Color genetics has always been fascinating to me. It’s one of the reasons I raise rabbits. I raise standard Rex and have had most of the possible colors, except sable and Californian. So I know that my rabbits carry all the major alleles: [A at a B b C c D d E ej] except chd and ch and ED or ES.
The expression of the ej allele is the most confusing to me. I got a Harlequin buck, even though harlequin is not a recognized variety in Rex, so that I could have tri color rabbits. I started by breeding the buck to broken red does. This has given me: red, broken red, tricolor, and harlequin. The genotype in the first few generations has been eje but I may have some that are ejej by now since I have bred harlequin to tri color that is a possibility. I also have the brown gene and dilute in some of them.
Since harlequin is not recognized in Rex there is no standard for what they “should” look like and I would still like to understand what causes the wide variation in the rabbits that obviously carry ej. Some are clearly black/orange, but others have much less black, sometimes only a very little darkness here and there and they almost look like they are red with small patches of “smut” but I am sure they carry ej. I don’t know if that’s due to them being dilute, dd, or chocolate, bb, or if there are other modifiers that are involved.
Would love to hear what others know about the variations in ej expression.
The following pix are some of the ej carrying kits I have had over the last year.
The expression of the ej allele is the most confusing to me. I got a Harlequin buck, even though harlequin is not a recognized variety in Rex, so that I could have tri color rabbits. I started by breeding the buck to broken red does. This has given me: red, broken red, tricolor, and harlequin. The genotype in the first few generations has been eje but I may have some that are ejej by now since I have bred harlequin to tri color that is a possibility. I also have the brown gene and dilute in some of them.
Since harlequin is not recognized in Rex there is no standard for what they “should” look like and I would still like to understand what causes the wide variation in the rabbits that obviously carry ej. Some are clearly black/orange, but others have much less black, sometimes only a very little darkness here and there and they almost look like they are red with small patches of “smut” but I am sure they carry ej. I don’t know if that’s due to them being dilute, dd, or chocolate, bb, or if there are other modifiers that are involved.
Would love to hear what others know about the variations in ej expression.
The following pix are some of the ej carrying kits I have had over the last year.
Both the En and du genes seem to have a marked affect on how the pattern manifests.
