Meat mutts, agouti and steel?

[ohiogoatgirl]

Picked up these mutts. I may or may not keep the one broken doe. And they're going to let me know when the next litter is ready. Same mom, probably different dad. The mom looks like the solid buck. The buck they kept is Californian looking. I forgot to ask what the other looked liked, they sold it. It was a case of just bought some rabbits for the kids. Then oops the three does is actually a doe and two bucks. So they got em separated now haha, but sold the second buck.
I saw the second litter for a minute. Several black and broken black, maybe a couple broken agouti/gold tip steel.
There was two more I didn't get from this litter and they were another "brown" agouti and a Californian looking. So pretty mixed.

Mostly I'm just curious if I remember the colors and the genetics decently. And it will be good reference if I do keep any from them.

What I think they are...
Solid buck, agouti
Broken buck, gold tip steel
Broken doe, gold tip steel
Broken doe, agouti with some weird shading going on?

Or I'm wrong and they're just weird because they're mutts! Haha. I feel like the gold tip steel doe I had before was more black looking.

Boys

 

[ohiogoatgirl]

The does. You can see the gold tip steel is the same as the broken buck, of course she's the bigger one. And the agouti doe the color is weirdly blotchy? She is lighter and more red than the other doe. Her face looks really red.

 

[ohiogoatgirl]

Gold tip steel doe

 

[ohiogoatgirl]

The agouti reddish doe.

 

[ohiogoatgirl]

The solid agouti buck. His belly is white with a streak of color along his back leg creases.
I just realized I didn't check any of the others belly color, so I'll do that tomorrow.

 

[Alaska Satin]

The belly color in the brokens will be white, so you probably don't need to check.

Incidentally, the streaks of color along the back leg creases are called "lap spots," and they are typical on agoutis.

Honestly, your rabbits look like chestnut agoutis to me. I see what appear to be agouti eye circles, ear lacing and nostril markings on all of them. It's true that a steel is genetically an agouti <A_>, but the steel gene <Es> eliminates or reduces most of the agouti markings, especially on the belly, but usually also around the eyes, ears, and nose.

I've seen agoutis with poor ring definition that looked a bit like your rabbits. Here's an example, followed by your photo. The rings are more defined in the first image because it was an adult rabbit, and your bunnies are still growing in their coats (agouti ring color takes a while to develop):


In my experience, while steel is quite variable in its expression, the fur looks "tipped" with gold rather than having the salt-and-pepperish appearance of agouti. Here's a young steel Satin (sorry about the poor image):


This is silver-tipped blue rather than gold-tipped steel, but you can see what I'm referring to regarding tipping:


However, there is something else going on here which is causing the colors to be a bit different than what you'd expect to see in normal chestnuts. Your bunnies appear to be harlequinized, meaning they're carrying a partially dominant harlie <ej> behind their mostly-dominant full-extension <E>. Any time you see distinct patches of color (other than agouti or otter markings), you're probably dealing with harlequin <ej>. And any particular rabbit can only have two E series alleles, meaning if it is a harlequinized agouti <E ej>, it has no room for steel <Es>.




So to me it looks like you've got one solid and three broken harlequinized chestnut agoutis!

 

[ohiogoatgirl]

Ohhh!!! I didn't even think of harlequin, I didn't realize it was partially dominant! That totally makes sense and now I can definitely see it in all of them. Neat!
I knew I was missing something.

 

[reh]

are called "lap spots," and they are typical on agoutis.

torts also have them.
In broken ones the dark ej parts should show in a more dotted form then in solids.