My black kit is turning brown. Could you help me figure out his colour?

[Naelin]

This 3 month old buck that was completely black (with a grey undercoat and soles) is now turning a faint brown that is visible only under the correct light. The soles are brown as well. It seems the hairs are banded grey-black-brown.
The dam is a Californian and the sire was a Fauve de Burgogne. All of their kits looked the same.

I plan on breeding him as he was the only one to come unaffected after snuffles took a hold of my growout pen and his dad, so I'd like to figure out his colour to see what can I get from him, but I'm very new to it and not great at it

 

[RabbitsOfTheCreek]

Looks very Sable to me

 

[MsTemeraire]

He could be sable, if the red parent carried the shaded gene, c(chl). Sables go through a lot of colour changes as they mature, especially before and during a moult.

 

[Naelin]

He could be sable, if the red parent carried the shaded gene, c(chl). Sables go through a lot of colour changes as they mature, especially before and during a moult.

Could the sable have been carried by the Cali dam instead? her coat is the whitest white on the body while the points used to be black in winter and are now a mix of grey and muddy brown with some black. I see some examples of seal point that look very similar to Himalayan

 

[MsTemeraire]

Could the sable have been carried by the Cali dam instead? her coat is the whitest white on the body while the points used to be black in winter and are now a mix of grey and muddy brown with some black. I see some examples of seal point that look very similar to Himalayan

Shaded is dominant to the Himalayan gene, c(h), which is what Calis have, so no, they can't carry it.

Seal Point/Sable Point is somewhat different to Siamese Sable; even though it looks like a dark-eyed Himi/Cali, it's actually a combination of the shaded gene c(chl) and black Tort. The shaded gene strips the orange out of the Tort coat, leaving just the dark shading on the points.

 

[Alaska Satin]

This 3 month old buck that was completely black (with a grey undercoat and soles) is now turning a faint brown that is visible only under the correct light. The soles are brown as well. It seems the hairs are banded grey-black-brown.
The dam is a Californian and the sire was a Fauve de Burgogne. All of their kits looked the same.

I plan on breeding him as he was the only one to come unaffected after snuffles took a hold of my growout pen and his dad, so I'd like to figure out his colour to see what can I get from him, but I'm very new to it and not great at it

View attachment 43607

View attachment 43608View attachment 43609

I agree, that current color looks pretty sable-y, except that from what I've seen in my stock, sable doesn't start dark and become lighter, rather it starts pale and gets darker as the rabbit ages. There is a series of photos showing the development of sable color from kit to about 6 months of age on this thread:
https://rabbittalk.com/threads/chinchilla-rex-at-last.36724/#post-355913

Your little buck also doesn't have the distinct shading that is usually apparent on a sable, especially on the feet, but sables do go through some crazy patterns during molt. He can't be a seal, since that comes from having two copies of the sable allele <c(chl)c(chl)>, and as @MsTemeraire points out, the Cal doe can't carry it since sable is dominant to the himi allele <c(h)>.

Since himi <c(h)> is almost the most recessive C allele, you know the doe is either <c(h)c(h)> or <c(h)c>. The sire is a full-color variety, so he's <C_>, which would be <C c(chl)> if he carries sable. So if your little buck is a sable, he'll be either sable carrying himi <c(chl) c(h)> or possibly sable carrying REW <c(chl) c>, depending on what the Cal doe has in second place at her second C locus.

You could try breeding him back to the Cal doe. If you got any full-color rabbits at all, you'll know he's not sable (because this would mean he was a full-color rabbit since <C> can't hide behind any other C allele). If he's sable, you would most likely get a combination of sables, himis and/or REWs.