Chinchilla mixes? Thinking through breeding (lots of pics!)

[FourRingCircus]

I have what I assume to be a Chinchilla doe. I bred her with a NZW buck. It looks like all 5 kits are Chinchilla as well!

I also have a Chinchilla buck (pretty young still) and a mixed doe (about 1/4 or 1/8 Flemish, I'll have to look at the emails from the lady I bought them from).

I am loving the coloring of them, the temperament of the doe I currently have is pretty brutal though. She's pretty crazy. I was hoping to keep her long enough to get a few good offspring to see how they grow out and to use for breeding.

So... I have been told by fellow RT members that her markings are pretty decent, the coloring not bad, but smutty. The young guy I have is pretty light, and not as distinct of markings (more salt and pepper).

With what I currently have (and not having a clue what the kits are going to look like once they grow out)... where should I go from here? What will the NZW in the genes mean for the kits as breeders? I was totally expecting some color mixes and figured they would be meat anyway (and going by the doe and buck, hopefully good ones!), but seeing a nest full of chins has me curious. I still don't have a clue how the genetics work.

Do I keep the psycho doe and breed her with the young chin buck here in a few weeks? Try her mixes with him?

Here are a few pics of what I am working with:

Not sure which is which in these pics - 1 is the buck, 1 is the mixed doe (these were in the carriers from when I picked them up):









The psycho doe that just kindled and her kits:











Just for fun... Sweet boy NZW buck. Totally has me spoiled for rabbit temperament, although if they were all like him we would never actually send any to the freezer!:

 

[Dood]

The colour of the kits means that genetically the chin doe likely has two chinchilla genes and does not carry shaded, himilayan or REW and possibly that she carries two agouti genes and not a recessive self

Its highly unlikely that these kits will have their mothers good coat colour or pattern

If you want to try and meet the American Chinchilla SOP then ideally you should keep her around until you start getting good fur in your kits but since she is "psycho" I'd breed her one more time to the chin buck and would keep the best of this litter and the best of that litter to start your foundation

 

[FourRingCircus]

The colour of the kits means that genetically the chin doe likely has two chinchilla genes and does not carry shaded, himilayan or REW and possibly that she carries two agouti genes and not a recessive self

Its highly unlikely that these kits will have their mothers good coat colour or pattern

If you want to try and meet the American Chinchilla SOP then ideally you should keep her around until you start getting good fur in your kits but since she is "psycho" I'd breed her one more time to the chin buck and would keep the best of this litter and the best of that litter to start your foundation

Her personality is definitely not one I want to keep around :x . She lunged at me with both front feet today making it very known that she would rather be left alone (although, in that case, she's perfectly fine for meat rabbit breeding... it's a lot harder to get attached to one that is so moody).

__________ Sat Oct 03, 2015 2:31 pm __________

2 things:

One of the kits is much darker than all the others. The other 4 have definite light hairs mixed in with the dark... this one doesn't. Will it develop some later? They are just barely getting their hair so there's plenty of time, I was surprised for it to be so notably different though.

Also, the young buck pictured above looks like he is darkening up some?? Do they have Jr and Sr coats like some of the other breeds? His back is definitely a different shade than the rest of him.

Oh, one more thing... mama doe is settling down! Whew! That gives me hope for at least one more litter from her!

 

[Dood]

The REW might carry steel and the kits could be a silver tipped steel AKA steel chinchilla - picture please

I do notice some kits costs change drastically from 4 weeks to 6 months. Usually the pattern is there but the tone of black grey and white changes and/or they loose their "sootyness"

 

[FourRingCircus]

I got some pics, will get them posted shortly... working on supper now...

__________ Sat Oct 03, 2015 6:29 pm __________

Here's the young buck (born 6/10) - my eyes aren't playing tricks on me, are they? There is a side pic of him above and you don't see a difference like you can here...



And the kits... we've had 8" of rain and more coming so it's pretty overcast... hard to get a good pic of the shiny kits. Not to mention they are super wiggly and one kept trying to burrow in my jacket :roll:



I see in this one it doesn't have the white on the underside of it's tail...



Even the inside of the ears looks a touch darker...



__________ Sat Oct 03, 2015 6:30 pm __________

What does a steel chinchilla look like?

 

[Dood]

The buck is developing a very nice pattern I guess different bloodlines will develop their coats at different stages Not so good if you want to show as a junior or select which 8 week olds will be kept back this might be why mine can be reliably sorted at a younger age :shrug:

That kit is a steel.

They are chinchilla but also have the steel gene (Es_ ) which extends the dark band in the ring and has the opposite effect of non-extension (ee) which extends the white band in chinchillas and creates frosties/ermines

A side by side comparison of a steel chestnut that looks self black, a lighter steel chestnut, a meat mutt chinchilla that is too light and a steel chin

And different one of my steel chinchillas does

As you can see, the colour has a HUGE range and some can be so light they look like normal chinchilla (or chestnuts) except they will have grey bellies and under tail instead of white, and others can be so dark they look like self blacks which have become a problem in some "purebred" Silver Fox

 

[FourRingCircus]

The buck is developing a very nice pattern I guess different bloodlines will develops their coats at differ the stages Not so good if you want to show as a junior or select which 8 week olds will be kept back this might be why mine can be reliably sorted at a younger age :shrug:

Yay! That's exciting to hear. I don't plan on showing at this point, but if I am going to raise them I feel like I need goals to work towards. Of course, meat is #1, but for them, coloring will be a big plus if I can get it going!

That kit is a steel.

They are chinchilla but also have the steel gene (Es_ ) which extends the dark band in the ring and has the opposite effect of non-extension (ee) which extends the white band in chinchillas and creates frosties/ermines

Here is one of my steel chinchillas, the colour has a HUGE range and some can be so light they look like normal chinchilla (or chestnuts) except they will have grey bellies and under tail instead of white, and others can be so dark they look like self blacks which have become a problem in some "purebred" Silver Fox

And a side by side comparison

So steel=bad. It's most likely coming from the buck though, correct?

I'm antsy to breed her with the young buck from above and see what they can produce! If I stick with the 2 does and buck that I have I can start line breeding, correct? I still haven't fully figured out those logistics, but I do know from reading on here the line breeding and inbreeding are totally different.

Who knows, they might end up bumping out my NZs in the future if the meat production is up to par! I think their coats/colors are beautiful! <br /><br /> __________ Sat Oct 03, 2015 6:59 pm __________ <br /><br /> This is probably genetics 101, but if that one is steel, does that mean the others in the litter will be carrying that gene as well?

 

[Dood]

Steel only effects ring pattern so it can hide in colours that don't have one - REW, himilayan, BEW and self based rabbits

It is the most dominant colour on the E-locus so if an agouti based rabbit has a steel gene it is always visable in the coat and will hide the other E-locus genes : full colour "E", Japanese harlequin "ej" and non extension "e"

 

[Zass]

There is a ton of variation between steels. Just one copy of the gene can cause an agouti or chinchilla to look anywhere from almost correct, to all-the-way-self.

Because it's a dominant gene, visual chestnuts and chinchillas with proper color will never be able to fully hide it. I find it's easiest to identify in kits around the age you have there.
Nice white ears and belly= no steel gene. Yellowish, greyish or otherwise off-color ears and belly = steel.
Self looking kit,= maybe genetic self, maybe steel.

Pretty much impossible to tell the difference without an agouti based rabbit who isn't carrying self to test breed to.
I love showing off these two gold tipped steels, since they really display how different gold tipped steels can look:

[album]2379[/album]
[album]2378[/album]

The one who looks almost chestnut doesn't have eye circles, and his belly is yellowish grey instead of white. The other is just lightly ticked. The difference is made with modifiers.
Some rabbits have the modifiers to hide all of the agouti coloring and make them look all the way self. I think, those modifiers have been selected for in meat breeds, since so many have steel genes and it's unshowable in most meat breeds. I've seen lots of people simply cull the visual steels and sell or breed the "blacks" or "blues" in breeds like silverfox, NZ, and even americans.

So far as I as able to tell, ALL of these kits are steels since their father didn't even carry self:

[album]2250[/album]

 

[FourRingCircus]

There is a ton of variation between steels. Just one copy of the gene can cause an agouti or chinchilla to look anywhere from almost correct, to all-the-way-self.

Because it's a dominant gene, visual chestnuts and chinchillas with proper color will never be able to fully hide it. I find it's easiest to identify in kits around the age you have there.
Nice white ears and belly= no steel gene. Yellowish, greyish or otherwise off-color ears and belly = steel.
Self looking kit,= maybe genetic self, maybe steel.

Pretty much impossible to tell the difference without an agouti based rabbit who isn't carrying self to test breed to.
I love showing off these two gold tipped steels, since they really display how different gold tipped steels can look:

[album]2379[/album]
[album]2378[/album]

The one who looks almost chestnut doesn't have eye circles, and his belly is yellowish grey instead of white. The other is just lightly ticked. The difference is made with modifiers.
Some rabbits have the modifiers to hide all of the agouti coloring and make them look all the way self. I think, those modifiers have been selected for in meat breeds, since so many have steel genes and it's unshowable in most meat breeds. I've seen lots of people simply cull the visual steels and sell or breed the "blacks" or "blues" in breeds like silverfox, NZ, and even americans.

So far as I as able to tell, ALL of these kits are steels since their father didn't even carry self:

[album]2250[/album]

Thanks for the pics, both of you! I definitely need visuals... maybe one day I will somewhat understand all this. I am getting there... vvvveeeerrryyyyy slowly.

So the ears are a slightly different color like I thought? I didn't pay enough attention to the belly. I was supposed to be upstairs fixing supper but snuck away for a quick pic... then the camera died after 1 shot so I slogged back in (8 inches of rain in a week, 3 of which came last night... blech) and got my other one.

 

[Zass]

:lol: Maybe we should start at the beginning?
Steel is a gene (on the extension allele) that modifies how far up the hair shaft the base color is carried. You could also call it the genetic color. It would be either black, blue chocolate or lilac.

Steel can change things a little bit or a lot, depending on modifiers, but it's only visible on certain coats to begin with.

Mainly agouti colors (chestnut, opal, amber and lynx) and chinchilla colors, since chinchilla is just a variant on agouti.

Steel is the most dominant color on the extension allele, which means that it only requires one copy of the gene to be expressed visually.

Steel genes can't exist in a visual harlequin, tort, frosty, red or fawn, or even a properly marked chinchilla or chestnut since those colors all require two genes that are both more recessive than steel to create.

Could I see a belly pic of the kit with the dark tail-underside?

 

[FourRingCircus]

Did about 3.5 hours of "maintenance" today - whew! I am worn out! Got a few more pics though:

Kits:

Side by side with a littermate (obviously not the mama doe's fur... the basket I was using was left outside with all this rain and the rags were moldy, as was the basket :slap: so I just added some extra I had in for a quick pic):



Belly shots:





Young doe's latest coat - looks like it might be changing a bit as well?



Young Doe's shaft pattern (not sure what to call it?):



Young Buck's:

 

[Dood]

It's called "ring pattern" and neither have ones that match the American Chinchilla SOP

The doe has a cleaner white/Pearl band, but a faded black band and the definition between the 4 bands is blurry

The buck has a very sooty Pearl band and a faded black band

Here is a picture for reference from his site which also goes into detail on the ring colour of the 3 Chinchilla breeds - http://exclusivelyrabbits.blogspot.ca/2 ... a.html?m=1

 

[Zass]

Yep a silver tipped steel kit. Steel genes are very commonly carried by new zealand rabbits, so your rew is the first suspect for a carrier.

I think it can be tricky to spot chinchillas that are only lightly affected by steel but, I've yet to ever see one who had steel that was completely visually indistinguishable from a steel-free rabbit.

The hardest steel to visually ID for me was on a squirrel(blue chinchilla) doe, who was so lightly affected that the steel only showed up as reduced white markings, mainly noticeable on her feet and belly when compared directly to a squirrel without steel.

I think it was more noticeable on her as a kit.

 

[FourRingCircus]

Hmmm... I'm curious about the ring pattern on the other doe. I can definitely see the differences, thank you for that explanation! With the coat changing will those change at all with it? Definitely something to work on

I'm curious to see how the kits grow out - I can't wait to see what the patterns look like!

__________ Tue Oct 13, 2015 1:47 pm __________

Here are a couple attempts at pics of the mama doe. It was hard to hold her, aim/focus the camera, and blow into her fur all at the same time :roll: . I guess the lighting was better for the other two because they were a LOT easier to get the first time. Her hutch is tucked under some trees with a shade cloth as well so definitely a lot less light.

With flash...



Without... blurred from the hairs moving, but better overall coloring...



__________ Fri Oct 30, 2015 11:39 am __________

OK, so I finally ordered the ARBA SOP book (the discounted 2011-2015 one... not sure yet if it's worth the splurge to get the updated for the little information I need in it for now). Looking at the pics, I am wondering if I have 1 Am. Chin and 2 Standard Chins? Although, weight wise I am not sure... I'm curious now and am going to try and get out to weigh them this afternoon... <br /><br /> __________ Fri Dec 11, 2015 8:21 pm __________ <br /><br /> Small update - the little steel's coat is changing, and he (last I checked a 'he') is so pretty! And a chunker! He's caught up to and is passing the biggest of another litter that is 3 weeks older. I know steel isn't a desirable color, but I wonder if he would be worth keeping around for some good meat mutts...