eye color and hidden color

[Zinnia]

In my rabbitry I have several Opal juniors out of a few different does and bucks, so they are not all the same lines... They started out with blue-gray eyes. By the time they got to be about 3 months old, (at least this is when I noticed it) some of them have changed to brown eyes.

In the changed rabbits, I know they carry Chocolate for certain. In the ones that have not changed (still blue-gray), there is a good chance they are all BB. Is there a connection here? Could it be that wrong eye color could be due to the hidden color?

 

[Zass]

I've seen a red cast on the eyes of black rabbits that were out of chocolate lines, I'm pretty sure...

 

[akane]

Hidden genes can cause eye color changes. Rabbits carrying chinchilla but not expressing it often still get blue-grey eyes. Sometimes to the point people think they are carrying vienna (BEW). I haven't seen a problem with chocolate carriers but then the rabbits I had who came out chocolate from those lines didn't really have red to their eyes like I've heard in some others.

 

[Zass]

Hmm, my chocolate carrying opals all still had blue grey eyes. I've had lots of those. I haven't had any opals that didn't carry chocolate, so I can't really compare.

 

[Dood]

I haven't noticed a different eye colour in my black AmChins who are known to carry chocolate and those who don't :shrug:

All of my chins and self chins have blueish grey eyes when they open but in about 70% of them the eyes darken to brown by 10 weeks the others keep their blueish eye colour

 

[skysthelimit]

Interesting.

i'll let you know in a week or two, I have 10 day old opal kits from my Choco Agouti x Opal breeding.

 

[TF3]

I'm curious!
I am watching my siamese sable grow up and I often see reference to a ruby sheen in the eye and it being acceptable... my doe has blue-gray eyes, very like my blue and lilac buns, which makes me wonder how that relates to the final coloring (depth etc) she will have.

 

[skysthelimit]

As far as I can tell, eye color doesn't seem to affect body color, but body color does affect eye color. I have chins with all kinds of eye color, blue gray, gray, brown, amber. Some differ in body color and some don't. I also have some that have chocolate in the chin line, but don't have a ruby cast to the chin eye. The body color difference is explained by which line, those that have the chocolate chin also have a Chestnut in the line, which causes smut, and heavier black surface color. The lighter ones have a wideband gene. Both groups have the range of eye colors.


All my Siamese Sables have brown eyes with a ruby cast. The Sable Rex and the Siamese Sable JW have completely different body colors, mostly because of Rex furring, but specifically because of the modifiers present in the breeds. I could in theory lighten the Rex coat to something similiar with the right modifiers.