martens, ermine, fox, none of these colors are acceptable in Rex.

I already have chocolate in the chin herd, most likely brought in by a REW, and I lose half the kits each breeding because they are unshowable chocolate chins. I don't care fore the pelts either, making them doubly useless.

This does not matter so much in the JW and Angora, they have double the color choices, but for accounting sake, I don't like guesswork with colors.

 

[Dood]

The genotype for a self chin is - aa B_ cchd_ D_ E_

I get self chins as my show stock AmChin buck and doe both carry self so any black kits are chinchilla as well. Only the eye colour is a problem for showing, kind of like the Vienna gene adding splashes of white and ruining the chances of an otherwise good looking rabbit.

 

[PSFAngoras]

Since I bred FA's and this litter in particular is a meat mutt litter, Oliver the buck is not getting culled for his color! I had to fight to get him. He was two years old, and had never been loved, or played with, or got out in the yard to play. The lady who had him bred him heavily, and his only outside of the cage experience was from cage to grooming table back to the cage. Apparently, another breeder was trying to get him too, but had already gotten on the lady's bad side by trying to help teach the proper care of her rabbits. (This other breeder was only trying to help, I know her and she is a wonderful person, but you can't teach those that 'already know everything'). I had bugged the breeder for months before about him, so it was a very happy moment when I finally got him.

He's thrown plenty of show quality kits in his time, and his last litters with my does produced only one kit out of nine that was non-showable, and it was the mom's fault on that one. (I wasn't told she carries Vienna, but that's not the only issue I've had with stock from that breeder). I'm sure some of that will be up to the judge's disgression, but the judges look mostly at the quality of the wool here, and the build of the rabbit, and not so much the color, so I bet even my Lynxes with the lilac under color would do good on the table. Not to mention Oliver is my only FA who is build like a NZ. My does would wouldn't be dq'd on he table for sure just on build alone, but in my mind, if it's supposed to be a commercial build underneath that coat, my stock could bulk up a bit in the shoulders.

I certainly could understand why you might cull for self chins, but Oliver is one of those buns I would hold onto just for what he's given me and what it took to get him. If in the sad case I had to find him a new home, I know that the breeder who tried to get him before would gladly take him off my hands.

 

[skysthelimit]

Some people show self chins as seals and breed them back into their chin lines, or shaded. It does not matter really for the Wooled breeds, they are only judged colored and white, and they accept so many different colors. You don't even ave to really know the color to show it, and rarely will you find straight peds for woolers, they pretty much breed whatever works.

 

[akane]

.

 

[Zass]

The genotype for a self chin is - aa B_ cchd_ D_ E_

I get self chins as my show stock AmChin buck and doe both carry self so any black kits are chinchilla as well. Only the eye colour is a problem for showing, kind of like the Vienna gene adding splashes of white and ruining the chances of an otherwise good looking rabbit.

Now I get it. You need agouti to express the chinchilla color, and a self chin doesn't have it.

Can I say where I think the opal came from yet? :twisted:

 

[skysthelimit]

That's why I'm thinking steel chin, so the self is really an agouti masked by the steel.