Is This a Steel?

[katievictoria]

Hello. Well I like to experiment with colors in my rabbits when not breeding for the 4-H season......especially with my REW's as we never know what might be hiding in there. So I crossed a REW doe with a Broken Black buck (both NZ) and I think I ended up with a couple of Steels. Please correct me if I'm wrong. In one pic the "steel" is beside a chestnut agoutie just for contrast. In the other photo I tried to get a close up of the fur, and even a place you can see the skin. Funny thing is that the hair tips seem to be golden down the back, (though they look silver in this photo)but Grey or silver on the sides and belly. (Sorry for the pelt shots, but I kept forgetting to take pics while they were still wearing their coats ) If this is a steel, how does that show up in the genes, and when written in a genotype?

Thank you so much!

 

[Zass]

Yep yep. Gold tipped steel.
A_ B_ C_ D_ Es_
The color variation is because steel is just a modified agouti coat, and agouti rabbits have different shades in their coat and white hairs on their bellies and tail.

Steel always makes a chestnut's white belly into a yellowish or grey tipped one.
(depending on the amount of rufus present, and other factors)
Steel genes just extend the base color. More blue on an opal, more lilac on a lynx, more black on a chestnut, etc. Pairing it with chinchilla genes produces silver tipped variants.

The genotype of that pelt would be A_ B_ Cc D_Es_ since there was a rew parent.

Es (Extension steel) is the most dominant gene on the extension locus.

It can be paired with itself, E, ej, or e and still produce visual steel, or false selfs (agouti steels that have no ticking showing and just look like selfs.)

*rambles*
There is a lot of webpages that claim that super steel (EsEs) is the only way to get false selfs, but from my experience, that is incomplete information, since there seems to be many ways to produce the effect + I've produced plenty of false selfs that were EsE, or Ese...
(Dood's had Esej false selfs too.)

...And genetic self blacks also hide steel genes sometimes just to complicate things. :lol:

 

[katievictoria]

Thank you so much Zass for your quick reply! I feel like a kid in school whose science teacher just gave me an A+. :lol: I've been trying hard to learn all this genetic stuff as I find it just fascinating. My dream is to keep perfect breeding records and someday come up with complete genotypes for all my rabbits, including all my REW's. I have 10 REW and 4 colored does, plus I have 3 REW bucks and 5 colored bucks. I think this is so much fun! I've been looking for a good pair of blues, but they are hard to find around here!

Meantime, I'm learning other aspects about the rabbits, as well. Besides having lots of delicious heart healthy meat in the freezer, I'm brand new to saving the pelts. I'm astonished how well my first batch is turning out! Just like they were supposed to! Now to see if I can turn the pelts into some Christmas gifts.

Thank you again Zass!