Color ID request

[Ferra]

I was wondering if someone could give me a hand identifying this coloration.

I was pretty sure when this doe was 1-2 weeks old that she was a little chestnut - but she never developed an agouti midband all her "color" stayed in the tips, and her base color is a medium-grey. So then I thought steel... but all her agouti markings (Eye, belly, etc) are still clear as day, and I was pretty sure a steel wouldn't have those...

I'm starting to get suspicious that she's some sort of sable-based color... but I've never actually seen a sable-based color in the flesh. I couldn't be sure.



As I know Cchl varies based on what's paired with it, she is absolutely a ? c, as her sire is a REW. I'm still sussing out her dam, but she has a dominant C and her recessive is still unknown but is likely a chinchilla gene of some variety, as I got a magpie harlequin kit out of this same litter.

 

[Nyctra]

Sable/shaded agouti would look like a chinchilla, but faded.
The mane gene does some weird stuff to agouti, but that certainly looks like a chestnut lion to me.

 

[Zass]

I wouldn't know a sable agouti on looks, but, if it had a magpie litter mate, it could be a harlequinized chestnut.

 

[Ferra]

Thanks Nyctra! I'm going to have to watch that in the future; as it stands, about half my kits have been "wooly". They're little mutts, but it seems really likely that there is some lionhead contribution in there somewhere.


Zass: I'd kinda discarded that possibility, based on my "best guesses" from the genetics. The dam is visually E ej, and the sire is a REW - however 5 of 8 kits were visual harlequins/magpies, just over half, so I presumed him ee... I had figured that if she inherited the ej gene, it would have presented as harlequin, due to the most plausible genotype of my buck.

I am making some assumptions... it is completely possible my buck, sold as a NZW, COULD Be some sort of genetic pastiche and carry his own copy of the ej gene, an ej e or something of the ilk, then a harlequin chestnut would be entirely possible... I guess I can't rule it out, really. :hmm:

 

[SableSteel]

It looks like a chestnut to me

 

[alforddm]

What does his belly look like? It's possible for steels to have eye rings. It's not terribly common but it can happen.

If the sire is REW it's possible he is Ese, especially if you only have the one litter. Genetics can be funny sometimes. I've gotten all REW litters when statistically, they should have 1/2 been colored.

 

[Ferra]

Her belly is a nice white color: No sign of the grey brindling that gives away her mother's status as a harlequin carrier. She does have some odd looking orange patches on her feet, though. And it's not the lighting in this photo, oddly: She's lightened up a lot in the flanks.

But this little girl keeps getting weirder coloured as she gets older. She's 8 weeks and 3 days now. I'm deciding who to grow out from this litter, as I DO want to replace my original does at some point... She's the smallest in the litter, but I'm wondering if I should invest the $6 in food for another month or two, and see how she turns out.

 

[twr]

oddly: She's lightened up a lot in the flanks.

I think this is just the normal evolution of a (probably single-maned) agouti lionhead. The mane (and skirt) of a maned agouti is black, and as your bun has aged it is losing some of the dark mane-related hairs (especially the skirt hairs on the flanks), revealing the normal agouti pattern underneath.

For a slightly more extreme example, see here on the rabbitcolors site. Machine-translated from the German, the relevant bit of the text reads:

Lion head (without wedge) with typical pronounced mane in the youth age, which is later almost completely lost.

There are a couple of pics at different stages of development. "without wedge" presumably refers to a lack of the v-shaped marking (only visible on very young kits) that would indicate the rabbit was double-maned.

 

[SableSteel]

Is it satinized?