Harlequin genetics questions

[Winterwolf]

I've seen quite a few harlequin and magpie English Angoras lately, but almost never see those colors in French Angora. After talking to a few other FA breeders, I became really interested in the idea of introducing harli colors into my FA lines -- possibly even getting harli FAs recognized by the ARBA in the future. My problem is that I do not know very much about harlequin genetics, so I have several questions:

1. Since the (ej) gene is recessive and does not exist in my FA lines, I would need to breed a harlequin to one of my rabbits and then breed two of the kits? (Most likely, the two kits with the best French Angora body/wool type.)

2. What color would I need to breed to? I currently have self, agouti, and tort in my breeding lines. (All of mine are black-based.)

3. What are the actual genotypes for Japanese and magpie harlequins?

 

[SableSteel]

The ARBA won't let harlequin become a variety in any breed except the breed Harlequin, so you won't be able to get harlequin FAs recognized. however they will allow tricolor CODs (and tricolor is just broken harlequin), so you could aim for that. I don't believe they don't allow either magpie or broken magpie in any breed (but Harlequin the breed).

Harlequin is recessive to most colors, but dominant to tort and fawn. If you breed to tort you can get a harlequin in one generation (harlequin EA x tort FA may produce harlequins) but when you breed tort or orange in you add a chance to create torted harlequins - where the orange sections on the face and ears have dark shading like on a tort. This is a DQ, and should be culled away from if you are wanting to develop good quality colored lines of harlequin/tricolor. You would keep the best harlie baby out of a harlie x tort pair, and preferably breed it back to a tort or fawn FA (as long as you have the gene in there, just work on getting back to FA type and wool before perfecting the color, and breeding straight back to FAs will improve the type much quicker though will get less harlies and more torts than in a harlie x harlie breeding.) If you want to make tricolors, you'd need to mix a broken tort or broken fawn in at some point.

The genotype of a black japanese harlequin is A_ B_ C_ D_ ej_ -there are variations though, the A gene can be at or a instead as long as the E gene is ejej and not eje. I would recommend finding a harlequin EA to work with to start you off instead of the breed harlequin, though. The genotype of a black magpie harlequin is just the chinchilla version of that - A_ B_ cchd_ D_ ej_