Lionhead color/breeding

[noodle123]

Hello,
I have a few questions I'm hoping someone can help me with. I am attaching pictures of my double mained harlequin lionhead buck. First I want to say he has the best personality and he is such a cuddler. Sweetest guy I'm totally in love with. I'm going to get another doe. Any suggestions for color matches. I'm still trying to figure out what colors I can achieve with him.

My doe is a vienna marked blue eyed she is almost black with brown highlights. Does anyone know what these two might produce color wise? What color would you call my doe?

Thank you for any information and help.

 

[hotzcatz]

Vienna marked black with a Vienna marked black tortoiseshell doe. You may see some BEWs (Blue Eyed Whites) or they may all be blacks, depends on what recessives they may have that match up.

The black color is mostley dominants, so we don't know if he has any recessive genes (alleles?) other than the double 'aa' that makes him a solid color pattern instead of the agouti color pattern. The doe has the same 'aa' so all the kits will be a 'solid color pattern' which means no agouti, fawns or reds. If the buck doesn't have a matching recessive 'e' gene for tortoiseshell, then you could see all blacks. But, there could be matching recessives, too.

What colors are the parents of your rabbits?

 

[noodle123]

Thank you so much I will do some more reading about it. I just texted my breeder to see if I can find out info on my buck's and Doe's parents.

__________ Sun Sep 27, 2020 4:18 pm __________

So she says my does dad is a broken orange vm buck and mom is a tort.
She says she has a lot of torts, blue torts, tri's and harlequins in her lines. What do you think would be a good doe to pair with my buck? Would any of those colors be a good choice?

Also the quality of my rabbits fur is very different. My buck is super soft.
My doe is not as soft or as fluffy. Any thoughts or is this pretty normal to have such different looking lionheads?

 

[hotzcatz]

Which doe to pair with your buck depends on what you're breeding for. I only have English angoras with a small sideline into hybrid angoras and I'm phasing those out since they have high maintenance coats that aren't up to the same quality as an English.

Since the bunnies here are for growing fiber for Hula Bunny yarn, we don't have any brokens and no Vienna if I can help it, although getting rid of Vienna is difficult.

If it were me, I'd not worry so much about color and look at the coat quality, conformation and health. Also, since you're planning on breeding, how large was the litter they came from? If it were me, I'd breed the doe between six months and a year old for the first litter. Much longer than that and there may be reduced conception rates in the doe.

I'm not sure how the single mane and double mane genes work since I only have the English angoras. I'm sure there's information out there about it, though.