Is this a chestnut
- Thread starter Maplegrove Rabbitry
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Yeah, you would have expected chestnuts, but that's either a pale red (orange), or a fawn (dilute red/orange). A chestnut would have obvious black ticking by now. It looks like an orange to me; when I've outcrossed reds to other colors, I've usually seen paler shades of orange result. But since blue is dilute, if the red carried a dilute d you could get fawns. Either way it means that your broken blue buck carries non-extension e.
Orange is genetically the same as red but doesn't have multiple rufus modifiers that intensify the color, which add up over generations of red x red breeding, making it not surprising that the blue buck does not have them. Orange/red may or may not have the wideband gene as well (not all reds or oranges do, although they're "supposed to").
Personally I would consider it a stroke of luck - I am hoping something similar will happen with my recent Champagne D'Argent x NZR cross! But given the common presence of red in NZs, non-extension e is a lot more likely to be lurking in blue NZs than in Champagnes.
Maplegrove Rabbitry
Member
You are right about the non extension e. That buck threw torts with another blue doe. I'm just surprised that we didn't get any chestnut. We did get a solid black from that same litter. Genetics are funny. Been researching into them a lot recently. Thanks for your insightYeah, you would have expected chestnuts, but that's either a pale red (orange), or a fawn (dilute red/orange). A chestnut would have obvious black ticking by now. It looks like an orange to me; when I've outcrossed reds to other colors, I've usually seen paler shades of orange result. But since blue is dilute, if the red carried a dilute d you could get fawns. Either way it means that your broken blue buck carries non-extension e.
Orange is genetically the same as red but doesn't have multiple rufus modifiers that intensify the color, which add up over generations of red x red breeding, making it not surprising that the blue buck does not have them. Orange/red may or may not have the wideband gene as well (not all reds or oranges do, although they're "supposed to").
Personally I would consider it a stroke of luck - I am hoping something similar will happen with my recent Champagne D'Argent x NZR cross! But given the common presence of red in NZs, non-extension e is a lot more likely to be lurking in blue NZs than in Champagnes.
Hutch Happiness
New member
Yup, looks like a little red/orange! Super cute.
Her Farmstead Rabbitry
Well-known member
Just for reference, this is a picture of a chestnut. They will look like this from the nestbox.
Maplegrove Rabbitry
Member
Thank you!
Chestnuts are a black agouti, they are born black, with the white inner ears able to be seen even as newborns in the nestbox. By day 3, you'll see a jet black kit with white inner ears that really stand out. By 1-2 weeks of age, the banding in the hair will be visible. Note that the kit on the left has black inside the ears, same as the outside (it's a self black); while the kit on the right has light inner ears (it's the chestnut.)
By two weeks, you can see the chestnut coloration emerging as the agouti bands appear on the hair:
By two weeks, you can see the chestnut coloration emerging as the agouti bands appear on the hair:
So lovely!!! It is interesting to see. Thank you.
Fascinating. What color are yours as newborns? All of our chestnuts are born black, and develop the lighter color in a few weeks. Could you do me a huge favor and snip a little sample of the hair from one of your chestnuts, and take a close up picture of the hair shaft? I'd love to see how the banding compares to my chestnuts. What colors are in their background?
Rabbits By DK
Raising rabbits for meat and pelts since Feb. '23
That's really interesting! Thank you for sharing.
This is cool. My steel 1/4 Flemish cross buck with my black NZ doe gave me blacks and two or three of these that look now like they might be chestnut. A couple that look blue as well. My NZ red doe and orange buck gave me red, orange, and fawn, and two REWs.
Her Farmstead Rabbitry
Well-known member
My chestnut kits are less dark than your pics of your kits, just like when the fur grows in you can see the color much better, you can see the ticking. It never comes in it is just there but hard to see. I don't have any pics of any chestnut kits. But I have a broken chestnut doe that is bred to her father, she is due in a week or two. She should have some chestnut babies as well. I will post a pic when they are born. I do not want to cut their hair, but I will take a pic of me blowing into their fur so you can see the hair shaft!
Her Farmstead Rabbitry
Well-known member
Can someone post a pic of a fawn rabbit as well as a pic of the hair shaft? I would like to compare it to mine. I would very much appreciate it!
Fantastic, thank you!
My fawn rabbits are born pink, as newborns the fawns and whites look the same. The kit on the right is a newborn fawn:
By the third day, the hair emerges, and the fawns show the straw yellow to orange shade, while the albinos are all white.
By 1-2 weeks, the banding begins to emerge on the agouti hairshaft. Since fawns have the yellowish band extended to the end of the hairshaft, they just look fawn all over, with the white agouti inner ear, eye rings and belly.
But, sometimes the dark tips are not eliminated, leaving dark 'smut'. Sometimes only noticeable on the face and ears (like the rabbit below), sometimes the dark tipping extends all over the body.
This is her fiber when you just blow into it:
@reh would the dark tips on an otherwise fawn-looking rabbit be more likely with wideband but not the fawn non-extension ee? Forty years ago, we saw rabbits all the time that were born pale, and then you noticed the dark tipping as the hair grew in. Would that be true of 'sandy' Flemish Giant chestnut agouti?
This is a two day old litter, they look chocolate, black, and 'pink':
Three days later, you can clearly see the white agouti inner ears on the black kits, and the banding coming in, they're the chestnuts. But the chocolate rabbit's also an agouti, its fawn agouti band really stands out, it no longer looks chocolate, it looks like fawn with chocolate tips. The 'pink' rabbit is now obviously white:
At two weeks old, chestnut agouti in the back, chocolate agouti in the front:
reh
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Do you mean AEww versus AeeW?
Forgive me for piggybacking, but what is this kit? No white ears. NZ Red doe, dad directly below with mom is NZ with 1/4 Flemish. 
Looks like a steel to me. If the sire is a self steel aaB_C_D_E(S)_, combining that with an agouti (red doe A_??C_D_ee) allowed the steel to be expressed in a kit that got the agouti A from the dam and the steel E(S) from the sire.
The other possibility is that if most or all the kits are steel (the ones I can see in the photo look so), the sire may be a supersteel <??B_C_D_E(S)E(S)>. If so, all the kits would inherit one copy of steel E(S), and any that got an agouti A from the dam would look steel.
UPDATE in an effort to turn gibberish into sense...
Steel, notated E(S), is a gene on the E series area of the genome (aka a locus) that changes how an agouti pattern appears.
A normally colored agouti rabbit has wild type gene E at that locus; however, if the rabbit, instead of having E, has the steel E(S) then that gene reduces or eliminates the agouti markings (the lighter areas around eyes, ears, nose, belly, feet), and causes the agouti banding on the hairs to be pushed up toward the tip of the hair, so that it looks like it's "tipped" with gold. (As it turns out, the gold is not really at the tip of the hair, but that's another discussion.)
To look like a steel, a rabbit with the steel gene E(S) also needs that agouti gene, located on a different part (locus) of the genome and notated A. If the steel-bearing rabbit does not have that A gene, but rather has, for example, two recessive genes for self, notated aa, the steel gene cannot do its job. So even though it's genetically a steel E(S), the rabbit looks like a self black. But it can still pass on the steel gene to its offspring, and those that also get the agouti A look like steels - like your bunnies.
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Most of that is gibberish to me ATM, but I appreciate it nevertheless! 
Edit: THANK YOU!
I was able to follow that to the best of my ability. I need a good book or the genetics forum!
Edit: THANK YOU!
I was able to follow that to the best of my ability. I need a good book or the genetics forum!
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