English Spot color possibilities

[TeaTimeBunnies]

Okay so I don't really know a whole lot about rabbit color genetics, and I'm not really sure how there work. I have black English Spots and gold English Spots. There is also chocolate in the ancestry of a few of them. When I breed a black to a gold (or Visa versa) I only seem to get black or gold babies. Are these two colors all I'm likely to see in my bunnies?

 

[SableSteel]

Most likely yes. From talking to english spot breeders that breed blacks & golds, that's what seems to be consensus. How this is explained (the fact that grays and torts rarely show up from crosses like this, or that golds pop up out of two blacks)? English spots have some weird stuff going on in the E locus genetically. I've even heard that grays are selectively bred steels but I don't have enough experience with spots to confirm if this is true. Of course if they carry other genes, you could get pretty much any other color

 

[TeaTimeBunnies]

Okay. I wonder if since 3/4 of my herd has chocolate in their ancestry if maybe a tort could show up? Obviously I'd never know if it was black, but could it be possible to have a gold tort that's chocolate based? Like I said though, I'm still at a point with my spots where I have no clue how their genetics work. It seems to work differently than other rabbit breeds

 

[SableSteel]

chocolate in the ancestry makes it more likely for chocolates or chocolate based golds (which are usually showable, but not as desirable as black based golds) to pop up

 

[TeaTimeBunnies]

Okay. So another question, I've noticed that on my black doe (has most chocolate in ancestry) has what looks to me as brown in her ears, could this be something of her chocolate genetics showing itself, or just some sun bleaching? I noticed it when I got her in February, and it hasn't changed at all so I'm curious about it. Also, how would I be able to tell the difference between a chocolate based gold and a black based gold? <br /><br /> __________ Sun Jul 23, 2017 9:52 am __________ <br /><br /> So I've had a thought an wanted to know if anyone could tell me something about it. If I were to cross two gold rabbits with chocolate ancestry, would that possibly increase the chance of getting some chocolate coloring in the kits?

 

[SableSteel]

No, by breeding two golds together you can never get blacks or chocolates, black & chocolate is dominant to gold

 

[TeaTimeBunnies]

Okay. English Spots are rather strange to me. Because I got a gold kit out of a cross between a gold buck and black doe (no gold in ancestry), but black is supposed to be dominant.... maybe I'll figure this out one day