just a few questions here

[pastelsummer]

I want more halequin marked rabbits if a broken red/orange bred a harlequin doe what are my odds of getting more harlequins?
And if I breed the harlequin doe to the harlequin buck will i get harlequin babies?
and where can i get a chart telling me what all these initials stand for when people discuss the genetic/coloring

 

[moonkitten]

Red/orange to harlequin would have a good chance of producing harlequin-like kits. Red is 'ee' which is less dominant than harlequin 'ejej', so the offspring would be 'eje' and likely show some markings. However if one of the parents is broken, then you might also get broken harlequin kits (also known as broken tri-colour).

Personally, I have never had a well marked harlequin who had only one 'ej' gene. It's supposed to be possible, and apparently people have produced marked harlequins with just one 'ej', but for me they always need to be 'ejej' which means both parents need to be either harlequin or harlequin carriers. Any crosses with a completely non-harlequin rabbit produce "smutty" kits. Red with black blotches rather than a set of nice alternating stripes.

Harlequin to harlequin (ejej x ejej) should give you all harlequins unless both parents carry for REW. In which case you might get a few rew kits, but the rest would be all harlequin. Er... unless we are talking about breeding the crosses from the above paragraph (where it looks harlequin but had one non-harlequin parent), then depending on how the dice rolled, you might get some harlequin and some red.

Some basic colour pages:
http://www.raising-rabbits.com/rabbit-coat-color-genetics.html
http://www.debmark.com/rabbits/genetics.htm
http://www.thenaturetrail.com/Rabbit-Coat-Color-Chart.htm

Confused yet?

 

[pastelsummer]

yes very!

 

[DevonW]

You'll most likely get Harlequins from the Cross.

I had a chocolate doe out of a Harlequin, who, when to a Red produced 4 Harlequins out of 8 kits.

 

[pastelsummer]

if this

bred this

what would i get?

 

[Jack]

Harlequin is on the extension gene, abcd E

you are dealing with E Es Ej e, E is normal, or non extended color, in agouti that gets you your normal bands
Es, is the next dominate and gets you your steels, the Ej comes after that,
e, red or extended wideband agouti, is the recessive

Spots are pattern genes not color, and most brokens are english spot, so mixing a pattern with color, sorry, don't know, a broken harlequin?

__________ Mon Jan 10, 2011 9:11 pm __________

Oh, and remember that a REW is both colored and patterned

and that the Albino gene (cc) is masking it, so a REW harlequin is still a harlequin

 

[moonkitten]

if this
...
bred this
...
what would i get?

Better to ask "what could I get" because there are no guarantees on how many of each parent's colour genes will be passed in what combination. Even if the odds say 50% of x colour, you might not get any! That's just the fun of genetics

Now... is the first rabbit a broken chestnut agouti? That's what it looks like to me, but I can't see the fur closely enough to tell. If so, chestnut agouti is A_B_C_D_E_. Since this rabbit has one of each dominant gene, we can't tell what their second gene is (remember, each colour gene is a pair: one from mom, one from dad).

The black japanese harlequin (assuming it is a pure harlequin and not a cross with something) would be A_B_C_D_ejej.

So you take one letter (or dash) from each parent and put them together. You get A_B_C_D_Eej which would be a chestnut who CARRIES harlequin or any other possible combo if the parents have recessives where the dashes are. You see how many possibilities there could be? It would take all morning to list them IF the chestnut carries 'e' where the dash is then you could get You get A_B_C_D_eje which would be a harlequin type rabbit (perhaps poorly marked due to only one ej gene).

Now, add in the fact that the chestnut is broken. This is actually A_B_C_D_E_ with Enen. The broken gene is not one of the basic five, it's separate. To get a nicely patterned broken like the photo, the rabbit has one dominant (En-spotted) and one recessive (en-not spotted). The non-broken japanese has two enen (not spotted) genes. So your kits could be Enen (broken) or enen (not broken). If the Enen (broken) rabbits ALSO have harlequin gene (ej_) you get what is called a broken tri coloured rabbit - meaning spots of orange and black on a white background. If any harlequin kits are lucky enough to miss out on the dominant En from the chestnut parent, they will appear as harlequin patterned rabbits (although the pattern may be poor with only one 'ej').

 

[pastelsummer]

we first thought the broken was a red/orange when we got him but he has changed so much and now i believe he and fawn are indeed broken chestnut agouti. I am still thouroghly confused on genetics. but i am assuming as i study more i will pick this up better, it is hard for me to learn this kind unless it is in forms and words a 3 y/o can understand.

 

[moonkitten]

Do you know what colour the parents of these rabbits were? That might help narrow it down.

If it's just harlequin you are after, then you only need to worry about the 'E' series. Harlequin is 'ej' so you want to breed to either a harlequin carrier or a red/orange who has 'ee' to get harlequins in the first generation. If your rabbits are indeed agouti and didn't have red parents, then it might take 2 generations to get what you want. Your first generation would be harlequin carriers and your second generation would finally get some 'ejej' kits.

 

[pastelsummer]

ok i know the mother of the broken was a pedigreed palomino not sure of daddy and the harlequins mama was black and i believe the daddy was to

 

[PhoenixFarm]

I am still thouroghly confused on genetics. but i am assuming as i study more i will pick this up better, it is hard for me to learn this kind unless it is in forms and words a 3 y/o can understand.

You are assuming correctly, especially since you want to learn this stuff. Learning these pairings and how they affect each other is a case of repetition and actual use. If it helps any, make some index cards representing each letter, cap(on a whole card) and lower case(on a half card). Then make a punnet square where you place the pairings with the dominant letter on top. You can then see how 'A' can hide 'a', but "a" cannot hide "A"

One of the interesting things is genotype vs phenotype. Phenotype, you can SEE- so you SEE the "A" over the"a"--- Genotype, you cannot see, so "a" is hidden under "A"
If you see"a", then you have an "aa" situation- because there is nothing for the"a" to hide behind.
One of my daughters has a learning disability, and I found, even with the college kids I tutored in biology, that sometimes a 'hands on' approach helps things stick better.
I hope this helps you figure it out