I recently acquired a young creme d'argent doe at our county fair. I have no intention of breeding cremes for competition, I just wanted a new a doe for meat.
I am curious what colors I may get if I breed the creme to one of out Californians. Our calis have been pure for at least 20 generations or so. I do not have a pedigree for the creme, however knowing the breeder she is probably mostly pure maybe with a cal thrown in a few generations back.
I also have my black and orange tri-color Rex that I could breed to her. I have no pedigree for him, i know that he is black and orange tri and that the breeder that mix for shows.
So, what colors do you guys think might appear if I were to breed the creme to ether of the bucks.
Using the leporidae game, which is usually pretty accurate for genetics, this is what there genetics could possibly look like.
Creme d'argent.
AA BB CC DD ee enen SiSi VV WW DuDu
Californian
aa BB chch DD EE enen SiSi VV WW DuDu
Tri-Color
aa BB CC DD ejej Enen SiSi VV WW DuDu PP LL rxrx StS
The genotype your calculator gave you for the Creme D'Argent is an ideal, except that the <
SiSi> is not right. As I'm sure you know, a Creme is a silvered rabbit, and silvered rabbits are typically <
sisi>, or at the very least <
Sisi>. (The silvering allele is partially dominant, but it's still notated with lower case letters.) Good Cremes are probably also a wideband color like other orange rabbits; she may also be <
ww> rather than <
WW>.
So, the ideal Creme genotype would probably be
<AA BB CC DD ee enen sisi ww>. However, since all but one of the pertinent loci are dominant alleles in a Creme (the exception is the non-extension <
ee> and possibly the <
ww>), and you don't know your doe's lineage, there could be any number of recessives hiding in there. IMO a more reasonable genotype would be <
A_B_C_D_ ee enen sisi W_> or <
A_B_C_D_ ee enen sisi ww>.
If you've been breeding Cals for 20 generations with nothing funny popping out, I'd say the genotype <
aa BB c(h)c(h) DD EE enen SiSi> is a good bet.
For your tricolor buck, the calculator again gave you one possible ideal genotype. A tricolor
could be homozygous for all the color alleles, but then again, he could be heterozygous at one or several of them. He could be agouti <
A_> or <
AA>, and if so he could be either <
e(j)e(j)> or
e(j)e>. If he's <
aa> he would also need to be homozygous <
e(j)e(j)> since a self with one dominant copy of the
e(j) is a torted tri. The only thing I'd feel sure about is that he's a broken <
Enen> and has at least one copy of the harlequin allele. (If you happen to know his parents were both selfs, then you could feel pretty confident that he's <
aa e(j)e(j)>.) And although he's black, full color, and dense colored, he could easily carry a recessive at one or more of the B, C and D loci. So your buck might be <
aa B_ C_ D_ ejej Enen>, or he might be <
Aa B_ C_ D_ e(j)_ Enen>.
Having so many potential recessives possibly in play, it seems pretty difficult to predict exactly what you'd get out of either pairing, but because you know more about your Cal buck, the Creme doe bred with the Cal buck might be a little easier to predict than the Creme x Tri.
Creme x Cal:
- You'd get agoutis - all agoutis if the doe is <
AA>, or agoutis and selfs if she's <
Aa>, which she could be if she's got a Cal in the background.
- They'd all be full-color C carrying himi <
Cc(h)> if she's actually <
CC>; but if she's heterozygous at the C locus you might get chinchillas or self chins, sables or sable agoutis, agouti himis, or himis, depending on what's in second place at C.
- Since your Cal buck very likely is homozygous for dense color <
DD>, you probably wouldn't see any dilutes, but the Creme might have a hidden <
d> that she could give to her kits to carry.
- All of the kits should be full extension carrying non-extension <
Ee>.
- All of the kits should be black-based <
B_>. But the Creme could carry chocolate <
Bb>, or even be chocolate-based <
bb>, as many breeders of red and orange rabbits prefer a chocolate-based color (basically because chocolate smut doesn't show up nearly as much as black smut).
Creme x Tri:
The only thing I'd feel confident about is that probably some of the litter - maybe half, but maybe more or less than that - would be broken colored. The rest would be a guessing game depending on the heterozygosity or homozygosity of the A, B, C, D and E loci.
- The bunnies would probably be black-based, but could carry, or even be, chocolate, if one or both parents carry chocolate.
- You might see agoutis, harlequinized agoutis, harlequins, tris or torted tris, or even reds or torts depending on what's in second place at the parents' A and E loci.
- You'd probably get dense color kits, but also might see dilutes if both parents carry dilute.
- The bunnies might be full color <
C_>, or they might be chinchilla, self chin, sable, himi, or the agouti versions of sable or himi, or even REW, depending on what's in second place at the parents' C loci.
