Color help please

[arexnamedfern]

#1 What color would you call her? (first two pictures)
#2 Harlequinized lilac?

And question #3 I have a chinchilla. I keep searching for color or genetics article to answer this question but haven't found the answer. What is a good color to cross her with, if I am hoping for more chinchilla?

Thanks for any help!

 

[Naelin]

Hello!
The girl in the first two pictures does look like a harlequin lilac <A_bbC_ddej_> or harlequin blue <A_B_C_ddej_> (I'm not familiar enough to distinguish between the two). "Harlequinized" is when the harlequin gene <ej> is recessive to something more dominant like full extension or steel, but the harlequin pattern shows a little bit through it. This one is very much showing the pattern all through, so it's just "harlequin"

Regarding the chinchilla...
Short answer: The best will be to pair her with another chinchilla, but pairing her with a sable, Himalayan or albino will also produce chinchilla kits.

Long answer:
Let me explain a bit about how to figure out what to mix her with to get more chinchillas:
Chinchilla is an allele of the "C" gene, called "c(chd)" or just chd. It is recessive to <C> (full colour) and dominant to <chl> (chinchilla light/sable), <ch> (Himalayan) and <c> (albino/REW).
This means that chd will show only if there are two copies (chdchd) or if paired with something recessive (chdch, chdc). This also means that your girl is one of those three variants (knowing their parents may help figure out which one).

For ease of the explanation let's assume she has two copies of <chd>.
- If paired with a full-colour rabbit, there's a 50% chance that the babies will be chinchillas if the buck carries only one copy of <C>, but none of the kits will be chinchilla if buck carries two copies of <C>.
- If paired with another chinchilla, the babies will be chinchilla (assuming at least one of the parents has two copies of <chd>)
- If paired with a sable, Himalayan or a red-eyed white, the babies will be chinchillas and carry a sable/himi/REW gene without showing it.

Now, if she carries only one copy of <chd>, she only has 50% chance of giving chinchilla to the kits. In this case, the kits will be chinchilla in...
- ...25% of the cases if paired with a buck that has 1 copy of <C> and 1 of something else
- ...100% of the kits if the buck carries 2 copies of <chd>
- ...50% of the kits if the buck is sable, Himalayan, REW or carries only 1 copy of chinchilla.

Extra consideration!
The chinchilla gene messes with the harlequin (<ej>) gene. If you pair her with a harlequin or tricolour buck, add to all the above that 25% of the babies (those that inherit both chinchilla and harlequin) will be "magpie", which looks like harlequin but with white instead of orange

 

[arexnamedfern]

Hello & thank-you!!!

Lilac harlequin sounds correct!

It was the rabbit in the 3rd picture (second rabbit, third picture lol) I wondered if he was "harlequinized lilac". He is similar color to his sister, #1, but you can only barley see the harlequin through his coat. In fact, his picture shows it alot more than real life.

I did not know any of that about breeding for chinchilla, thank-you! Very helpful. Both of her parents are chinchilla.

It seems that I will have to go buck shopping..
I have a blue buck (black jap harlequin sire, tort mom)
A chocolate magpie (orange dad, sable grandsire, black otter mom)
And a chocolate/orange tri (Above rabbit is his sire, black/orange mom)