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?
Close-up hair photos for banding/ticking
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No difference at all, red is a red agouti, A_ + ee + rufus modifiers, sorry for the confusion.
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.
So, the eye must merge the black tips and tan band of the overlapping hairs, into 'chestnut', like the dot matrix. So you blow into the coat, see the chestnut, see the tan, see the slate, even though that's not what is on an individual hairshaft, it's fascinating.
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.
As far as I knew until a few moments ago, the only breeds that recognized a copper variety were Satins and Mini Satins. I have always thought that the difference between copper and chestnut was just the satin mutation. Wideband copper Satins are faulted for the resulting banding pattern and color (which was always kind of disappointing because I prefer that brighter color). I've had reds and chestnuts come out of crossing Satins with other breeds, and they are pretty typical of the colors in other breeds.
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.shtmlOkay, so another question--I think the normal active-growth period for rabbit hair is about six-weeks, but for Angora rabbits it stretches out to double that (about 13 weeks). Does the melanophore that produces the little melanin pigment packets (melanosomes) have a limited amount of melanin to work with? Is that why some of the long angora fibers get so pale near the base, or is that an effect of a different genetics? (some noted that chocolate was sometimes bad for causing paler base color, others suspect the non-extension gene, which usually has a white base instead of darker color).
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!
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).
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?
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?
Great questions - I'm looking forward to hearing what @reh says!
Regarding using chocolate to clear up smutty reds, there may be some physiological reason as well, but the thought is that chocolate smut is simply harder to see than black smut! (That's based on the lower contrast between chocolate and red, versus black and red.) I can tell you this is true; I've seen reds called "clear" but if you look closely, you can definitely see the chocolate lacing on the ears, especially.
So in my opinion they're taking a shortcut to getting showable reds, but not necessarily cleaning up the smut at all. I'm not a fan of this approach because I've noticed a slight lessening of the intensity of color in the choc-based reds, as well as subtle changes in little details, e.g. they lose those dreamy doe eyes with long thick black lashes that black-based reds have. Of course that doesn't matter on the show table, but I love my pretty pretty rabbits.
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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'm currently stuck with all chocolate/fawn harlequins, and the difference between those and the deep rich black/fawn rabbits is amazing. It's hard to even see the pattern on the chocolate/fawn rabbits after they are grown. We lost the good black-based harlies in a predator attack, and their loss has surely been seen in the last crop of kits. Will have to find a good black to breed into the line and eventually fix this.
The red Satin Angoras have the same problem, all chocolate based colors. The color is definitely not the deep rich Irish Setter red I am looking for, and this seems to be the reason--chocolate instead of black. Thanks so much for your insight, it is a big help. It would also explain the rufus affinity for chocolate. True black is such a dense color (I believe I read that it is the most intense pigment in existence) that adding rufus to it still leaves it black, but adding rufus to the less vivid chocolate allows the rufus to show through, which is why my high-rufus chocolate agoutis look almost red. I always wondered why rufus interacted with chocolate but not black.
I was editing some hair sample photos, and noticed something else that may affect the wild gray chestnut color. I think I now know why the color looks so gray overall. In the chestnut agouti rabbits, the middle yellow (fawn/orange) band really looks yellowish But the wild gray samples I had, looked so pale as to be almost pearly. They aren't chinchillas, they still have the chestnut patterning with the yellow tones on the face--but not in the wool bands. I thought it was odd when I saw it on the first doe, although she has lost most of the fawn colors (which once were quite rich) even on her face. But when I found it on the second doe with a very 'chestnut' face, I was totally surprised.
You would swear that was a chinchilla pearl band, but here's this doe's face:
So why are the yellow bands not yellow in the main body hairs of a wild gray?
You would swear that was a chinchilla pearl band, but here's this doe's face:
So why are the yellow bands not yellow in the main body hairs of a wild gray?
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 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:
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?
kusanar314
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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?
Great idea! I'll give it a try.
Ok, I cannot keep up with the genetic allele naming yet, but 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.
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. She's close to 3.5 years best guess.
Here is the parted view of her fiber on her back.
This is her dark chinchilla son. He's 11 months old. And throws lots of agouti/chin/otter babies. Even the broken created with my broken lop are rarely solid black spots, they have banding on the spots.
Here are 2 growouts from the same doe above. They are only 8 weeks old, and the coat had changed dramatically already.
This one has clear banding, with an orange layer. This is very similar to what the above chld looked like before he reached the 4 month mark.
This kit has less obvious banding, some silver near the tips, as well as some solid silver hairs starting to develop.
This is from a spot on my broken black doe. She has the same Sire as the dark chld that's 11 months old. Her dam is a broken lop.
And this is my newest barn Bun. I traded a friend to mix up the bloodline a bit, and introduce brown to my herd. Excluding rhe orange banding on the chld as they grow out, I have only black bases so far.
His dam was a Cinnamon, I may have a photo of her somewhere and his Sire was I believe a full NZ REW.
My goal is to start coming up with their alleles as I breed different crosses and see if I can't nail them down for purposeful breeding pairs and consistent outcomes down the line. One hurdle I have is understanding which dominants are most dominant across the alleles.
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. She's close to 3.5 years best guess.
Here is the parted view of her fiber on her back.
This is her dark chinchilla son. He's 11 months old. And throws lots of agouti/chin/otter babies. Even the broken created with my broken lop are rarely solid black spots, they have banding on the spots.
Here are 2 growouts from the same doe above. They are only 8 weeks old, and the coat had changed dramatically already.
This one has clear banding, with an orange layer. This is very similar to what the above chld looked like before he reached the 4 month mark.
This kit has less obvious banding, some silver near the tips, as well as some solid silver hairs starting to develop.
This is from a spot on my broken black doe. She has the same Sire as the dark chld that's 11 months old. Her dam is a broken lop.
And this is my newest barn Bun. I traded a friend to mix up the bloodline a bit, and introduce brown to my herd. Excluding rhe orange banding on the chld as they grow out, I have only black bases so far.
His dam was a Cinnamon, I may have a photo of her somewhere and his Sire was I believe a full NZ REW.
My goal is to start coming up with their alleles as I breed different crosses and see if I can't nail them down for purposeful breeding pairs and consistent outcomes down the line. One hurdle I have is understanding which dominants are most dominant across the alleles.
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What a fabulous idea, that is so helpful. Thank you!
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.
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.
You can compare the fiber sample from her son:
With the doe's sample:
On her son, the silvery band below the tips is quite noticeable, makes a visible band. But on the doe, without the closeup magnification, you don't even see that tiny little band near the tip in a side view. You only see it on the surface as 'tipping' (even though technically the very tip is actually dark).
With the doe's sample:
On her son, the silvery band below the tips is quite noticeable, makes a visible band. But on the doe, without the closeup magnification, you don't even see that tiny little band near the tip in a side view. You only see it on the surface as 'tipping' (even though technically the very tip is actually dark).
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.
I will have to go back and get fiber from the other 3 of her 8 week olds currently out there. Some are agouti banded, so appear to just be tipped. Now I'm curious!
OK, let's talk alleles then... if her guard hairs are banded, does that mean she would be:
Aat(does at otter work with Agouti? She us clearly otter marked on eyes/feet/belly, but I believe she has thrown a non agouti otter kit as well. I'll have to go back and check).
BB(can chestnut orange banding appear if there is no recessive b?)
CChd (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)
DD
Es_ (EEs?, or would she be considered (Ese) for tort with the light base on her fur?)
Enen because I believe her first litter with my broken buck had broken kits.
Now I need to go back and organize my litter photos checking birth records and label them. I should be labeling photos as I take them, remembering is not easy!
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reh
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yes, the agouti band has nothing to do with brown b
chinchilla do not influence the banding itself, but the color of the agouti band
looks like steel to me. There is nothing preventing steels to be silvered too and there are silvers with fairly few silvering.
ESe would have way fewer ticking and ee has nothing to do with light undercolor.
They mostly look like agoutis, some with steel, some not. I think you may even have Sable Chinchillas.
I have Amchins/Silver Fox crosses who are sable based steels too. The steel gene and the normal extension dark used to be considered the same gene because they both darken the rabbit's appearance. But further science has discovered them to be different. Es is steel, Ed is extension dark. Es causes ticking, and is generally only expressed in agouti markings. The steel gene also causes the base color to extend up thd shaft to the ticking. The Ed gene just darkens the basic color, but does not remove the agouti banding.
The silvering gene is on a completely different locus tree, and is not an extension gene. So you can have silvering and steel on the same rabbit. I have two of them myself.
Si = no silvering, si = minimal silvering, si2 = desired silvering and si3 = is over silvered. A rabbit can be any combination of silvering from Sisi = minimal silvering, sisi/Sisi2 is desired for Silver Foxes, to si3si3 maximum silvering desired for d'argents.
The silvering gene causes scattered white hairs that should be dispersed in an even pattern. The silvering gene also causes the base color near the skin to turn a kind of shiny silvery grey color and is best seen on self coats. Silver Foxes are bred with the steel gene and the silvering gene in order to darken the base silvery color and still allow the silvering gene to express.
I also have the half sister to those silvered sable STSs, who does not have the steel gene, but instead got the wideband expression(ww). She is a light silvery color with wide agouti markings on Chinchilla dark(cchd_), not Sable(chinchilla light, cchl_). Her base color is black, but the silvering gene causes her banding to be a silvery grey and the wideband gene causes her white markings to be wider.
I bred her to a SF/NZ who looks like a Silver Fox with minimal ticking. She gave me kits that I swear had SF standing fur, and silvered between medium and too much. The chinchilla phenotypes between them were all silvered too, but no wideband. Some got steel extended, some had normal extension.
Steels who are also non-extension(Es+e = Ese)will be solid looking at birth, and start getting the ticking at about 8 weeks old. The steel gene in these non-extension kits will slowly consume the rabbit's fur from the belly/bottom up.
If the steel gene is on full color(C_) the rabbit will get gold tipping. On chin dark(cchd), the tipping will be very whitish silver, on chin light(cchl), and himi(cch) the rabbit will have dull whitish silver tipping.
If you get a rabbit who has two copies of the steel gene, it will appear as a black self, and unlikely to get any tipping. The homozygous affect of the double steel (super steel = EsEs) wipes out the banding and the ticking. The only way to test for super steels is to breed to a non-steel agouti. If all the kits are steels, the solid black is actually a super steel.
I have Amchins/Silver Fox crosses who are sable based steels too. The steel gene and the normal extension dark used to be considered the same gene because they both darken the rabbit's appearance. But further science has discovered them to be different. Es is steel, Ed is extension dark. Es causes ticking, and is generally only expressed in agouti markings. The steel gene also causes the base color to extend up thd shaft to the ticking. The Ed gene just darkens the basic color, but does not remove the agouti banding.
The silvering gene is on a completely different locus tree, and is not an extension gene. So you can have silvering and steel on the same rabbit. I have two of them myself.
Si = no silvering, si = minimal silvering, si2 = desired silvering and si3 = is over silvered. A rabbit can be any combination of silvering from Sisi = minimal silvering, sisi/Sisi2 is desired for Silver Foxes, to si3si3 maximum silvering desired for d'argents.
The silvering gene causes scattered white hairs that should be dispersed in an even pattern. The silvering gene also causes the base color near the skin to turn a kind of shiny silvery grey color and is best seen on self coats. Silver Foxes are bred with the steel gene and the silvering gene in order to darken the base silvery color and still allow the silvering gene to express.
I also have the half sister to those silvered sable STSs, who does not have the steel gene, but instead got the wideband expression(ww). She is a light silvery color with wide agouti markings on Chinchilla dark(cchd_), not Sable(chinchilla light, cchl_). Her base color is black, but the silvering gene causes her banding to be a silvery grey and the wideband gene causes her white markings to be wider.
I bred her to a SF/NZ who looks like a Silver Fox with minimal ticking. She gave me kits that I swear had SF standing fur, and silvered between medium and too much. The chinchilla phenotypes between them were all silvered too, but no wideband. Some got steel extended, some had normal extension.
Steels who are also non-extension(Es+e = Ese)will be solid looking at birth, and start getting the ticking at about 8 weeks old. The steel gene in these non-extension kits will slowly consume the rabbit's fur from the belly/bottom up.
If the steel gene is on full color(C_) the rabbit will get gold tipping. On chin dark(cchd), the tipping will be very whitish silver, on chin light(cchl), and himi(cch) the rabbit will have dull whitish silver tipping.
If you get a rabbit who has two copies of the steel gene, it will appear as a black self, and unlikely to get any tipping. The homozygous affect of the double steel (super steel = EsEs) wipes out the banding and the ticking. The only way to test for super steels is to breed to a non-steel agouti. If all the kits are steels, the solid black is actually a super steel.
