Help me identify these colors, please!

[Captaincatholic]

What color would you call this darker kit? I put it next to a chinchilla in for reference. There is also a more pure black/charcoal color not in these photos, so I think the darker chinchilla look may be chestnut? And perhaps the black looking rabbit could be steel?

 

[RabbitsOfTheCreek]

Just looks like a Steel to me

 

[Alaska Satin]

What color would you call this darker kit? I put it next to a chinchilla in for reference. There is also a more pure black/charcoal color not in these photos, so I think the darker chinchilla look may be chestnut? And perhaps the black looking rabbit could be steel?

As far as I can tell you have gold-tipped steels and silver-tipped steels (which is a steel with the chinchilla gene as well) in those pictures. If they were chestnuts and chinchillas, they'd have white bellies. Steels can occasionally have white bellies too, but the agoutis don't have colored bellies.

 

[Captaincatholic]

As far as I can tell you have gold-tipped steels and silver-tipped steels (which is a steel with the chinchilla gene as well) in those pictures. If they were chestnuts and chinchillas, they'd have white bellies. Steels can occasionally have white bellies too, but the agoutis don't have colored bellies.

Thanks. The ones I thought were chinchillas do have white bellies. Here are some pics of the chinchila looking kit and the kit that looks solid black.

 

[Alaska Satin]

Thanks. The ones I thought were chinchillas do have white bellies. Here are some pics of the chinchila looking kit and the kit that looks solid black.

I'd agree with you about that being a chinchilla; although something about it seems a little different, I can't put my finger on it. However you'll know for sure when you can see rings (or not), but I've found that agouti ring color can develop quite slowly. Here's what a chinchilla looks like when its coat is more mature. This is close to ideal ring color - the rings yours have might not be as crisp:


The black kit looks like a black, but with all that steel, it could be a "supersteel" which has two steel genes and looks black; supersteels will sometimes, but not always, develop a little tipping on various areas of their bodies.

With chinchilla in the mix, if both parents carry self, it could be alternately be a self chinchilla, aka self chin, which also looks black, sometimes, but not always, with off-colored eyes (blue-gray, marbled or other).

Or it could be just a black.

 

[Captaincatholic]

I'd agree with you about that being a chinchilla; although something about it seems a little different, I can't put my finger on it. However you'll know for sure when you can see rings (or not), but I've found that agouti ring color can develop quite slowly. Here's what a chinchilla looks like when its coat is more mature. This is close to ideal ring color - the rings yours have might not be as crisp:
View attachment 33955

The black kit looks like a black, but with all that steel, it could be a "supersteel" which has two steel genes and looks black; supersteels will sometimes, but not always, develop a little tipping on various areas of their bodies.

With chinchilla in the mix, if both parents carry self, it could be alternately be a self chinchilla, aka self chin, which also looks black, sometimes, but not always, with off-colored eyes (blue-gray, marbled or other).

Or it could be just a black.

Interesting. I can get a photo of the black kit's eyes tomorrow, and a better photo of the chinchilla fur, as well as the steel fur. I do know that the hinchilla also carries steel as well.

 

[Alaska Satin]

I do know that the hinchilla also carries steel as well.

Chinchilla can't theoretically "carry" steel. Steel is dominant and is expressed properly (looks like a classic steel) in combination with agouti; a genetic "steel chinchilla" is a silver-tipped steel.

To look like a gold-tipped steel (GTS), a rabbit needs agouti <A> and steel <Es> genes. Both of the genes are dominant at their loci, thus the rabbit only needs one copy of each to be a steel. A black GTS is <A_B_C_D_Es_>

A silver-tipped steel (STS) needs the above plus at least one copy of the gene for chinchilla <cchd> which acts to block expression of yellow pigment; the rabbit comes in shades of black/gray/white. A black STS is <A_B_cchd_D_Es_>

So, to get all these steels, only one of the parents needed to have the <Es> gene.

I can't remember what the parents are of the kits we're looking at, but if one is the chin, that narrows the black kit's possibilities to self black or self chin. Either of those would mean both parents must carry the gene for self, even if they aren't self themselves.

 

[Captaincatholic]

Chinchilla can't theoretically "carry" steel. Steel is dominant and is expressed properly (looks like a classic steel) in combination with agouti; a genetic "steel chinchilla" is a silver-tipped steel.

To look like a gold-tipped steel (GTS), a rabbit needs agouti <A> and steel <Es> genes. Both of the genes are dominant at their loci, thus the rabbit only needs one copy of each to be a steel. A black GTS is <A_B_C_D_Es_>

A silver-tipped steel (STS) needs the above plus at least one copy of the gene for chinchilla <cchd> which acts to block expression of yellow pigment; the rabbit comes in shades of black/gray/white. A black STS is <A_B_cchd_D_Es_>

So, to get all these steels, only one of the parents needed to have the <Es> gene.

I can't remember what the parents are of the kits we're looking at, but if one is the chin, that narrows the black kit's possibilities to self black or self chin. Either of those would mean both parents must carry the gene for self, even if they aren't self themselves.

I need to reread this slowly while not wrestling small children to sleep.

The parents of these litters are either a REW/Californian/himi doe and a gts nz buck or a siamese sable doe and a chinchilla (flemish giant light grey) buck.

 

[Captaincatholic]

Here are photos of the bucks.

Here are the proud papas.

 

[Captaincatholic]

Here are the does again.

Here are the mamas.

 

[judymac]

The parents of these litters are either a REW/Californian/himi doe and a gts nz buck or a siamese sable doe and a chinchilla (flemish giant light grey) buck.

This could account for the chinchilla looking "off", as chinchilla c(chd) combined with a more recessive option on the 'C' color gene can result in a more washed-out looking bunny. Sable c(chl), himi/Californian c(h), and albino/REW c would all qualify, and it looks like your stock carries all of these. For the best banding, you really want the kit to have double chinchilla, instead of one chinchilla and one of something more recessive with less color (like sable, himi or REW).

"Chinchilla can't theoretically "carry" steel. Steel is dominant and is expressed properly (looks like a classic steel) in combination with agouti; a genetic "steel chinchilla" is a silver-tipped steel .To look like a gold-tipped steel (GTS), a rabbit needs agouti <A> and steel <Es> genes. "--Alaska Satin

This is true, a rabbit with a more recessive allele cannot carry a more dominant one, no matter how many times it appears in the pedigree. But, steel has another sneaky secret. As Alaska Satin noted, steel needs agouti to express itself. If instead you have a kit that has inherited the recessive non-agouti trait, which we also call 'self', with no banding, no eye rings, no white belly--the steel will often not express itself, and again, you can have a black-looking rabbit. In this case, if mated to an agouti, its kits may inherit the steel (which is there but not expressed for lack of agouti), and the agouti from the other parent and produce steel kits. Which is how steel can hide for generations if always bred to non-agouti rabbits such as tortoiseshell, himi, black, blue, lilac or opal. REW can be either agouti or self, you can't tell because the albino option shuts off the pigment factory, leaving a plain white rabbit on the outside even though it can genetically be any color at all. In this scenario, with a rabbit with steel but not agouti, the rabbit isn't carrying steel, it IS steel, but because the steel option mainly affects the agouti pattern, you can't see it on non-agouti rabbits. One more way that a black rabbit may be more than just a plain black rabbit.

 

[Captaincatholic]

This could account for the chinchilla looking "off", as chinchilla c(chd) combined with a more recessive option on the 'C' color gene can result in a more washed-out looking bunny. Sable c(chl), himi/Californian c(h), and albino/REW c would all qualify, and it looks like your stock carries all of these. For the best banding, you really want the kit to have double chinchilla, instead of one chinchilla and one of something more recessive with less color (like sable, himi or REW).

"Chinchilla can't theoretically "carry" steel. Steel is dominant and is expressed properly (looks like a classic steel) in combination with agouti; a genetic "steel chinchilla" is a silver-tipped steel .To look like a gold-tipped steel (GTS), a rabbit needs agouti <A> and steel <Es> genes. "--Alaska Satin

This is true, a rabbit with a more recessive allele cannot carry a more dominant one, no matter how many times it appears in the pedigree. But, steel has another sneaky secret. As Alaska Satin noted, steel needs agouti to express itself. If instead you have a kit that has inherited the recessive non-agouti trait, which we also call 'self', with no banding, no eye rings, no white belly--the steel will often not express itself, and again, you can have a black-looking rabbit. In this case, if mated to an agouti, its kits may inherit the steel (which is there but not expressed for lack of agouti), and the agouti from the other parent and produce steel kits. Which is how steel can hide for generations if always bred to non-agouti rabbits such as tortoiseshell, himi, black, blue, lilac or opal. REW can be either agouti or self, you can't tell because the albino option shuts off the pigment factory, leaving a plain white rabbit on the outside even though it can genetically be any color at all. In this scenario, with a rabbit with steel but not agouti, the rabbit isn't carrying steel, it IS steel, but because the steel option mainly affects the agouti pattern, you can't see it on non-agouti rabbits. One more way that a black rabbit may be more than just a plain black rabbit.

Thank you! This is fascinating and so complicated. I was told that the light greynflemish occasionally threw a steel or dark grey rabbit. This must be that recessive.


For next time, I have decided to breed a REW flemish to the Siamese sable doe, so w should see moe intesting colors, or perhaps more sables.

 

[Alaska Satin]

This could account for the chinchilla looking "off", as chinchilla c(chd) combined with a more recessive option on the 'C' color gene can result in a more washed-out looking bunny. Sable c(chl), himi/Californian c(h), and albino/REW c would all qualify, and it looks like your stock carries all of these. For the best banding, you really want the kit to have double chinchilla, instead of one chinchilla and one of something more recessive with less color (like sable, himi or REW).

That's one of those theoretical rules that I've found doesn't always play out in real life. I've had numerous chinchilla Satins that carry ch, and a few that carried c, and they were nicely colored and banded. Actually a buck named Silverado, the best chin I've ever produced (in fact he had the best chinchilla banding I've ever seen in person), was <cchd ch>:

"Chinchilla can't theoretically "carry" steel. Steel is dominant and is expressed properly (looks like a classic steel) in combination with agouti; a genetic "steel chinchilla" is a silver-tipped steel .To look like a gold-tipped steel (GTS), a rabbit needs agouti <A> and steel <Es> genes. "--Alaska Satin

This is true, a rabbit with a more recessive allele cannot carry a more dominant one, no matter how many times it appears in the pedigree.

Thank you for the clarification. I meant, and should have written, that a phenotypic chinchilla can't carry steel.

Thank you! This is fascinating and so complicated. I was told that the light greynflemish occasionally threw a steel or dark grey rabbit. This must be that recessive.

Again, if it is a phenotypic chinchilla (phenotypic means it looks like a chinchilla), it can't carry steel; if it had the steel gene, it would look like a steel. If it has produced steel in the past, it is has provided the agouti allele to the kit, who gets the steel gene from its other parent, and together those genes combine to produce the steel appearance (GTS if the kit doesn't have the chin gene, STS if the kit does have and express the chin gene).

A phenotypic chinchilla needs two genes: agouti <A> and chinchilla <cchd>. (That's what your light grey rabbit has.)
A phenotypic steel needs two genes: agouti <A> and steel <Es>
A phenotypic STS has all three of those genes: agouti <A> and chinchilla <cchd> and steel <Es> (So, if your light grey actually had a steel gene, it would look like a STS.)

 

[judymac]

That's one of those theoretical rules that I've found doesn't always play out in real life. I've had numerous chinchilla Satins that carry ch, and a few that carried c, and they were nicely colored and banded.

Good to know. Most of my c(h) and c carriers do indeed have poorer banding. I wonder what the difference is? Some unknown polygenes that affect banding?