Dirty coloured face- why?

[user4482]

Hi
I ended up buying the young orange buck that I had pictured in another thread (re: its possible gentic make up)
But when I saw it live I was a bit confused and still am by its rather dirty looking face. If my puppy dog looked like that Id think it had been burying its dinner inn the garden.

Ive looked through lots of bunny pics and haven't seen another with a horrible dirty face, can someone enlighten me as to why its got such a yucky looking face

 

[Dood]

Looks like your rabbit is a very "smutty"
fawn

Stray black hairs are not wanted in fawns so most breeders cull them and they certainly wouldn't be showing them off on the internet as examples of their stock

 

[Miss M]

I agree, he doesn't look dirty at all... I think that's smut.

It may be undesirable, like Dood said, but it has made a cute shape on his face. Reminds me of those big mustaches men wore a long time ago.

 

[Zass]

Yep, smut.

 

[user4482]

So what is "smut" (I assume from one of the posts that its dark hairs)

why/how does that happen,

will it pas it on?

Sorry for all the questions but as a total newb I don't have any idea of things colour related

 

[ohiogoatgirl]

my understanding is that smut is 'off' or 'dirty' or any 'wrongness' to the color vs according to standard. like breeding X rabbit to Y rabbit that the color genes don't match up 'nicely' so you get a couple rabbits maybe with decent color/marking and a couple with bad to terrible color/markings.

 

[Zass]

Smut is just genetics. It's a little black hair showing up on your orange.

Yes, he has a chance to pass some on to kits, especially other oranges. It won't show up on all colors.

I don't believe that smut is treated as the biggest concern with breeding though. Type and fur or wool quality are more important.

I know I wouldn't would refuse to consider a very typey rabbit with a bit of smut, but, if I had two nice typey rabbits, one smutty and one not.
I'd keep the one with less smut with the eventual goal of working it out of the herd. Something like that.

Oh, and breeding chocolate based reds or oranges can help hide smut in a line.