So, if it's not rufus that makes copper (the Angora Standard of Perfection calls for a 'rufus red' surface color and a bright red-orange middle band), what makes copper different from chestnut agouti?her face looks copper
So, if it's not rufus that makes copper (the Angora Standard of Perfection calls for a 'rufus red' surface color and a bright red-orange middle band), what makes copper different from chestnut agouti?her face looks copper
No difference at all, red is a red agouti, A_ + ee + rufus modifiers, sorry for the confusion.What is the difference between red and red agouti?
I think it is fascinating that this all works like the dot matrix in a printer (or television). The printer only has three colors plus black to print dots on the paper. Yet our eyes see the nuances of skin tones and shadowing in the finished picture, even though those colors are not in the ink wells. When I did the magnification of the chestnut hairshaft, it was only black, then tan (yellow/fawn, whatever you want to call it), then a short section of intermixed. (The intermixed makes sense, if you have the hot water running in the sink, and turn off the faucet and turn on the cold--there will still be a little hot in the faucet before the straight cold water comes from the source). And finally, just the black again, but stretched out enough between melanin pigment packets (melanosomes) embedded in the hair keratin to look slate gray.They call for a tip color (which will be black for chestnut/castor/black agouti, chocolate for amber/chocolate agouti, blue for opal and lilac for lynx), then the surface color, which is 'rich chestnut' for black agouti, the yellow band, and the base color
I didn't actually know angoras recognized both chestnut and copper (and now I do - thank you!). Looking at the standard, it sounds like in angoras, copper is a high-rufus wideband color similar to the Belgian Hare. Hares have the intense rufus colorarion and the reddened agouti markings and belly that usually comes from the wideband allele. Do you find that copper angoras have red bellies instead of cream? The standard is silent on that detail.So, if it's not rufus that makes copper (the Angora Standard of Perfection calls for a 'rufus red' surface color and a bright red-orange middle band), what makes copper different from chestnut agouti?
I've found that steel doesn't always remove agouti markings completely; there seems to be a real range of effect in that regard. I try not to breed steels so I don't have more information on that, but I think there are clues about what's happening in that GBF chart describing the interaction of E(S) with other E and A series alleles https://www.gbfarm.org/rabbit/steel-phenotype-chart.shtmlWouldn't the steel E(S) gene also remove the agouti markings? Wild gray chestnuts look just like regular chestnuts, with all the agouti markings, and usually chestnut-looking hair on the face, except the dark tip and tan band is tiny like a steel, and the rest of the fiber is gray.
Good question, I don't know the answer, I don't have any coppers, but I'd sure love to have so much rufus that it colored the belly like a Belgian hare!Do you find that copper angoras have red bellies instead of cream?
Great questions - I'm looking forward to hearing what @reh says!Sorry to ask so many questions, but I want to get this right. @reh could you explain the process of how non-extension ee really works? It seems to turn off the eumelanin (black, blue, chocolate, lilac) and pigments with pheomelanin (yellow/red/orange/cream/fawn) instead. I've seen fawn agouti rabbits where the black tipping was retained, and know that many breeders cross their fawn/red rabbits with chocolate to eliminate that and have clear fawn colors. How does that occur, and how can the chocolate help? Below is face hair from a red Satin Angora doe, it looks fairly evenly red, although the body hair is quite a bit lighter (lighter than I'd like).
View attachment 39597
Wideband ww just doubles the width of the yellow band, would that be enough to account for the black tipped fawn agouti rabbits, just plain agouti plus wideband and no non-extension, or is there something else involved?
This makes sense, I've been suspecting chocolate genetics as a possible cause of the poor color depth on the hairshaft as well. It would make sense, since catalase B is an enzyme that revs up (is a catalyst) melanin production. Without it, the color is more anemic, just brown. The bb recessive disables catalase B as I understand it, so the color is brown. If you want a deep rich color, black seems to be the way to go.I've noticed a slight lessening of the intensity of color
Thank you @reh for your reply, I appreciate that. So, I checked a regular chestnut agouti to compare (see photo below)--I noticed two differences:The agouti band in guard hairs is usual lighter as in down hair.
Just had a thought. They make white (or nearly white) masking tape. Maybe put some of that, sticky side up, and then you can just stick the individual hairs down to that and make them behave?Thank you @reh for your reply, I appreciate that. So, I checked a regular chestnut agouti to compare (see photo below)--I noticed two differences:
View attachment 39642
- The agouti bands were all wider in the normal chestnut. The black tips were longer in the chestnut, and the orange (fawn, yellowish) band wider as well. In the wild gray, the narrower pearl band was closer to the tip and the tip was shorter. It's hard to see that since they aren't side by side in these photos, and the wild gray photos are enlarged more, so you can't compare widths very well just from the photos. I couldn't wrestle them down to take a photo together, I'll keep working on that.
- The chestnut had much more color in the middle band, even though the individual hair was small, you could still the orange coloring.
So, I checked a wideband chocolate agouti (that has high rufus, being out of a red) and saw that the middle orange band was dramatically wider than the chestnut agouti, no comparison. So the chestnut has a normal width, this chocolate agouti a much wider width, and the wild gray a narrower (and paler) width. This is a photo of the entire length of the wideband chocolate agouti fiber:
View attachment 39644
So far, I've checked two wideband chocolate agoutis, two normal chestnuts, and two wild grays, and all followed this same pattern. It's still too small of a sample to make any real conclusions, but I find it quite interesting. Anyone else have a normal chestnut, wild gray or wideband agouti they can check?
Great idea! I'll give it a try.Just had a thought. They make white (or nearly white) masking tape. Maybe put some of that, sticky side up, and then you can just stick the individual hairs down to that and make them behave?
What a fabulous idea, that is so helpful. Thank you!I do have ticking/silvering/agouting banding in my herd to share. I have attached the fiber photo to the photo of each rabbit in hopes of keeping them straight.
Ah, finally, a real good test to distinguish steel (which is an agouti variation) from silvering (which is what Silver Fox have)! If you click on the photo and use the 'enlarge' button, look close at the tips of the hairs from the doe, you can see that there is a short black tip, then the short silvery section, and then the hair is dark again. When you just look at the doe, all you notice is the silver tipping. But the closeup of the individual hair shows the black tip and the silver band and the dark undercolor. It's steel banding on an agouti rabbit.This is my previous black doe with ticking I was told was silver fox, but she at least has it I. Her bloodline because he kids have silver hair as well as ticking/banding.
So, it's actually only her guard hairs that are tipped/banded. The majority of her hair is only a light band and a darker top, which was in the discussion about depth of color on the hair shaft. Which is what I though extension was on the E allele. Extension of the color at all on the actual fiber. Her son is agouti banded on his actual fiber, not just the guard hairs. He has both some solid silver guard hairs, and guard hairs that look exactly like hers, dark bottom, silver band, dark tips.Ah, finally, a real good test to distinguish steel (which is an agouti variation) from silvering (which is what Silver Fox have)! If you click on the photo and use the 'enlarge' button, look close at the tips of the hairs from the doe, you can see that there is a short black tip, then the short silvery section, and then the hair is dark again. When you just look at the doe, all you notice is the silver tipping. But the closeup of the individual hair shows the black tip and the silver band and the dark undercolor. It's steel banding on an agouti rabbit.
When @Alaska Satin tested the silvering gene in Champagne d' Argent rabbits, she noticed that there was NO tipping, just solid white guard hairs mixed through the coat, even though when you blow into the coat, you'd swear there was tipping.
View attachment 39696
So, there is a gene called 'extension', coded 'E', that tells the pigment factories when to switch from the dark tip, to a yellowish band (which is silvery in chinchillas because the chinchilla gene closes down the yellow pigment), and then back to the dark color again. It is called 'extension' because its job is to determine how far to extend the dark color down the hairshaft. Steel makes short work of the dark tip and middle band, so all the rest of the hair can be dark. It is dominant over 'normal' wild rabbit agouti color (like chestnut agouti), but it only works on rabbits with the agouti gene. Non-agouti colors like self black, chocolate, blue, lilac can carry the gene, but don't express it.
yes, the agouti band has nothing to do with brown bBB(can chestnut orange banding appear if there is no recessive b?)
chinchilla do not influence the banding itself, but the color of the agouti bandCChd (I'm unclear the different between agouti and cchd when it comes to banding on guard hairs vs color with bands, but she had that agouti son whom appears cchd to me as he grew)
looks like steel to me. There is nothing preventing steels to be silvered too and there are silvers with fairly few silvering.Es_ (EEs?, or would she be considered (Ese) for tort with the light base on her fur?)
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